Sunday, January 4, 2009

Bone pain and something of a bummer...

The pain in my back is better and certainly has improved since the golf round, but the pain in my ribs is more persistent now. I'm concerned that I will have to start treatment soon. There were things I wanted to do but this is a disease of inconvenience in many ways.

I'm vacillating between taking advil versus not doing it so I'm cognizant of what hurts, but I'm going to yield to the advil pretty soon.

Upon reading more of Dr. BB's writing, I'm afraid the mild-sounding regiment that I went through with Dr. SF the other day is the "lite" version that he is going to explore in upcoming trials. I don't want the "lite" version as while it will have reduced toxicity, it may also not work as well. So that means I may need to have double the induction therapy that I had seen, which I suppose isn't the end of the world but it's a bummer because I'd taken the fairly manageable doses as a good sign. I'm particularly concerned about staying on high-dose dexamethasone for more than one cycle -- the more I read about the drug (including higher treatment-related mortality rates on it) the more disconcerted I am.

Anyhow, they can't all be good days. Tomorrow I need to tackle long-term disability insurance, ensuring my trip to BB is covered by insurance, and putting together a trust for the kids.