Wednesday, October 8, 2008

Answers

Well, I got their attention. Jennifer called back and had a plan. Dr. Thomas called Dr. Iliescu (per my request as apparently Dr. Plana is out of the country) and they decided that Mom should move forward with Velcade. Jennifer got us an appointment tomorrow with Dr. Thomas and we will get started on Cycle 5 of velcade ... I am not sure if we start counting cycles from 1 or 5 as Mom's last treatment of velcade was in April. Anyway shortly after Jennifer called then Dr. Iliescu called. I like that he makes his own calls. Anyway -- he assured me that he was working Mom's case and that he had just received the heart biospy report then he met with all the cardiologists on staff to discuss the correct direction for Mom. I appreciate that he was working on it -- but they have to tell me that they are working on and when they will have an answer or I will continue to be a "pain". Anyway ... Dr. Iliescu said that Mom did not have a heart attack. That the velcade did cause damage to the heart muscle ... but that Mom's heart was able to recover from it. So ... now they will give her medicine to protect the heart muscle while she takes the velcade. Remember that the velcade worked very well against the cancer previously ... so now we pray that the new medicine will protect Mom's heart while the velcade attacks the cancer. The previous cycle of velcade included 4 trips to MDA for the IV treatments on Day 1, Day 4, Day 8 and Day 11 ... then a period of rest. Mom will also have to go back for an echocardiogram and additional blood work to make sure that the velcade is not impacting her heart function. We should get the specifics tomorrow and hopefully we will start back down the path of kicking some myeloma butt.