And away we go!

Been a busy couple days, but it's been good. Yesterday we finally received the results of my biopsy and education on what treatment would entail. Including timeframe, expectations, etc. It's a lot of information to retain, but we're doing our best between recording the conversations, keeping track of paperwork, etc. 

All-in-all there weren't too many surprises from yesterday. There was a major takeaway that Dr. Covut said after analyzing the bone marrow biopsy that my bone marrow has 80% cancer right now. He didn't seem extremely concerned with that, but that's a hell of a number to hear. 

To this point, I've been very reluctant to google anything. Why give myself the extra worry? Now that I have professional advice I'm more confident in navigating the information and holy cow is there a lot. I'm learning this is just simply different for each person. There's not a rhyme or reason to a lot of it, but I'm trusting my care team. 

After a brief meeting with my doctor, the education specialist and nurse and a walk through of the facility they sent us on our way. My care team has been amazing at explaining and breaking down the information as much as possible. To this point it's been pretty straight forward. Then came my first treatment today. I'm not gonna lie, it was definitely mixed emotions. I was nervous but excited to get moving. You can't get better if you're not doing the treatments. The basics were some quick labs to test my blood markers, followed by another brief informational with my Dr. and then treatment. 

I think the big take-away from my informational with my doctor is the possibility of having a stem cell transplant once I reach remission. This was a first of hearing about and to be honest it doesn't sound fun. It is optional and it ultimately ends up as my decision after I speak with the experts about it, but it pretty much entails a 3-week hospital stay. They break your immune system down with chemo and then you have to build it back up while in the hospital. That is a ways in the future though. Treatment really couldn't have gone better. My treatment is much more simple than most chemos. I get two shots in my belly and a pill. All in all my appointments will be once a week on Tuesday mornings. Generally I just have to do the shots and pill but at the beginning of each month I will see my doctor and do some more labs. I consider it pretty lucky as I see a lot of people there who will spend the majority of the day there. 

While at the hospital I had zero side effects, but when I got home I started feeling fatigued so I went to lay down. When I did, I got bad body chills for about 2 hours. Luckily I never spiked a fever which would have sent me straight back to the hospital, but then I ended up with another high heart rate so I called my doctor immediately. Luckily he wanted me to wait it out because I wasn't experiencing any other symptoms so I've stayed home and sure enough after a couple gatorades I'm feeling much better and the heart rate has come down a lot. His suspicion is it's my anemia so he's also scheduled me for another blood transfusion tomorrow to bring that back up. 

So what's next? I still have a full week ahead of me. Tomorrow I'm scheduled for a biopsy for a skin growth I've had for over a year with my dermatologist, so we all figured why not just find out everything wrong with me at once. Then I'll go for the transfusion. Thursday I'm scheduled for my PET scan and Friday I have a follow up with my primary. I joined a Multiple Myeloma support group on Facebook which is a bit of a blessing and a curse. So much information there, but also very overwhelming. I think it will be great to connect with others though. 

I just want to once again thank everyone for the prayers, thoughts, well wishes, favors and everything else. We even had some friends arrange a meal train which has been immensely helpful and we just can't say enough great things about this community. You really know how to make someone feel special.