Wednesday, December 23, 2009

Delayed update!

Happy holidays to all of you -- I'm sorry to take so long with this but I am happy to report that I am very busy at work! :)

Quick highlights:

* I got rid of my cold on the 21st day. That's a LONG time to have a cold. Longer than I ever want to have one. I'm looking askance at my bottle of Revlimid right now...but in the grand scheme of things, I'd rather be alive with a cold than dying from cancer, so once again, not much to complain about.

* I am still in complete remission. The visit to Arkansas in four weeks will hopefully indicate improvement in the MRI as that is really the last piece before BB will be relatively confident in saying that I am cured.

* Arkansas just presented its most recent data two weeks ago at the ASH conference in New Orleans. Of those newly-diagnosed patients who reach complete remission, NINETY PERCENT remain in complete remission FIVE YEARS OUT. The plateau in the recurrence curve is reached by then. That means a "cure signature" of about 90% -- pretty remarkable. I'm on the track and will hopefully stay there.

In light of this, it occurs to me that what is most important now is not so much the data coming out of Arkansas -- but the data elsewhere. I do believe Arkansas can cure the majority of newly diagnosed Myeloma patients. The issue is now: what can be accomplished without going through all that? We don't yet fully understand just how powerful Velcade and its derivatives are. Hopefully everyone with this disease will enjoy a very, very long remission!

Happy holidays once again, and I will be posting more in a few days!