Return Visit - Day 1

Our first day back at the clinic in a long time, but it is very familiar to us and we are comfortable being there, strange as that sounds. We know may of the people, we know the building, we know the procedures, and we know all the terms. It is easy to feel like veterans having been through this previously. As before, and as we once were, there are people there that are going through this for the first time (the deer in the headlights look) and they have no idea what to expect. They have read that this is a fatal disease on the Internet and the average life expectancy. They don't know anything about the disease, the treatment, the doctors, they are just scared to death. Chris and I relate to this so well. We tried to start up conversations with the others going through their first three days and attempted to reassure them that they have found the best place to be. On the other side of the coin, we met a man today who had been diagnosed 4 years ago at the age of 70 and he also went through the stem cell transplant and high dose chemo and is doing well. So we are both givers and receivers of the all important "hope" that is the required ingredient for success.

Day 1 consisted of the following:
Blood Work and Vital Signs: Chris has many many vials of blood drawn today. They will analyze every possible aspect of this over the next 24 hours. Her blood pressure was a bit low (91/74) but not too bad. They will check her red blood cells, her white blood cells, and about 90 other unique tests. The lab results we received last time were 12 pages long.

Chest X-Ray: Chris has had many of these and to be honest I am getting a bit worried about all the radiation she must be getting. I would say she has had over a dozen x-rays in the last year on her chest/lungs. They are looking for pleural effusion - basically water in the lungs or surrounding chest cavity. This is an indication of congestive heart failure and was a problem she had pretty badly this spring. As with the blood test, we did not get any results.

Bone Marrow Biopsy: This is the dreaded big thick long needle inserted into the pelvis bone marrow. They remove a few large needles full. They are primarily looking at the % of plasma cells and the degree that their a light chain proteins in the plasma. Again, no results today.

Echocardiagram: This is the heart imaging procedure where the measure size, wall thickness, efficiency, etc. It is about a 40 minute test that they record to a DVD. Between the echo she had a few weeks ago, and the esophagus one done last Friday, they will have lots of data to look at.

Examination: This was the only meeting with a Doctor today. They asked her about a gazillion questions about her health, her medications, her activity, her emotions, and just about everything else. They were surprised to find out we went and saw the other cardiologist, but were interested in seeing his analysis. We had not met him before as he is a "fellow" new to the center, but he seemed like a good guy. I think I amazed him a bit with my knowledge of the disease, the tests, the "biomarkers", etc. I asked him questions about her BNP, her lambda numbers, her degree of left ventricle hypertrophy, etc. ( I have done a TON of research). He was a bit taken aback but acknowledged that much "homework" had been done. Nevertheless, we got no answers, only a "wait until Wednesday" response.

So the day was uneventful. We have no further insight, no good or bad results, just an ongoing level of nervousness about what we are going to hear later in the week.

I know many of you prayed a special prayer for Chris this week. It is not possible to tell you how much this means to us, but trust me, Chris feels the amount of love and good wishes being sent her way.

More tomorrow night after Day 2.