Multiple myeloma

[captain queeg]

8. I thought I'd replied to this earlier but don't see it.

Yes, I have a friend who has MM and he’s taking Thalidomide. I’m not yet taking drugs. They found the cancer when looking at things last year. I was very sick and anemic/weak but it seemed a bad infection turned out to cause most of my problems. I’m still anemic, it is cancer of the bone marrow which is where your blood is produced. But although my blood is not 100% it’s not too bad. They monitor certain blood proteins and when they get far enough out of balance they’ll start treatment. The doc tells me don’t be in any hurry to start treatment because it is unpleasant at best.

I’ve been stable for a year now. There is a certain ratio of blood proteins that they monitor. The ratio can get out of whack with something called MGUS which is a precursor to MM, that condition is not all that rare, about 2% of Americans have it. Once the ratio reaches 100 they’ll start active treatment and mine is still in the teens.