Consultation again.

I've mentioned that I have oncologist "A" and oncologist "B". I had a consultation with "A" this past Monday. I saw "B" today. These men work at two different facilities and have two different approaches to treatment.

"A" ordered a complete set of tests to establish a new baseline for his use. 7 vials of blood today when I went to the lab (the old fashioned way - they don't do central line draws). Yeah, he wants everything.

"B" ordered his standard two vials for a CBC and a Complete Metabolic Panel. That makes 9 vials today.

Some of my counts are down, like my platelet count that's only half of what's considered the bottom of normal. "B" isn't worried about it. He says a certain amount of instability is normal at this stage.

So the plan is to see "B" in two weeks. No need to come sooner. Just hang in there and we'll visit every once in a while to see where we are. I'll mostly wait for the 'restage' date that involves another bone marrow biopsy, skeletal MRI, and blood tests. That's when we find out what the next step is..... Mini allo? Another full auto? Do nothing except maintenance?

I'll visit with "A" sooner than with "B". Gotta say, "A" doesn't like the aggressive mini allo program. He considers it dangerous (as do I). He'd rather see me on maintenance. He's putting me in a physical therapy program. He wants me to get better without doing anything drastic.

I like "A". "B" is a good guy too, but sometimes it's not fun jumping onto his freight train. "A" seems to be more interested in quality of life. "B" seems more interested in absolute cures.

One nice piece of info. Our insurance co has authorized a total 0f 15 complete HLA searches. Since we've used two for testing of siblings, that gives us 13 more people to do complete scans on. Now we just have to find 13.

But, truth be told....... Owing to some HLA type oddities, they expect to find zero matches. None. Nada. No Allo. That would leave us with either a second Auto (like I just went thru) or a maintenance program.

Of course, we won't know anything until we restage and do all the basic tests when I'm 80 days out (or 80 days old if the transplant was my new birthday.)

November 30 to Feb 20 is 80 days. I'm just gonna hang out for 4 more weeks.