Miscellanea

The bone marrow biopsy performed three weeks ago at Johns Hopkins came back negative: "No evidence of plasma cell myeloma". Unfortunately, the accompanying blood protein test was somehow botched, so I have to wait until later this month to have my anxieties around the results of the January test assuaged. Meanwhile, the Hopkins oncologist seems unenthusiastic about my idea of travel to Vietnam, punting me to the Johns Hopkins travel medicine team.

I am in the midst of a two-week course of Xifaxan (Rifaximin), an antibiotic prescribed for me by the GI doc who recently performed upon me a combination colonoscopy and endoscopy. I was overdue for the colonoscopy, my second; I am on a five-year cycle for this procedure, since the first one turned up benign polyps. This time, no polyps of any sort. I requested the endoscopy to investigate a few nagging problems I have been having, including occasional trouble swallowing, the odd belching fit, and chronic abdominal bloating (some days, I look like I'm expecting). It's not clear whether these symptoms have anything to do with the chemotherapy, but in any case the GI doc is diagnosing mild esophagitis and gastritis, meanwhile awaiting the results of multiple biopsies.

Finally, my primary care doc ordered some X-rays of my neck and right shoulder; I have been having some pain in these areas that doesn't seem to want to go away. This makes me nervous, since as the reader may recall, the myeloma originally masqueraded as muscle pain that wouldn't go away. The X-rays didn't turn up any lytic lesions, though, and the primary care doc is pushing me off to an orthopedic specialist, if I want to pursue the matter further.