Mother Jones
A few of you have probably cottoned onto the fact that people don’t usually spend a week in the hospital for a broken bone, even a backbone. So in the long tradition of releasing bad news on Friday afternoon, here’s my first-ever Friday news dump.
When I checked in to the hospital Saturday morning, the first thing they did was take a bunch of X-rays followed by a CT scan. These revealed not just a fractured L3, but a spine and pelvis dotted with lytic lesions that had badly degraded my bones. That’s why a mere cough was enough to send me to the ER. It was just the straw that broke an already-weakened camel’s back. Later tests showed that I also had lesions in my upper arm, my rib cage, and my skull—which means that my conservative friends are now correct when they call me soft-headed.
The obvious cause of widespread lytic lesions is multiple myeloma, a cancer of blood plasma cells, and further tests have confirmed this. (The painful bedside procedure on Tuesday was a bone marrow biopsy. Bone marrow is where the cancerous plasma cells accumulate.)
I know from experience that a lot of people, especially those who have been through this or know a family member who’s been through this, will want to know all the details about the treatment I’m getting. I’ll put that below the fold for those who are interested. For the rest of you, here’s the short version: I’m young, I’m not displaying either anemia or kidney problems, and treatments have improved a lot over the past decade. So my short-term prognosis is pretty positive. Treatment involves two to three months of fairly mild chemotherapy, which has already started, followed by a bone marrow transplant. My oncologist thinks I have a very good chance of complete remission.
The longer-term prognosis is less positive, and depends a lot on how treatments improve over the next few years. But I figure there’s not too much point in worrying about that right now. Better to stay focused on the current regimen and see how I respond to that. Wish me well.
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