I love posting pictures with my blog. I find it soothing. I take many of these pictures myself. This is a large pond near our home and the "baby" Geese came out at sunset to swim. Today they tried to fly..in a few days they will be gone. Life is like that, try new things, learn, take notice for tomorrow the things we have today may be gone.Multiple Myeloma is still an "incurable" cancer. Yes the experts tell us so. Do we have to believe them no. We should do all we can to learn how to heal ourselves as we know our bodies best. Yes sometimes we have insurmountable odds, Like our dear friend Carlos, but he put up a valiant fight to the end. Go out fighting. My friend Phil has started a Dominate campaign. He is a young 30 year old with Multiple Myeloma, which from now on I will refer to as MM. Not much is said or written on this cancer versus 99% of other cancers. Phil has started a foundation www.cancerkicker.org and is accepting donations or selling bracelets and t-shirts to help fight this disease.
Multiple Myeloma is one of a family of diseases known as Plasma Cell Dyscrasias or abnormalities in the blood. Myeloma is a cancer of the white blood cells or plasma cells.
These plasma cells are a very important part of the immune system, which in turns helps the body fight and overcome infections caused by bacteria, viruses and fungi. These Plasma cells are found mainly in the Bone Marrow and develop from white blood cells called B-Lymphocytes. When bugs invade the system, B-Lymphocytes are the army the body sends out as plasma cells which form the antibodies and stop the invasion of disease. Normally plasma cells are only formed on the occasional scenario to fight infection. Example if you have the flu then the B-Lymphocytes say hey get me some plasma cells and kill of this sucker. Once the task is complete, and the infection gone, the plasma cells die off.
Under normal conditions the body keeps on working this way to keep it healthy. Multiple Myeloma begins, when certain genetic mutations occur causing plasma cells to become abnormal. These Cells continue to divide in this abnormal fashion and overwhelm the body with too many plasma cells, and this eventually will form a tumor. I will speak later on the different types etc.
These cells are called myeloma cells which are now cancer cells which produce an antibody called M proteins. This can break down to different forms of myeloma but here we will go with the general description. These M proteins can usually, but not always, be detected in the blood or urine by a special test called protein electrophoresis and immunofixation.
The reason for so much bone pain and disintegration is that the plasma cells originate from the bone marrow from those out of control plasma cells, they now become myeloma cells and produce tumors that usually develop in the bone. Thus the name multiple myeloma.
I will list some of the stats for MM but from my experience I think these are changing. I just talk to hundreds of infected people and the age is getting younger and more woman are turning up with MM.
MM reflects about 1% of all cancers, however it accounts for 10% of blood cancers. Supposed to be 4.3 cases per 100,000. Approximately 15,000 new cases of MM per year appear. Occurs more in men than in women and is twice as high in African American Men (I would like to see this as I have yet to meet AM people, so if you are AM AND have MM please let me know, I would be curious to see why we are not hearing from you.)
Rarely in Asian men. The age is supposed to be a mean of 66. Lately I have known at least 20-30 young men 28-50's coming down with this disease and probably a lot more. I wonder when they update these stats. Suppose to be rare in anyone younger than 40 so either I met all the rare ones or it is taking hold of our young men. Do I do research, No, but I speak with dozens of afflicted people.
As usual they are at odds to the cause. They whoever "they are" say that exposure to chemicals is a rare factor. Wonder who covered their A...on this one. rare occurrence in the nuclear industry, sheet metal, herbicides and fertilizers , SST, other possibles Hair dye, formaldehyde, spray paint asbestos. I was an oncology nurse who gave lots of really deadly chemo, could I have been affected..probably yes. Exposure to excessive x-rays or radiation but the "experts say not really", farmers etc . All the sites I looked at stated mainly, radiation, chemicals, petroleum workers, Farmers and those exposed to atom bombs so I guess a lot of us must have had that, exposure to atom bombs. Genetics do place into this but no on really knows.
The life expectency of a MM patient used to be 3.5 years but many are living productive lives, and I personally know of a dozen or more people 5-15 years and still going. Several in complete remission and the others not getting worse. Of course this is a small number but it shows it can be done. I will continue on with the explanation of this disease but this is enough information to get you thinking. Cancers are "Staged" Usually stage 1 - 4 with one being mild. In MM there are only 3 stages, I guess they figured stage 4 was death. I am a survivor of this disease and I was end stage 3 and that was 5 years ago. I endeavor to write about all cancers but thought I could at least showcase this for a while. There are dozens if not hundreds of MM blogs so I am giving you the overview. There are many blogs who talk of treatment, different types of MM etc but in my opinion no stage is good. Take care my friends June has been a month of many good souls passing on, not only from cancer but from tragic things such as Iraq war syndrome (suicides). That is so tragic. Heart attacks in young people so pray for all those who lost loved ones this month as they are many. God bless you all this night....
