The ZERO club

Yesterday was Tim's first appt. in about 2 and 1/2 months. I was trying to prepare myself
for higher numbers. His M-spike had continued to go down the first month after stopping
Velcade to a really low .06 but after almost 4 months off treatment, I just knew it was gonna
be higher. I actually felt my heart skip a beat when the assistant handed me his lab results.
I looked at the CBC first and thought, wow for Tim, these numbers are good. Then I got to
his 3 pages of lab tests and could not find the listing for m-spike. It took me several minutes
and then I finally saw the 2 sentences that said there was no monoclonal protein present in
his blood or urine. The doc was still with other patients and I was so stunned that I was
afraid to tell Tim in case this was wrong. Finally after a few minutes of checking the name
on the tops of the pages and his test results from last time, I told him. When the doc started
looking at Tim's records at his little area in the hall, I said "Am I seeing things or does Tim
have a zero M-spike?" He said "I don't know, let me see" and he found the sheets in the
huge binder of Tim's records and said. "Yes" then true to form, he tried to pee on our
parade by saying, "This actually doesn't mean that much." and I looked that big oaf straight
in the eye and said "IT DOES TO US." We walked in there 18 months ago with Tim's
IGG over 10000 and his urine protein off the charts with an insurance company that
said, "we ain't paying for treatment." Tim could have died from the strep sepsis that put him
in intensive care and led to his diagnosis. He dragged himself through a stem cell transplant
that did not do squat and the doc says, this doesn't mean much. THINK AGAIN EINSTEIN!
I repeated what I said and he shut up. It's hard not to like this man but he could be
a little more hopeful for his patients. He was gonna have Tim get a Zometa treatment even
though it was a little early for that but we needed to get the heck out of dodge and celebrate
this without anything to screw it up. I said, "it's Labor Day weekend and even though those
treatments don't bother him, why now? We'll come back for it next month." He said OK and
we peeled out of there. He said we could decide when we wanted to come back for labs and
an appt. 2 months, 3. It's up to us. I'm thinking the year 3000 sounds good. So even though
Tim feels guarded about this and I guess I do too on some level, this is a place that many
MM patients never get to and I am grateful to God for this. So I say, "Scoot over all our remission and
ZERO club pals, we're in and we're looking to stay awhile!!!!!!!!! Happy Labor Day!!!