Will you still love me to-marrow - John Mycroft and Multiple Myeloma

"Walk 3 times a day" May I mention it is 32 degrees in the old money and blowing 20 knots out there?  We have a treadmill but it's a bit like being - er - on a treadmill unless I can judge my stride well enough to stay on the back end of the belt in which case I can watch the television while I trudge.  So what to do?  I have heard of Mall Walkers so it's time to join them.  Asheville is a civilised town where the mall isn't open for business 24 hours a day: it opens officially at 10 a.m. but flings its outer doors open earlier in the morning for people who want a bit of gentle air conditioned exercise. It was more than a little pre-apocalyptic when I got there - most of the stores had a couple of light fittings on, presumably for security, but a fairly large number were completely lit up although there didn't seem to be any employees in there.  A total of maybe 20 people were walking laps of the mall - nobody jogging - and dodging the guy with the ride-o...

Blurg Please remind me not to be so smug about not wanting to barf.  Absolutely knackered yesterday, made it into bed about 9 and went out like a light.  Unlike previous weeks the "6 pee night" didn't strike.  However my delicious bowl of granola (handmade by Susan, no less!) was less than appetising, even with blueberries and the thought of reviewing it did briefly cross my mind.  Anti-nausea pill to the rescue.  I am going to the faculty room now to get a cup of coffee - please don't let there be a box of donuts there - I may not survive.  Brain's not doing too great, either.  It took me 10 minutes to figure out which wire was which on the bottom of an LED light array in robotics class.  To be fair, there are 16 wires coming out of it and they don't come out in the order you might expect even once you've discovered which of them is number 1.   Excuse me - I hope the faculty toilet is vacant... OK - teaching day is over.  It act...

Happy Hobbitday There's definitely a pattern developing here.  I woke up at 2:30 this morning, had a pee, jumped back into bed and soon realised that my night's sleep was over.  Having solved all the world's problems in my head (a quick check  on CNN online did not reveal that Trump has been abducted by Mexican rapists), I got up at 3:45 and fixed myself a delicious first breakfast - Typhoo tea (am I the only person who remembers their slogan on posters "Typhoo put the T in Britain" to which some graffiti wag would add an obscene comment about a town in Lincolnshire. I miss witty graffiti, even if was often crude.  Remember Richard Prebble getting kicked out of the NZ Labour Party caucus?  "Prebble without a caucus."  Brilliant.  Or the railway bridge in Westcliff - "Hihg Speed Hash" - who cares if they couldn't spell.  Or Exeter's "Tomb of the unknown brick", on a railway bridge brick.  But I digress), toast with Scottish m...

The Night of the Living Side Effect As anyone living in the USA knows, all drugs have potential side effects.  I will confess to having churlishly laughed out loud at the side effects of drugs meant to make you less nervous when chatting up women only to discover that the side effects include bad breath, flatulence, dandruff, incontinence and a dozen other things guaranteed to impress the woman of your dreams. I've been lucky to suffer no side effects from my chemo treatment - in fact I have generally felt a hell of a lot better than I've felt in a year or more.  On Friday, I made up for all that. It started on Thursday with a mild sore throat (which, 3 days later, has gone completely).  I put it down to erosion from drinking half a gallon of water a day.  Then Friday night became The Night of the Long Pee.  It started in the evening with a sudden desire to pee every 20 minutes or so and not just to pee but to pee right bloody now.  And, having got t...

Chemo Brain I accidentally posted this on my school blog on Feb 4th - I hope nobody noticed. One thing they warned me about at the hospital was the onset of Chemo Brain as a result of which you find easy mental stuff hard.  So I've been keeping my brain as sharp as I can and, even though my full chemo regime has yet to start (United Healthcare doesn't want to pay for the pills - did I ever mention that the USA needs universal healthcare?) - I am already seeing signs of stupidity (thinks - am I allowed to call myself "stupid"?)  Last night Susan asked me to put the biscuits in the oven and set the timer to 14 minutes.  Managed half of that.  Forgot that school starts an hour late on Wednesdays and missed an appointment with the principal as a result (a "career limiting move" as it used to be known).  Yesterday evening I was amazed to put my hand on my backside and discover I was wearing my best suit trousers.  Looking down, I found to my relief that I w...

The First Full Dose Threats of snow, sleet, ice, plagues of locusts came to nought overnight so it was off to Cancer Care of WNC for my first full dose of chemo.  It's now six hours later and, other than taking a wee doze a while ago, I've done OK.  Not a puke in sight.  Indeed, in true hobbit style I had two small lunches of a chicken sandwich and last night's pot roast.  Once again Susan was my chauffeur and I must say how grateful I was for it as I was a bit wobbly by the time it was done.  She also makes me feel good by asking me what a 5 letter word for coconut flesh is for her crossword. As a bit of extra entertainment just as I was about to get my head down, Frank, the carpet guy, phoned to say he was on the way (we were expecting him tomorrow).  Glad to say that my part in the latest exercise of restretching the living room carpet was to move the knick-knacks to the dining room table.  Too knackered to move them back and I can't remember whe...

Note to self - do not shred junk mail Darn cold again this weekend so, in the interests of getting some gentle exercise, I insulated some of our heating ducts a bit better and completely sealed the reachable air vents in the crawl space.  Don't know if it worked or not - I don't really expect to notice any significant effect: maybe the air will come out of the heating system a fraction of a degree warmer.  Susan and I also shifted some bookcases and the piano to be more centrally located between the two windows in the games room.  This time I hung onto the drill tightly while cutting holes in the bookcases to feed cable through so no more holes in the carpet.  For a change, I quit before I was knackered which made me feel a lot better all afternoon.  I also, after spending a mere 12 years swearing at the cable on the bloody thing which is about a foot too short, fitted an extension cable to our satellite radio antenna so it is finally at eye level in the ...

To beer or not to beer? Much as I hate to dwell on my need for a beer, this is getting to be a bit of a mission.  Strangely enough, I was able to walk past the huge range of IPAs and other beers in Ingles this morning without the slightest pang, knowing I "couldn't have none of 'em."  But where were the non-alcoholic beers?  (Courtesy of someone's lobbyist, you are allowed to call any drink with less than 0.5% ABV "non-alcoholic".)  Not one.  Now it's fair to say that two of Asheville's top industries are beer making and hospitals so it's pretty reasonable to expect that the local shops would cater to people who have been told they can't drink beer in a quantity worth drinking or who have decided to quit to try to lose a few pounds.  Talking of which, my weight is now down to 99.5 kg.  Haven't weighed so little since I left college.  Just noshed a great chunk of Susan's cherry (or non-cherry) strudel so I suspect I'm over th...

And then the steroids wear off On Monday night I had 5 glorious hours of sleep and woke up ready to roar.  Well, ready to pee because of all the water I'd drunk but then ready to roar.  I knew I'd crash about lunchtime, being more used to 7 - 8 hours but I was wrong.  I felt great all day and caught up on a load of paperwork and cleaning up that I'd been putting off forever.  So what they say about chemo is clearly bull. Wednesday - I love Wednesdays because we start work an hour later and I love Susan because she doesn't resent the fact and largely tiptoes around the house.  This morning she got the call to tell her that her school was opening 2 hours late because it was a bit cold outside and I blearily bumped into someone I assume was her in the bathroom about 6:30.  I need to pad the doorframe of the closet, too, if I am going to keep walking into it. Pretty sure I got to school on time - I had a free hour before my first class which was someth...

Here we go ... First day of chemo started with the condemned man eating a hearty breakfast including 10 steroid tablets.  Couple of hours later I can't say I feel like running a marathon.  In fact after the weekend's six soccer games, I don't feel like walking to the bathroom.  No matter - here I am at Cancer Care, my right arm has been drained of blood (again - and then they act surprised that I am anemic) and I've been asked all manner of health questions.  They ask if I am thinking about harming myself (no) or anyone else.  Tricky that one - there are some people who, if I saw them crossing the road in front of me, may cause me to confuse brake and gas pedals.  But that didn't count.  Took a while to explain to the nice nurse that the reason my legs hurt like hell is not because of some weird new symptom but because I ran 12 miles or so over the weekend. And now we (Susan's come with me for physical and moral support - she knows that all the comp...

A Last Day of Insanity I start chemo at 8 a.m. tomorrow so today involved some last minute stupidity.  I'm supposed to get exercise to stop me feeling tired (they really expect me to believe that?) so I refereed three games at a soccer tournament yesterday and three more today.  I'm too miserly to buy a pedometer / Fitbit so I can only guess at how far I walk, jog, sprint, run backwards during a soccer game but it's not unreasonable to say that, as I don't really stand still much for the duration, I cover maybe 3 miles in a 1 hour game.  So now my legs ache and the muscles in them are slowly tying themselves in knots. The no-alcohol beer regime starts tomorrow and I plan to start tonight as turning up at the hospital with a hangover is generally frowned upon.  I have visions of having something like a football pump of bubbling green acid shot into my belly so I'm sure reality will be better. I'm not allowed processed meat at all (I think it's because all...

Taking it easy "Take it easy," they said.  "Get some exercise," they said.  Well, I can manage that - did a mile on the treadmill on Tuesday - took 16 minutes so not exactly knocking myself out.  And then there was yesterday.  Thanks to the non-existent climate change, we had peeing rain the likes of which I haven't seen since New Zealand.  Our basement got flooded at the end of last year and I'm a bit sensitive about such things so, having checked the basement first thing in the morning (before the REALLY heavy rain) I rushed home at 10 a.m. to check it again.  My ersatz outdoor bodges had worked pretty well and just need making permanent.  I cut up a lump of 4" x 4" preserved timber and added it to the top of the border edge outside the basement as further water diversion. Time to look at the source of the water - the houses up the hill from us.  Our neighbour up there is a great guy who, among other things, mows our grass.  His drive ...