Thanks for the update. Clearly the team has a plan and is working their plan; preliminary though it is pending the biopsies.
Overall that’s a relatively benign near-term prognosis: get back to daily living as rapidly as your stamina returns.
Color me optimistic for you both. {{Hugs}}.
So true. The last time I took my wife to the hospital, I explained what was happening to the admitting physician. He listened to me for a few minutes, and then asked me “Are you a doctor?”. I said no, I’m an engineer. He said “you talk like a doctor”. I said, “I’ve just been around doctors a LOT in the last year.”
puzzlegal, I’m glad to hear your husband getting appropriate care. Hope things go well and that you get reasonably good news from the biopsies.
That all sounds like a reasonable preliminary plan.
Yes, the near term prognosis is benign enough that my husband is encouraging me to go on the trip to Japan I’d planned with our son. And the doctors said they don’t see any reason why i shouldn’t.
He’ll be getting standard drugs on an outpatient basis, and if I go, I’ll be back before the next set of decisions.
Agreed, this sounds optimistic, at least for now.
After my Mom’s cancer diagnosis, while she was responding very well to her immunotherapy, Mom asked the oncologist about going on a cruise. (Mom and Dad loved cruising.) He said it was a perfect time to go, so they did. I’m really glad they got that one in.
Sounds like he has a good team, and it’s good that he can still be relatively active. It wears on you when you can’t really do much but walk to the bathroom and back again.
Yes! Besides more physical demands, the emotional stress can drain your energy. Please take care! Remember, you’re no good to him, either, if you go down.
Good luck.
Based on my limited experience, I’d say at this point, don’t either of you deny yourselves anything you really want to do. Because a time may well come when you are unable to do them. My best buddy cancelled 2 planned trips for treatment - but when the treatment failed, he was too weak to take the trips. Sure, you never know, but…
Talking with one of my longtime golf buddies whom I haven’t seen all year, he said his new hobby is apparently healthcare. Congrats on getting yourself a new hobby! 
Sure, right now your hubby’s health and treatment is the most important thing. But I’d suggest you try to remain mindful that it does not become the ONLY thing.
He came home from the hospital today, with a lot of new meds and orders to stay hydrated. He’ll be doing chemotherapy outpatient.
Sounds like mostly good news.
Yes, so far, the bad news was “light chain myeloma”, and the news since then has been “well, it’s not worse”.
And treatments are improving.
Thinking of both of you!
Have they suggested exercise as part of his treatment? Specifically, about a half hour of vigorous exercise daily or something similar.
This is something I recently became aware of, but during vigorous exercise, muscles will generate a number of cancer-reducing chemicals collectively known as myokines. So far they’ve just tested this against prostate and breast cancer, but they are likely to work against other kinds too. OK, just googled and found this:
He asked about exercise, and they said, “we’d like you to be active, just be careful not to over do it”. The specific concern is that his bones are weakened by the disease, and they don’t want him to accidentally break any more bones.
(His initial complaint was back pain, which turned out to be from a broken vertebra. A friend’s back surgeon says he frequently diagnoses myeloma, because “back pain due to bone damage” is a common initial symptom.)
My husband plans to take brisk walks, and return to the physical therapy he was doing, although probably less frequently, because he’s going to be spending a lot of time getting chemo.
But that article seemed pretty underwhelming. The human study result said
In the patient study, patients who met the WHO physical activity recommendations demonstrated significantly better progression-free survival (PFS) and progression-free survival in maintenance treatment (PFSm).
My husband really enjoys physical exercise. But he’s done much less in the last several months because of the cancer. It was his difficulty doing the physical activities he enjoyed that led to his diagnosis. So I’m really dubious as to which direction the causality was in that study. They told a bunch of people to be active, and some weren’t, and others were. I’m guessing that those who were less sick found it a lot easier to be active.
In addition to the broken spine, he also has several broken ribs. He thinks he broke one when he attempted to feel it gently. 
Oh my. Big hugs to you both. Skeletal issues are unhappy, and spinal ones most of all.
FWIW, my late wife developed a met on a lumbar vertebra pushing on her cord & causing pain & great difficulty walking or standing. That met was zapped with IIRC 3 sessions of narrowly targeted radiation which pretty well solved the problem for her remaining years. No ongoing pain, no further growth, no immobility.
So there can be a good outcome to look forward to here as to hub’s overt tumor. The general bone fragility is not a topic I can speak to.
Oh crap, that sounds horrible.
Yes, they didn’t discharge him until they had enough information from the MRI to determine the tumor on his spine did not engdanger his spinal cord. They had told him that if it did, they would give him targeted radiation. They also examined (MRI) the rest of his spine to make sure nothing was growing into the cord. That and his kidney function were the two accute concerns before they could discharge him. (The kidney fuction had improved from “really sucks” to “modest damage, but does the job” in a couple of days.)
Maybe not
Soft small extremely gentle ones!!!
Still @puzzlegal , this will be long road. I get that right now becoming an expert on this cancer and being with him as much as possible is psychologically important, and it is also important you transition to a more sustainable place in the near to moderate term - even after the incentives go away there will be decently priced EVs to look at. And whatever the right level of exercise is for him, your exercise is a priority to keep up with too. Not just for your physical health. The role it plays in keeping up our mental health in times of chronic stress is huge. My sense of you from these boards is that your are likely IRL a pretty tough individual, but the unremitting stress of what may come with cancer care can wear down the toughest of us without explicit prioritization of our own well being as well.
Thanks for the updates.
Even slow walking seems to be helpful. I was able to do slow rowing through chemo and the first week of radiation (not what I’d do with broken bones) and walked on a slow treadmill the afternoon after morning chemo to distribute it nicely though my tissues.
Are they suggesting Prolia for his bones?