Today I met with my doctor and got my treatment plan. Rather than starting with a “cocktail” of traditional chemo drugs that is typically used here for a quick round of initial therapy, he is putting me on a relatively new immune therapy drug (Daratumamab or Darzalex) along with a bunch of other meds that are intended to bring down the disease level over a longer period of several months. If all goes as planned I will spend the next 3 weeks doing the first “cycle” of treatment in Little Rock and then I can go back to LA and do about 3 more cycles (around 3 months) of treatment there. After that, I will probably return to Little Rock to prepare for stem cell transplant, but that will be some time after the new year rather than right away (it’s a marathon, not a sprint). I like this treatment approach because it takes advantage of the newer drug while still allowing for the other more traditional therapies later. And although this will stretch out the treatment period, it will allow me to be in LA for several months rather than doing all of the treatment in Arkansas!

Treatment starts tomorrow at 7am.