The good news is: I get to officially raise my lifting limit from 10 lbs to 25. I hoped to turn that authorization letter in at work, impressing everyone with my advancing improvement, but that is balanced against the bad news my Oncologist called with today. My Spep is now 1.2, a very small increase, but a continued increase.
I’m on the calendar for another MRI. My Oncologist also wants another skeletal survey to see if there are more tumors under construction, and on June 29th, another bone marrow biopsy.
That procedure is a top contender for the most pain I have felt, so I asked for this one to be done under sedation. This biopsy will determine if its time to begin treatment, or if there’s more precious time to continue smoldering.
This is me heading home after a minor disturbance at a local establishment. Okay, not really.
The officer in the reflection was on my volley ball team. She stopped in her patrol car one day when she spotted me walking home from work. She needed to ask about our game schedule. When she got out of the car, I asked, “Please, Please, can I put my hands in the air and lean against the cruiser?” If you do, she answered, I’ll have to put you in the back seat!
I think my family thought seeing the Grand Canyon was on my bucket list. I don’t really have a bucket list; I do have an unfinished projects list.
Diane and I, Grandma and our friend, Judy met our younger son, Robin and wife Aubrie in Las Vegas. That place is a smoker’s paradise! You don’t even have to light up to smoke a cigarette.
We rented a van and drove to the south rim. Robin and Aubrie’s friends, Kampie, and Philipp joined us there. The canyon was awesome. “Grand” is quite an understatement. It was a beautiful sight, and a real bonus there was the night sky. I’m glad we got to do that.
The Grand Canyon at night
Over several weeks, I had been noticing my kidneys. I’m not usually aware of my kidneys, but I was experiencing an increasing awareness to the point one day of borderline discomfort. I called my oncologist. She said to bring in a urine sample. I did and it turned out to be nothing.
Maybe it was psychosomatic because I know this cancer can affect your kidneys, and also, once you’ve had cancer, every little bump and gurgle may be indicating another cancer.
I should have stuck with “plan A,” wait the weekend and see how I feel before calling anyone. I did ask the doc if we could increase my lifting limit at work, its ten pounds. If we doubled it, I would appear to be making progress. She said ask the neurologist, he said “Come and see me.” At least the ball is rolling.
My Urologist’s office called a few days ago with test results; PSA (Prostate cancer indicators) remains undetectable. My Oncologist’s office called today with test results for the Multiple Myeloma cancer. My Spep number has crept up. It’s now 1.0, in August and September it was .08, but in July it was 1.1.
Hopefully this is just a small fluctuation. It appears that 1.5 is the, “Something may be happening” number, and 2.5 is the, “Time to Get Serious” number. If I’m still in your prayers, I thank you for that.
March 17th will be one year since my prostate surgery. I had the one year visit with the Urologist; they took blood and urine to for testing. I suggested to the young lady taking my blood that she leave the needle in when she’s finished and just tape it off, I will have another blood draw tomorrow. She smiled at the thought.
The doc and I discussed how I was doing, and he said again how important it was for blood flow – for me to keep taking the Viagra he prescribed. I reminded him that it’s expensive and my insurance won’t cover “those kind” of prescriptions, regardless of the reason. He said men should organize and rise up (so to speak) against the insurance companies and get that changed, like birth control was.
He gave me a sample box of Cialis. On the way down from the doctor’s office, the elevator stopped and an old guy and his daughter got in. They were discussing his diagnosis, and he asked loudly, “What did they say I have…. Schizophrenia?” He laughed at his own joke, I joined him.
On the ground floor the doors opened again and I hesitated and let the lady out first. She glanced at the papers and Cialis box in my hand and said, “Cialis? Good luck….” I looked at her and thought – huh?Is there something I should know? As she exited through the elevator doors she continued, “Don’t worry, you’ll quit smoking.”
That’s me at work, ceremoniously installing the final MXU, completing the “years long” project of enabling all of our town’s water meters to be automatically read by radio.
It seems my updates have become quite boring lately, and I hope they continue to grow increasingly boring for many years.
I had a little of the tingling across my stomach the other day and it made me realize that it doesn’t happen very often anymore. It feels like when your foot goes to sleep. My Neurologist thinks it’s from the crushed vertebra.
In recent weeks (months?), entire moments have passed without my being conscious of the poking feeling in my back. On the way to church recently, I realized that I had not felt or thought anything about my back all morning.
I feel the best I have felt since the surgery and the radiation treatments. I have even expelled a few unrestricted sneezes without pain! I stop short of saying I feel good, but I feel pretty good, and that’s not bad.
I have two tests scheduled in early March. If you remember me in your prayers, I thank you for that and I hope you will continue.
Diane and I
I found a support group for folks with Multiple Myeloma, they meet at the St Vincent’s Hospital. I was talking with an old guy there who discovered he had Multiple Myeloma cancer when his leg broke while he was walking across his living room.
He’s on medication now to make his bones strong. He says its working, but the side effect is forgetfulness. I asked how he knows it isn’t just normal age related forgetfulness. He said he knows that because one day he drove home, parked the car and went into his house. A couple of hours later he realized he forgot to turn the car off.
I do have something to introduce with this update. At my son’s suggestion I have created a web blog. You can go there and read updates, but the advantage over email is that there are pictures, links, videos, and more. If you enter your email address to “Subscribe,” you will get a notification whenever something is added to the site. You can leave comments, which is pretty much the same as replying to the email, except that everyone can see them. Many of you replied to my email updates and I thank you. Here is the address of the blog: https://www.couldausedanotherday.com. I hope you will have a look, enjoy it, bookmark it, join it, and please forward it to anyone who might be interested.
