I don't want to sound like an old fogey (I guess using the term "old fogey" gives me away right off the bat), but I think it is fair to say that we live in a technology targeting, data driven, information intensive society/era. This penchant for parsing is particularly poignant for a person with my problem. Unlike solid tumor cancers whose progress or regression is monitored by the growth or shrinking of the respective carcinoma, the presence or absence of Multiple Myeloma (MM) is found by measuring the "numbers" - a collection of results gleaned from a battery of analysis of my blood (which is somewhat ironic since generating new blood is a bit of a challenge for someone like me with MM - do they realize how hard it is for me to make the stuff ?!? ).
Now I'm not an oncologist, I just play one at work. And even after all this time of seeing sometimes weekly reports of my lab work for the past three years, I'm still not able to explain or understand the majority of the results that are openly shared with me (through a very comprehensive and user-friendly portal run by my clinic). But what I am able to manage is the comparisons between the "numbers" that were associated with my disease at the time of diagnosis and how they have improved to today. Without trying to explain the inexplicable (at least to a lay-person such as myself) - take a look at the following from September 2017 and April 2021:
9/’17 - Kappa Free Light Chains = 7,200
4/’21 - Kappa Free Light Chains = 0.2
9/’17 - Kappa/Lambda Ratio = 1,000 (the scale tops out at 1,000)
4/’21 - Kappa/Lambda Ratio = 0.74
9/’17 - Creatinine level = 2.9
4/’21 - Creatinine level = 1.2
9/’17 - Hemoglobin level = 7.2
4/’21 - Hemoglobin level = 14.2
In reality I am able to understand the basics of these mainstream medical markers, but what I can really grasp is that all of the aforementioned bad numbers have gotten way better as a result of chemo, stem cells, and a well-planned/fine-tuned maintenance regimen - managed under the watchful eyes of my amazing Onc team. Now these are the kinds of numbers I can live with - thank you very much!
