Foot and Mouth Disease

I'll start with the mouth.  Thursday, I had my upper right canine tooth extracted and a new temporary 4-tooth bridge/crown combo inserted.  The tooth was badly decayed, so he had to drill out some bone in order to get to it.  Despite that, the procedure went easier than I expected, and I was out of there in less than two hours.  It seems to be healing well without pain.  I go back next week to start on the other tooth that has to go.  Then I have to wait for both of them to heal before starting on the bisphosphonate.

Now for the foot.  For the last couple of days, I have had a lot of pain in my left foot and big toe.  I'm not quite sure what this is, but I'm hobbling around like a cripple (or crip if I wanted to be politically incorrect, which, of course, I don't).  I'm hoping it's not related to the MM.  I don't recall hitting or banging it recently.  One possibility is that it could be an attack of gout.  I have had some similar pain in my toe on occasion in the past, and it went away by itself after a few days.  We have our monthly appointment with Dr. Richardson on Tuesday, so I might just mention this to him then.  In the mean time, I wanted to finish power washing the roof, but since I can barely walk, perhaps I'll put that off for a while.

I was saddened to read the latest entries in Pat Killingsworth's blog:  http://multiplemyelomablog.com/.  Not only has his MM returned a scant 3 months after his stem cell transplant, but he has now just been diagnosed with melanoma as well!  When it rains, it pours.  Fortunately, it's a Stage 0 in situ tumor, which means it won't metastasize if treated soon.  This is the same thing that I had a few years ago, and I'm fine.  Pat is going on a regimen of Velcade/Rev/dex to try to stem the recurring myeloma.  I found that there is a Phase I clinical trial with MLN 9708 for patients with relapsed MM available at his cancer center, but apparently, he doesn't qualify at this time.  Poor guy has had so many decisions to make and a tough road ahead.  I admire his continued grit and humor through all that he has been through.  He is an inspiration to me.

On a more upbeat note, I found a link to a You Tube video on Pat's blog by Dr. Kenneth Anderson, Director of the Lipper Multiple Myeloma Center at DFCI.  Dr. Richardson referred to Anderson as his mentor at the recent patient symposium we attended:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2VfT8WQIngU&feature=autoplay&list=PL60523B8056DEDC25&lf=autoplay&playnext=45&noredirect=1

You can understand why I feel I'm in good hands with this crew.