Long day at the office...

I had a chemo apt. at 11am this morning...so why am I back here at 6.35pm!! Well in brief, my Creatinine level went up  so I checked with my nurse before I left that I didn't need IV fluids. We were happy to find out I could hydrate myself orally and she made notes to this effect in my chart. Another doctor looked at my labs a couple of hours later (after my IV had already been taken out) and decided I needed IV fluids....
It Kristy's birthday tomorrow (the 31st) and I wanted to keep it clear so after managing to get babysitting (thank you so much Kathy & Tom!) I drove back in. Kristy was being taken out for a movie and a meal by a friend for her BD. And of course Kristy & Michelle's car broke down and had to miss out on the movie!
To back track just a little, this morning went really well, I was in and out in just under 1.5 hours. My Creatinine did go up to 2.01 which is a bit annoying. Not really the number but because I was led to believe by the phamacist at my last visit that I would continue to trend down from the 1.7. My nurse was not surprised by todays level because of all the drugs I'm taking which are assaulting my body, including my kidneys.
I would say I'm a little pissed (for the Brits & Irish reading this I haven't been drinking, pissed here is mad/angry) at having to reassess my expectation of how my kidneys are doing depending on who I am talking to......
So anyway, chemo done, IV fluids done, kids picked up and put to bed and I'm feeling fine....and tomorrow we have a clear day to enjoy Kristy's birthday with family and maybe an early dinner just the two of us.
I found out some more info about the whole process I want to write here, it's general info but through talking to my nurse today the 'penny dropped' a bit so I understand the process a little better.
Everyone tries an Autologous stemcell transplant with MM first. Part of the reason is because mortality rates during autologous transplant is only 5% compared to 25% if you get someone else's stem cells (allogeneic), and part of the reason is because of the way MM effects the bone marrow (versus leukemia, for example where the only option is allogeneic). So the low dose chemo I am doing now is designed to control the level of cancer in my plasma to such a low level it can be taken out ready to be put back in without anything further being done to it. Then comes 2 days of high dose chemo to kill all the cancer in my body plus all my good and bad bone marrow.  After just one day they put my stem cells back in and wait. At some point I start on long term low dose chemo which we hope keeps the Myeloma in remission, maybe for a long time. They take out enough stem cells for 2 autologous transplants. This may be good enough to keep me well for 20 years if I'm very lucky and realistically maybe not that long.  Decisions for the future would be to look at the other stem cell transplant. High initial risk but with a longer remission time than autologous. And all the time treatments are getting better so who knows. So looking at the creatinine levels is only looking at my kidney function, which will fluctuate throughout my treatment.  We won't really know where my kidney function will level out at until all of this is said and done, but for now I'm not at risk of needing dialysis anytime soon.  Also, the creatinine level is not an indicator of how well the chemo is or isn't working in my body, so that's good to know.