I got access to my patient portal. I looked up all my labs. It took me over a year to sort of understand them. The serum protein electrophoresis and the immunofixation are hard to understand. It's really important to know what type of myeloma you have. There are several different types of myeloma. I am IgG Lambda myeloma for example. So I look to see if my Lambda light chains are increasing. I also look to see if there is a band in the Lambda region on my immunofixation and my protein electrophoresis. That would indicate that there is still myeloma proteins in my blood. M spike is important as well. Normal is 0.0. Anything above that means your myeloma is active. I also got copies if my bone marrow biopsy results. I looked up what they mean. Also my facility does MRD testing on my bone marrow biopsy results each year. I call Adaptive Biotechnologies in Seattle and they email me a copy. So I know what my MRD results are. Yes, it's overwhelming for sure, but knowledge is power🥰

As others have already mentioned, Multiple Myeloma Research Foundation (MMRF) https://themmrf.org/, International Myeloma Foundation (IMF) https://www.myeloma.org/%3Cfront%3E

Health Tree: https://healthtree.org/about. If you click on the 3 dots in upper right hand corner, you can choose to create an account & get more information. Hope this helps! 🌞🌻

The MMRF | Multiple Myeloma Research Foundation

https://themmrf.org/

theMMRF.org

The MMRF | Multiple Myeloma Research Foundation

https://theMMRF.org

Health Tree Foundation.

@A MyMyelomaTeam Member Well, I was a lab tech and come from a medical careers-oriented family, so I guess it's just in my blood, so to speak, no pun intended!

Also, my husband is a retired professor, so I think my thirst for knowledge was re-stoked by him.

I also have other chronic medical issues that I'm always getting labs/tests for, so it's just habit for me. And mostly, I simply want to know what I am up against, not that I dwell on it every waking moment, but this is where I say "knowledge is power".

It sounds as though you are doing everything you can, and having one less thing to worry about helps keep that stress level down. 🤗🌞🌻

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A MyMyelo...