Excellent news today: Yesterday, unbeknownst to me, one of the blood tests done was measurement of my Kappa light chain proteins, which is the primary marker used to measure the amount of myeloma cancer cells I have in my bone marrow. My particular type of myeloma doesn’t put out as much of these proteins as normal, but nevertheless they can still be used to gauge the relative level of myeloma […]
If all goes well — and I have no reason to think that it won’t — we’ll be back in our own home in Kensington on Friday.
It’s 22 days since I received the KLN-1010 infusion, 4 days after getting out of this hospital after being hit the by side effects described here. The good news is that each day I feel a little better, a little stronger than the day before. Tomorrow I’m going in for another series of blood tests. They’ll specifically be looking at the levels of my neutrophils and lymphocytes. Both are a […]
I’m out of the hospital after getting an answer to one of my pending questions: how long would it take the novel KLN-1010 product to turn my normal T-cells into cancer-killing CAR-T cells? The answer: About fourteen days. That was the delay between the date I got the KLN-1010 infusion and the date I started to experience the “Cytokine Release Syndrome” side-effects that result from my myeloma cells dying and […]
From Suzie: Hi everyone. The fledgling unicorn is back in the hospital. He woke up this morning with some fever and chills. This is pretty normal with CAR-T as it starts to work, the body reacts with inflammation which causes fevers. It is what is called Cytokine Release Syndrome. His case is low grade at this point and they are hoping to keep it that way by giving him an […]
It’s now D+12 and I continue to do great. No side-effect symptoms at all. We had an appointment at Stanford on Saturday for labs and vitals. Everything was normal except my sodium, so now I’m happily putting extra salt on my food per the nurse’s order. They said that Days 10 – 12 were often the times that side effects would appear, and that the other lady who got her […]
One day out of the hospital, and all is still well. Still no side effects. Suzie is diligently taking my temperature (normal) and blood pressure (ditto). Yesterday after leaving the hospital I went on a breezy, sunny 1.1 mile walk, which was pleasant and easy. I have to wear a mask outside, but just a paper N95, not the monster mask required last time I was here. Suzie did a […]
I’ve been cleared to leave the hospital tomorrow. I’m still doing great, having no side effects from the treatment. Those may arrive in the next week or so as the number of modified CAR-T cells in my bloodstream increases. If the side effects are bad enough, I might have to return to the hospital, but I’m not expecting that will happen. So I get to return to: delicious Suzie-made food, […]
I continue to have no side effects at all from my treatment. It’s quite amazing. The worst thing I’m facing is a bout of cabin fever from having to stay on the ward 24/7. Out the window I can see that it’s a beautiful evening, I can watch the wind blowing the leaves on the trees, but my room is so hermetically sealed that I might as well be viewing […]
For the first time, today I felt crummy. Not horribly bad, just run down. Operating at 80%. But that’s a good sign. It’s a sign that the infusion is doing its work, running into T-cells in my blood stream and converting them into CAR-T cells that then go and kill the myeloma cancer cells. Sometimes when I shut my eyes it’s almost as if I can feel them, or sense […]