A good checkup

I will post more on this soon, but here are the highlights:

* The monoclonal signature in the blood is gone.  Which means all along it was the secondary MGUS phenomenon that Mayo research indicated is a good thing.  Hurray!

* Bone marrow is negative for Myeloma, minimal residual disease test looked at 2.1 mil "events" (not sure if this is a cell or a receptor on a cell) and found no Myeloma.

* Formerly active focal lesion at my 12th thoracic vertebrae is gone.  Formerly active lesion at T10 remains but is slightly smaller.

Unchanged lesions remain at T2, T3 and T4.  These lesions were too difficult to aspirate with a fine needle so I thankfully only had two holes dug in my hip (one for marrow, one for gene array) and none in my spine.

So now we are down to four lesions.  Stay the course.

I will post more detail soon, but a spoiler: I love my doctor and I am utterly convinced that this aggressive approach is by far the best one to use.  I would urge any newly diagnosed patients who come across this blog to go to Arkansas for treatment.

Oh, and just to prove the old dog can learn a new trick, my doctor now thinks curcumin "can't hurt."  :)