Thanksgiving

This Thanksgiving I am very thankful. Thankful and filled with gratitude despite being a widow and a cancer patient.

I am grateful for Dr. Munshi and Tina Flaherty, APRN at Dana Farber for their expertise in and careful study of multiple myeloma and the treatment of it. And for their kindness and responsiveness to me and my questions and queries.

I am thankful to be living in an era of mostly uneventful autologous stem cell transplants. Grateful for this therapy and the destruction of cancer cells that it allowed.

I am grateful for researchers, and yes, even pharmaceutical companies, who continue to develop new drugs to treat my cancer, two in the last week alone were approved by the FDA. One of these is an oral (pill) form of the maintenance drug I currently have to go to the clinic to get by injection. So this one will make a difference for me in the near future (as soon as it is available locally).

I am grateful to be employed by Yale University and for my co-workers who allow me to continue to work (and get paid) while I take care of my health.

I am grateful for the love of my close friends and family and the support they give me.

I am grateful for the kindness of all my friends, far and wide, both near and far, from old friends who I don’t see very often, and those I am privileged to see much more often, and those I may only “know” or “see” virtually, here or on social media.

This is the first thanksgiving in many, many years that I am not hosting. My daughter Sarah is hosting her first thanksgiving in her first house, which she moved into only a few weeks ago, and pregnant with her first child. We’re splitting the cooking. And as I “pass the torch” in a small way, I am grateful that I have, and we have, all the precious memories of thanksgivings past, when Ken was alive, feeding 3-4 dozen people, hikes in the valley, high school football games, grandchildren visiting, and crescent rolls (for the last time, year after year).

And I am grateful for Scot, who is present for my day to day, my ups and downs, my low moments and my highs, and my whining and complaining. He never panics, never lets me overdramatize, makes me laugh (and laugh and laugh), tells me I am beautiful (even when I am sure I am not), remains eternally positive, feeds me and occasionally, when I need it, reminds me to be grateful, which I am.

 

Why the words are so important

I had my appointment at Dana Farber this past Thursday. And I waited to post about it until I had time to listen to my recording of it. I knew it was positive. There were lots of “yays” and even hugs at the end. So when I was asked how it went I would say “it went well”. But with cancer, at least with my cancer, I am relying on numbers and then how those numbers are translated into words to know how I am doing. Because aside from effects of the numerous treatments I have had, I have no symptoms of my cancer.

So this morning I listened to the recording and wrote down some of the words.

• With myeloma at this low level
• Light chains are great
• IgG is normal
• Standard maintenance therapy is revlimid 3 weeks on and one week off, because of your genetics (this is the genetics of my multiple myeloma) we will also do velcade every other week
• Shouldn’t cause more neuropathy
• Side effects pretty minimal
• The transplant achieved what we were hoping
• Free light chains came down quite dramatically 400-500 to 20
• Come back every 4 months then stretch it even beyond that
• We are on cruise control now
• Your myeloma is going to be gone. It’s almost pretty much gone. This (maintenance therapy) is to keep it away for years and years.
• Your immune system is actually better than it was because the myeloma is not affecting it.

So there you have it, lots of positive words, along with “yays”, smiling faces, joking around and hugs.

I don’t know why, but I remain pretty neutral, not pessimistic, but not even cautiously optimistic. I feel like I’m from Missouri – show me. Show me I’m still cruising along a year from now, 2 years from now.

I guess, I don’t want to get too high, it makes the lows feel that much steeper.