March 24: Monthly Test Results

Hi everyone. We have received the results of my March (“Cycle 5”) tests, and they are posted below.

There will be no attempt to create some kind of suspense here; I'll just let you know that my protein counts have gone up again, tho we have no idea what it means.

As you will remember my levels spiked a bit in January, and in February we were being prepared (and in almost every way anticipated) that they would continue to go up. However, the February numbers were not only down, they were down substantially. Go figure.

Because of that, I don't think we were too worked up about this month's tests; we just expected them to go down a bit or at least just hover. Unfortunately, that's not the case. They’re up again, although not substantially. They’re just up.

As you can see, my amazing nurse, Joanne Hinkle, who supervises the Revlimid study at UPenn that I'm part of, is encouraging us to not worry. My even more amazing G.P., Dr. Marjean Brauch, has said essentially the same thing.

And so we’ll try to not worry, if you will.

But you can go ahead and pray.

thanks.

dwight
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FROM JOANNE HINKLE, UPENN:

Hi Dwight:
Your urine protein is a little increased from 3/16/04. The number is 1.27 grams. I know it is easy to say, but please don't worry about this. We will do a recheck when you come back in, and we will see what it is at that time.

AN OVERVIEW: Here’s how my yo-yo levels stand over time:

My monoclonal proteins from beginning of study are as follows:
9/03 19.04
10/22/03 11.95
11/25/03 5.08
12/22/03 2.04
1/20/04 2.81
2/17/04 0.81
3/16/04 1.27

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