Detour Ahead

"I never expect anything, so I am never disappointed.

Should a blessing come my way,

I will be truly grateful and altogether surprised." - Me.

"We'll take the next chance. And the next.
On and on until we win... 
or the chances are spent."
 - Jyn Erso (Rogue One: A Star Wars Story)

One of my Twitter buddies and fellow Myleoma soldiers recently revealed a setback. He said that a scan showed he had a tumour on his spine and he was undergoing radiation therapy to shrink the mass. I reached out to him and offered him some support as this was pretty much how I started my journey against my alien invader. Later in the week, he said that his doctor secured him a spot for a clinical trial for the new CAR-T cell therapy, but that he'd have to travel from his home in Denver, Colorado, to Nashville, Tennessee. He, of course, jumped at the opportunity. This was exciting and I was excited for him! He travels on Monday and my spirit will travel with him.

I went to see my oncologist, Dr. V., on Friday. It was a pretty routine visit and he gave me an early report on the x-ray I had of my arm this week, saying that there were no surprises on the image. This is good news and I know that going into my follow up with my surgeon, Dr. N., that he will only report the same good news. Unless for some reason Dr. V. was wrong, of course.

The main piece of news I got was that they'd already completed the search for a genetic match in our pursuit of the allogeneic stem cell transplant I talked about in my December 17th post. The search revealed what I had already suspected--that my clearly "alien" DNA was not compatible with anyone who had been registered and catalogued in the National Marrow Donor Programme (NMDP) database. This information basically means: "no transplant for Dale". I'm OK with that because that's how I roll.

Like any of the roads in civilised parts of our country, there are many ways to get where you are going even if there's a detour ahead. Luckily, I don't feel that I am traveling to a remote location in Alaska just yet. 

I was informed of a route change at the tail-end of the big reveal about the transplant. The detour Dr. V. offered was that he wanted me to reach out to the Celgene corporation to see if I could be considered for the aforementioned CAR-T programme for which Rich had applied. The only thing that could possibly prevent me from being accepted is my status as an asecretory patient (a person who does not secrete in their blood or urine, the M-protein, a marker which allows the monitoring of disease progression). Being asecretory may not allow them to accept me to this trial because it doesn't easily give them the data results on which they need to report. Still, at this time, it's worth a shot.

I made the call on my way home from Cleveland Clinic and left a message. To my surprise, I soon received a return call from a lovely lady with a delightful accent. We chatted for a little bit and she gave me her information, asking me to send an e-mail with a brief history about my disease. I did this the minute we ended the call.

So, now we wait. Again, I expect nothing to come of this, but you can't win the lottery if you don't play the lottery. Right?


To be continued...