J. Michael Jones

My labs have returned.

On a positive note, after going six weeks without labs, my kidney function tests are still stable, awful but stable, with a GFR of 22, where normal is above 60 and dialysis starts at 15. The anemia is slightly worse but not worth worrying about.

Looking at the cancer, the evil proteins (IGG Lambda light chains) are slightly less, which is a good thing. The fact I skipped chemo and then switched to a new one could have allowed these dangerous proteins to rise, but they didn’t. They are slightly better.

With a direct look at my cancer via blood tests (the last were done in September) still shows a minimal amount (M spike = .1). This of course could be much worse. However, my cancer load has never been high, just that it did terrible things like killing my kidneys by producing the evil proteins. Also, our prayer for the bone marrow transplant was that there would be no trace of cancer (30% achieve this end point called stringent remission) and unfortunately, that was not my outcome so I’m still considered in partial remission. We will do a bone marrow biopsy next month which is the most definitive test of the extent of the cancer. My prayer that less than 10% of my bone marrow has cancer, that is considered remission. If it was much higher it would be that I would be near a crisis point.

We buried my dear aunt Helen this morning, who was like a mother to me. I say “we” while of course I could not go to Tennessee to attend. She had a good life but it is still painful to say goodbye.

Thanks, as always, for your interest and prayers.

Mike