Pokerface

Pokerface.

Lester Diamond.

Totally useless. 

Apologies to James Wood.

See all the cells? 

 

These are plasma cells. They have immunoglobulins attached to them. They are kinda shaped like a Y.  

 

The inside of the Y are heavy chains. Notbillybob has  CANCER of the light chains. They are called Kappa light chains. There are also Lambda light chains but they arent cancerous in his case. Kappa light chains are on the outside. Malignant. 

                                    

There are  lot of people,
 family and friends  who are wondering about this,  diagnosis,...what the hell is it?

so heres how it goes...

 The myeloma cells are all identical. They are the ones with all the little dots.

They have little dots in them. It's called an eccentric nucleus.  

They are cells gone wrong. Rogue

 then they start bunching up  just like a pile of cards.

Bunching, bunching  until...they make a tumor. Then they stimulate bone eating cells called

osteoclasts . These cell get busy  making holes, Normally these cells work together with  cells called     osteoblasts which are suppose to fill in the holes,

but the cancerous plasma cells disrupt them.  

Then  the tumor supresses the osteoblasts.The end result;

areas which the outer wall of a bone which is called    "CORTICAL BONE"  is either just paper thin or gone all together.

  

Bone in human and other mammal bodies is generally classified into two types 1: Cortical bone, also known as compact bone and 2) Trabecular bone, also known as cancellous or spongy bone

but it doesn't end there.

Besides

being thinned out,

the trabecular

bone (inside) is replaced by stacks of

clones of plasma 

free light chains

it just moves in like

an unwanted house guest

and eats all your cheese popcorn,

 

but seriously, The destroyed bone leaves you with high calcium in your blood, which damages

the kidneys...leading to dialysis or worse...end organ damage.

liver, kidneys... and the tumors just keep popping up wherever....

. 

have to fight this...

And to fight this they will use either radiation, or steroids which are called chemotherapy, but are much different than that which notbillybobs' dad had.  Lenalidomide and Dexamethasone for round one

The goal is....             REMISSSION.

Now it is Sunday. He has been in here since thursday.
Time to fly this coop. 

Notbillybob would LIKE TO THANK EACH AND EVERYONE WHO CAME TO VISIT...TOOT TOOT, JOE,  
RACHEL !!!!...JEN!!!... MOM, ANDREA, KATIE!!!

...P R I N C E P E S S A...

AND EVERYONE WHO LEFT LIKES AND LOVE. HE LOVES YA BACK!!!!

"It's not Frankenshtine,

its Fraunkensteen!"

"oh, so then is it Froadrick?

 "No,it's Fredrick. And you must be Egor...

"No, it's Eyegor!!!

"They told me

it was Igor"

"Well they wuuh wrong wunt thay"

"bwahahahahahahaha!"

SO,WHATS NEXT?

                                      WHAT       IS       NEXT?

                                                               CHEMOTHERAPY?

                                                  




                                                                               

                                                        OR RADIATION THERAPY?

                       

 

                                                                    

 

  

 

                        OR DO NOTHING...

                                                   YIKES, DONT LIKE THAT ONE A WHOLE LOT.

 

 

Notbillybob has a lot to thinkabout the next 

two weeks. He'll see his orthopedic surgeon then. get stitches out.   Most likely going home today.  Then again maybe not. Just saw the pain service and they said they dont want him in the ER tonight if we cant get hold of the pain.

It IS like a ROLLER COASTER!

                                                                       

 Emotional as well as physical and financial.

         

                                                                                  

                                                                                  

No one really has any answers to the big questions. There is a lot of
'Risks out weigh the benefits.... and   Benefits out weighing the risks...

There are statements like this;

"most of the time we like to see.....bla bla"


and 'There is something we can do to.... bla bla"

"We'd like to try and....bla. "

But mostly there is the "we just dont know for sure. There are risk factors any time we...bla bla ba bla." 
What they are saying is 

ANYTIME A SURGEON IS GOING TO CUT YOU WITH A 10 BLADE NO ONE HAS A CRYSTAL BALL.....

SAME FOR
MEDICATION. 

AND 

THE 

BIG

QUESTION**********HOW LONG DO I HAVE?????


GOOD QUESTION.  (not very easy to answer.)

NOTBILLYBOB STARTED OUT WITH A SINGLE TUMOR. TOOK LESTER DIAMOND OUT TWO YEARS AGO LAST MONTH.

THEN THEY FOUND LUCY IN THE SKY.  (PELVIS.)

NOW THESE THREE MORE. CHANGED HIS DIAGNOSIS
FROM SOLITARY PLASMACYTOMA TO 
MULTIPLE MYLOMA.   MM IS QUITE A DIFFERENT BEAST.




 like yesterday for instance. He finally consented to a nerve block.
 A very lovely senior  nurse came in, pulled up a chair and explained the nerve block in great detail. It worked. He trusted her.
The anesthesia service from the surgery came up here to the 8th floor and stuck a long needle in his neck.  They used an ultrasound
machine to see where it was going. Not painfull, but lots of pressure. I'm totally lyin here!  It HURT...bigtime.
                     But it worked. somewhat.  The arm felt like a large   
      piece of beef tenderloin.
Then a few hours later, in the middle of the night it WOKE UP.
   By now it is barking like a junkyard dog. WOOF!


                                   WOOF!!                 LOL!



                                                   WOOF???????




                                                            


                                                                                     

DEEP BREATHS

YESTERDAY...

After kissing Princepessa goodbye---mmmmWAH!      (you never know,    y know?
   he went for a ride through coriders, hallways, to the O.R.....                                                                                 
                                              





 Deep breaths
Just take some deep breaths for me...

Frrreaking out on that operating table... 7 or  8 folks all busy each doing somthing different it seemed,The temp in there felt
like a walk in cooler. CCCCcccolddddddd!
 The surgeon they call THE SHARK  getting ready to freeze a section and cut away a piece of him he had lived with his whole life.Yeah, it was a 4x4 inch  section
of bone, it was inside, he had never met it. but still, it belonged to him...BUT the bone was totally destroyed......


eaten away by a clump malignant plasma cells, all with the same face!!!!! Clones. A CLONE WAR right there in his upper arm. and pelvis...and scull...and shoulder blade. Lot of clones!!!!!!!!


We need  Jedi knights!!!!     Call Anakin Skywalker and Obi-Wan Kenobi !!!!    


Call DELTA SQUAD !!!!!!!!

Anway,  back to earth, back to this operating room,where he was hoisted

onto this hard little table with a little rubber Donut for his head and pillows for under his legs.....like four feet off the floor...it was l a long way down...                                                                                   There were four nurses all trying to make him comfortable at the same time- how are your legs like this?? The anesthesiology resident trying to jam this cushy mask over his face trying to jam it tight to make a tight seal...    her doing that put him in a complete panic mode. The Mask smelled like the gas used for his eye surgery when he was 12-yrs old --  back in the seventies- I believe back then it was halothane or ether or even chloroform but

they all smell the same like brake fluid or dry cleaning fluid Auggggggggggggggg!!!!!!!!!!!.


      He finally said Cant she just knock me out now-PLEASE- put

me to sleep now I'm starting to feel -PANICKY- I can't swallow throat's too dry-STOPPPPP!!!!

       -- right then-----somebody ----JAMMED---- the corner of a wet washcloth into his mouth

and he calmed down a bit. At least they were listening to him... another nurse suddenly slathered his lips with a very slimy lip balm...----felt like that geletin that you see on a canned ham.CANNED HAM LIPS!!! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA......and he HATES greezy lips. Just ask Princepessa!!

      Then the anesthesiology attending- which is someone who has completed their residency- (although this was nothing like the TV show Grey's Anatomy. he and Princepessa used to wach it on netflix no one in there looked like Yang or George or especially Mc) put the mask back on and said okay here we go take some deep breaths fill your

lungs with oxygen we're going to give you some medicine in your IV you're going to feel a burning

sensation over your whole body and then you're going to wake up after your nap yikes  , it WAS a tingling BURRRRRRNINNNNNGGGGG sensation. YOwwWwwww going dowwwwwwwwnnnnnnnuhhhhhh----------------------------------------------------------------------------------                                             

then, just                     nothing.

                                                           


















---------------------------------------------------Are you having any pain, Mr Aragon...                                                                      -----------------------------------Mr Aragon says   is ISit done?--------------

yes sir , its  done
Mr Aragon says "ill give you a hundred bucks for a drink of water."





AS FAR AS I KNOW........HE'S STILL WAITING.



                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                

From the frying pan into the fire

 

Notbillybob had just visited the radiology records dept. at Anschutz aka the "U", and was scurrying to make it to his hepatology appt on time, you know, reading while walking briskly, reading, skimming over the boring parts, yada yada, There was a hepatology appointment, followed immediately with an appointment with the pre-admissions clinic, but back to the radiology report...

He started reading the paper, wondering what the news would be...  

66 minutes after IV tracer was administrated, bla bla, CT images were reconstructed in the axial, coronal and sagittal views...sure, yeah, width wise, lengthwise, and sideways... where is the news, where are the results of yesterdays scan?  And then he saw the words on the paper, right at the bottom of the first page...h h holy crap! Can... not... breath, hearts... pounding...ringing in his ears...

Feeling faint, that metallic taste spreading in his mouth...

A NEW DESTRUCTIVE LESION IN THE RIGHT SCAPULA INCLUDING ANOTHER PATHOLIGIC FRACTURE THROUGH AND THROUGH THE BONE, ............

ANOTHER LESION, IN THE

THE GREATER SPHENOID WING

  (THATS IN THE RIGHT SCULL BASE!!!), OBLITERATION OF THE RIGHT FORAMEN OVALE, FORAMEN SPINOSUM, AND THE PETROUS CAROTID CANAL.......CAROTID????

"> THE GREATER SPHENOID WING IS A BONE

RIGHT IN THE BOTTOM OF THE SCULL  RIGHT BEHIND THE EYES....HOLY SHIT.....(BROKEN SHARDS OF BONE RIGHT ON TOP OF HIS BRAIN...TOUCHING IT...

.......WTF..... GONNA 

FAINT 

RIGHT THERE 

IN THE ELEVATOR 

BETWEEN THE 3RD AND 4TH FLOORS...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

He and Princepessa had to sit down on a bench in the hall to catch thier breath and read it again, slooowly, 

 

 

 

" please google this word, hun...

 

 

 

 

 

GREATER SPHENOID WING........

 please...google... it...     his mouth full of cottenballs suddenly...

There's  been a lot of pain in the right shoulder, sure but he thought it was from using only the right hand and arm. But there was a *crack* sound last week trying to push up off the bed. Now he's been getting Principessa to help him get out of bed. But it explains the cracking noise. This marks the third bone he's broken doing something normal.

Princepessa is sobbing... she's been helping him get out of bed these days. doing ALL the driving, cooking, laundry, 

but then

She's been doing everything since he broke his left arm, all though he did mow the lawn last week. But he didn't know it was broken. So, where do we go from here? I guess take one thing at a time, and don't look too far forward or it will drive him crazy. He was rather worried about Thursdays surgery, but now it seems minor compared to the fight ahead. Four lesions.  Wondering if this will change his chemo tharapy drugs. Drugs which cost ...wait for it....

 $13,000.59!!!!!

59 put in there for levity...but really, 13 grand?????????

 

Stay tuned and thanks for all the moral support kind words and your thoughts and prayers. It does help a lot. Billybob for Notbillybob 3:31 am Tuesday July16,

                                            2017.