Opportunity

As I have pointed out in my recent posts, I have been thinking about what direction I should take with my blog, now that I have reached what I hope is a stable state of remission for some period of time.  So I was pleasantly surprised to receive a very timely email the other day from Linda, who is a production assistant for an online health website, https://www.wegohealth.com/.  This appears to be an enterprise which emphasizes various social media outlets to disseminate information on a variety of health issues.

Linda said they are in the process of building an online video service to provide advice and information on various health topics.  She had come across my blog while researching Multiple Myeloma and thinks that I would be a good addition to their MM channel.  I immediately jumped at the opportunity.  I spoke with her today, and sometime over the next week or so, I plan to  participate in a video panel discussion on one of the MM topics that interest me using a webcam on my computer.  Their editors will polish up the clips to create a conversational style video to be featured on their TV channel.  Here is a link to their TV channel with some videos, one of which addresses MM:  http://tv.wegohealth.com/?

This looks like an interesting opportunity to reach a larger audience with some of the issues that I have been struggling with since my diagnosis.  I don't know how this will turn out, but I am looking forward to participating in this endeavor.  I hope I can make some positive contributions.  I will keep you informed.

One of the topics that has concerned me for some time is the question of using Revlimid for long-term maintenance therapy.  I have already delineated some of the potential drawbacks, including various side effects, secondary cancer risk, and the potential for MM to become immune to it.  Now, it appears that there is another risk.

In today's blog by Pat Killington (see the link on the bottom right of this page), he has been having problems with his Revlimid maintenance therapy.  There is a suspicion (hopefully unfounded) that he may have contracted myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS), in which the stem cells in the bone marrow stop producing healthy blood cells.  Many of these patients also progress to acute myelogenous leukemia (AML).   Both of these diseases are quite commonly acquired by patients with MM.  The disturbing thing is that there is some evidence that Revlimid might be an enabler of contracting MDS.  I certainly hope that this is not the case, especially in Pat's case, but this seems to be just one more thing to worry about.  I plan to do a lot more research on this.  This is another discussion I plan to have with Dr. Richardson.