Plasmacytoma?

Yesterday we drove to Denver for our routine appointment with Doug's myeloma oncologist. We know that Doug's light chains have been steadily creeping up over the last few months. Dr. M felt there was time to wait before changing Doug to a different treatment, because he has been doing very well clinically (no symptoms other than the rising light chains). Doug had a PET/CT scan done 9-10-18 to check if there were any active lesions - none were seen. So we continued on with the "watch and wait".

Yesterday, since the light chains had climbed to 471 mg/L, Dr. M said it's time Doug thought about starting the new treatment. But he said we could afford to wait until January.
But while Dr. M was doing his physical exam on Doug, we pointed out a lump on his upper right arm. This lump was there at the September appointment, but both the myeloma doc and our nurse practitioner at home thought is was just a lipoma (benign fatty tumor). But it has been growing. Dr. M palpated it and this time he said it could be a plasmacytoma, which would be part of the myeloma (cancer of plasma cells of the blood). So Dr. M phoned a colleague of his and off we went to radiology where a core needle biopsy was done with ultrasound guidance. We are so glad it could be done the same day. We should hopefully get results tomorrow.

Dr. M says if it is a plasmacytoma, Doug will need to have it treated with radiation, and after that, he will need to start on a new treatment as soon as possible. This would be via infusion, not pills.

We don't know what tomorrow holds, but we know Who holds tomorrow!

More soon.