I signed up to this forum as it is in the UK and after 16 months + from my husband’s diagnosis of MM I felt that I owed it to fellow sufferers/carers to tell his story, as it is all good positive and I have used forums for support and knowledge.
My husband was diagnosed with MM in November 2013. He is an active 67 year old and had no symptoms, in fact it was our GP who persevered with blood tests to find the cause of a sore palate. He was referred to Chelsea and Westminster Hospital and the consultant said that after tests and Xrays he was a case that could be watch and wait. After a meeting with fellow professionals the decision was to start treatment plus bisphosphonate. He started with CTD but had quite stressful side effects. He persevered, but his consultant referred to a colleague at Hammersmith Hospital who suggested Velcade alone. My husband is diabetic, insulin dependant, therefore omitting the steroid was good news. He had about 5/6 courses of Velcade with minor side effects and the results were amazing. At the end of 2014 he was being treated as a SCT candidate at Hammersmith. His bone marrow in November 2014 showed the myeloma to be undetectable. He continued on to transplant. His cells were harvested in February 2015 and he got a room March 2015. He was in hospital for 19 days. He has been positive and very strong. Today he came home and amazingly he only lost around 9 lbs. I spent around 6 hours a day with him and supplied all of his food, which amounted to very little after a few days. For those of you feeling apprehensive, I can say that the nursing staff and doctors are superb and at no time did sickness take over. There was always something to stop it. Although SCT is not new, it is treated as pioneering medicine and is no doubt the way forward. I wish everyone in the forum, and indeed in the world with MM best wishes
for the coming years…..YES YEARS!! My glass is half full, you may have noticed.
Carolsymons 9 years, 7 months ago.
