What were you doing two years ago (Jan 2024)? Let me help you remember: if you were in Alberta and doing something outside, you were cold; many schools were closed; furnaces were failing and pipes were freezing; the power grid was stressed by all the block heaters and other electrical loads; the words "polar vortex" cemented themselves in your vocabulary so that you could mumble and curse the weather by name. Now do you remember Jan 2024? I avoided the cold temperatures back then. I did that by checking into the Tom Baker Cancer Centre in Calgary and then not stepping outside for the next six days. During those six days staff did some testing and began the ramp-up dosing of a new cutting edge drug. I avoided the cold outside that January but that didn't mean my own personal polar vortex wasn't going on. Checking into a hospital after yet another relapse brought an icy chill of its own. The lack of other options and of real-world evidence of this drugs' efficacy ...
Brian’s diagnosis of Multiple Myeloma was in May 2018. The initial treatment was a stem cell transplant. After 30 months there was a relapse, followed by chemo, another relapse, new chemo and yet another relapse. In January 2024, the 4th treatment began. Brian currently gets weekly injections of an immunotherapy drug. Sometimes we keep the faith and sometimes we need family and friends around us to keep the faith for us. This blog is about enabling us all to be kept in the faith.