Emory visit: the short and the long of it

We got back from Atlanta late Tuesday afternoon, in time to pick Andy up from the vet.  He's pouting with us.

The short report:  Jimmy's initial blood tests were surprisingly good.  Dr. Lonial was upbeat and reassuring.

The hall outside our room

And the long:  Jimmy has been feeling so wiped out lately, we were expecting a big drop in his blood counts, especially the red, but they looked good. Of course we won't get the full report until next week, but Dr. Lonial saw indications that the cancer's already responding to the Revlimid.

He seems fairly unconcerned about Jimmy's respiratory problems; he says he's been seeing myeloma patients presenting these symptoms all winter, and it's taking them a long time to get over them.  The truth is, he sees patients with a lot, lot worse every day.

He wants to tweak Jimmy's dosages: go from 15 mg Revlimid every other day to 5 mg daily, three weeks a month, and instead of 40 mg dex once a week, 20 mg twice a week.  Hopefully, he'll get the same benefits, while reducing the unpleasant side-effects. We know people taking much higher dosages of Revlimid, and it doesn't seem to bother them that much, but it zaps Jimmy.  And the steroids... of all the nasty chemicals I took when I was being treated for lymphoma, I hated them the worst.  The hyped-up nervous jitters are bad enough, but the crash...you feel like you can barely move, depressed, hopeless, like it's the end of the world... bad business.

The winter has been tough.  Jimmy has struggled physically, and we've been scared and our morale sometimes low, but we feel better now.  A little optimism goes a long way.