Most of yesterday was spent at the clinic, getting lab work done, then having an intravenous infusion of Zometa to strengthen Jimmy's bones. Afterwards, we had a good meeting with Dr. Lonial and Darlene Anderson (stem cell coordinator, and what a sweetheart she is!). We have a plan. Our primary objectives are:

1. We'll continue to wage war against the myeloma (Jimmy says he envisions the myeloma as little PacMen, chomping away at his bones). The M protein (the marker for myeloma) is down 80% to 1.2, which is good, but ideally, we would like for it to be zero. Dr. Lonial wants us to start on another round of molecular chemotherapy next week, and has agreed that we can have this done in Valdosta. It will consist of two doses of Velcade a week for two weeks, administered intravenously, along with Decadron, a steroid, given orally. We are omitting the Revlimid this time, since Dr. Lonial thinks it might have inhibited Jimmy's stem cell production during the last collection.

2. We still need to collect a lot more stem cells for transplant; an additional seven million would be nice. When we finish this round of chemo, we'll go back to Atlanta, in early October, where we will go through another stem cell collection process. Dr. Lonial thinks that he will not use the vicious Cytoxin this time - thank heavens. That stuff is like rat poison. We'll do the Neupogen shots again (I inject them subcutaneously into Jimmy's abdomen; the last time we did this, Jimmy's middle was polka-dotted with bruises from my inexperienced shot-giving). We are also going to try a new drug that has just been approved by the FDA. Hopefully, this will result in a stem cell bonanza.

3. We are continuing to work on strengthening Jimmy's back. We had a good session Monday with Carl, the therapist, a great big guy with a shaved head and a little gold earring, who looks a lot like a professional wrestler, and a little like Mr. Clean. Tomorrow we're going back to the spine center, where Jimmy is getting cortisone injections in his back. He also has a series of exercises that he is doing several times a day. This whole thing has been so debilitating, and he has lost a considerable amount of muscle that we are trying hard to rebuild.