Bloodwork taken
Monday. Typical monthly ritual for me,
nothing out of the ordinary.
Thursday I met with my oncologist to discuss the results of my bloodwork, which I hadn’t seen yet. We meet every three months now to review my status, instead of every month like it used to be. But this time, when she walked in, she told me that my numbers had gone up and there’s a good chance that the myeloma has come out of remission. There was a slight chance that the numbers blipped because I was fighting a stomach bug a few days before my bloodwork was done, but it was in my best interest to get some more testing done to see where things are at. My numbers were 9.23, versus 0.92 the previous month (normal range 0.3 to 2.0). This was unexpected, but didn’t shake me too much. God’s done so much for me already, and after miracle upon miracle have been poured into our lives, I had a feeling that this was just a blip… not the real thing. So the plan was to get another set of bloodwork taken, get a bone marrow biopsy done to check out my plasma cells, and contact my specialist in Philly to get his recommendations on further treatment and re-entering the path toward a bone marrow transplant. We finished up the consult and I headed out to the scheduler to set up all my appointments…
So, the scheduler is working with me, and hands me a copy of my results while we are setting up appointments. I look them over, very familiar with the numbers I am used to looking for… obviously… and when I see my Kappa Light Chain results, I think to myself, “Hmm, these look suspiciously similar to the units they use in Philly (mg/L) rather than the units they use here (mg/dL).” I ask the scheduler if I could talk to the doctor again because it looks like we may have read the results wrong. Sure, no problem, she comes right out after she frees up and we look at the numbers again. No joke, the lab has changed the units they report the results in 2 or 3 weeks ago. She is a combination of extremely frustrated with the lab, and devastated because of everything we just went through, because that means my numbers are identical to last month, 0.92 mg/dL.. perfectly, extraordinarily, absolutely normal. Through some apologies, laughter, sighs of relief and shouts of joy, I had all my newly scheduled appointments canceled and set up another to see her in three months.
Jas would have fared much better through this if I wasn’t such a knucklehead. My poor timing and texts really rocked her boat quite a bit, and we made sure to tell the doctor that “you can’t do this to a pregnant woman!” but all was well when it was all said and done. And for me, it was actually better than well, it was amazing. Even though nothing had changed, this was a milestone result for me, and working through 20 minutes of the possibility of having to treat myeloma again, followed by the realization that there is no sign of cancer… again… still… gave me the feeling of a brand new miracle all over again. I drove back to work high on life, blasting “Overcomer” and singing with tears of joy and gratitude for each day the Lord is blessing me with. It felt like a Christmas miracle.
Merry Christmas. I hope you enjoy the holidays with family and friends, and you experience the Love of God this season as we celebrate the birth of Jesus… Emmanuel, God with us…