First of all, thank you to everyone here for creating this forum and sharing your stories. Just browsing has been so helpful for us.
My father (71), after a 15-month battle of broken vertebrae and spinal/back surgeries, was finally (a few weeks ago) diagnosed with M-M.
He finished his physical therapy from the spinal surgery a week ago and is scheduled to start chemo at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center - Passavant on Monday 4/11. Unfortunately yesterday he had to be readmitted to the hospital due to low sodium and significant (now 7.6 HgB) anemia.
We have so many questions right now but one of the biggest is where we should do our treatment long-term? We are at UPMC now and my parents live in Pittsburgh so it's convenient. But since the likely course is 4-6 courses of RVD and then a bone marrow transplant, the road will be long.
My brother lives in St. Louis and I live in the San Francisco area. My mom (68) is with my dad but obviously this is a lot for her. I'm flying to Pittsburgh pretty much every week or every other week (and am here now and have been for past 10 days) but obviously it would be easier to have them near.
At the same time, they are comfortable at UPMC and it seems to be a good facility.
So I want to figure out how much of a difference in care they would get at UPMC versus other facilities (whether in San Francisco area, St. Louis area or even somewhere else).
From the initial bone marrow biopsy and bloodwork, the doctors say my dad's M-M looks genetically typical but is at Stage III so needs to be handled soon.
Any comments on best treatment facilities are welcome. Thanks again for this community.
Nick