Is the second bone marrow sample easier than that first? Maybe. At least, one knows what to expect. I did find out that if I wanted some valium to cruise through it, I could have had some. Silly me. Anyway, AbJ took a bit more time today. He went away and let the lidocaine do its numbing and the drilling was less painful. The sample withdrawal was a surprise per usual and made me gasp, but hey, it was quick. Probably not going to get the results by Monday when the next round starts, but AbJ said he would be surprised if the sample is not clean of Mantle cells. I like that talk. The nurses thought it was pretty funny when I said that I was there today to be "screwed". And, screwed I was. I did find out that if we proceed through the 6 cycles and go on 6-mo. maintenance that CT scans will be the norm and further bone marrow tests will only occur if the CT scans show something untoward.
No head today. It's almost like it just flew away. I pre-medicated--the aspirin with the codeine-- against a middle-of-the-night pain awakening last night and had a good night. We'll see about tonight. AbJ and I agreed these heads are specific to the chemo, so we won't do any head shot scans.
More, obviously, when we get the official results of the bone marrow assay. I did find out that that assay is done by machine and then recounted by a human. They sample 400 cells. That means on my initial bone marrow they found about 20 Mantle cells (circa 5%) in that sample. I was trying to ferret out what it might mean to have more than zero but less than 5% in the next sample. AbJ will have none of that. He says it will be zero. Sounds as if, should it not be zero, tx this far will counted as a failure.
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