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

It's not all doom and gloom It all started 30-some years ago in Auckland.  I had to meet with the local IBM guys on a regular basis.  One of them, whose name I have mercifully forgotten, had the hairiest nostrils in the world, with bulging clumps of ginger hairs reaching halfway down his top lip.  During boring parts of the meetings, which were plentiful, I would wonder if it were possible to grab said hairs with a pair of pliers and swing him round my head. As a result I took to regular nose hair maintenance.  I soon discovered that nail scissors don't do much of a job, especially in a late night hotel room after a few beers.  So I switched to yanking them out with the forceps from my toolkit.  Not a pleasant experience, leading to tears, sneezing and just a touch of mild pain. This morning I noticed the tell-tale stragglers starting to appear so bravely grabbed the forceps and yanked.  Smooth as anything, the whole lot came out without any...

Oi! I didn't order this Let's be honest - diarrhoea is a pretty good way to lose weight and insomnia helps you get a lot done in the day if you accept that you are awake so you might as well get up.  It's even fun getting cranky with the kids at school (who are aware of what's going on). But my latest little visitor really sucks - I've lost a huge chunk of my sense of taste.  Can't put my finger on exactly what but I think it's the salty bit that's gone away.  I just had a cheese and pickle butty made from extortionately expensive vintage cheddar and imported mustard pickle at $6 a jar. Followed by non-cheap fresh strawberries and an organic orange.  Tasted like cheese whizz followed by soft cucumber. My ever-loving and long suffering Susan has offered to make it up to me (not that it's her fault) by taking me out to dinner at the Cinnamon Kitchen.  How can a guy refuse? Incidentally, if I didn't mention it earlier, if you're looking...

You can take the blood out of the mathematician... but you can't take the mathematician out of the blood. In case you're interested in my test results (oh, yummee!!) here's a graph of the 4 main ones created with the Desmos free graphing program (free advert for free software) The 4 graphs show the things I have most out of whack - haemoglobin, white blood cells, red blood cells and hematocrit (no idea what that is) For each statistic, I have drawn in the upper and lower acceptable levels as dotted lines.  In general, I  want to see the plot lines go up into the space between the dotted lines.  So I'm heading there at a decent rate but a way to go for most of them.  Gotta love those folks at CCWNC! Hermatocrit White Cells Red Cells Hemoglobin

What nice people I've told all the teachers and the kids at school about my multiple myeloma and the support I've had has been great all round.  The teachers are all used now, I think, to having me tell them honestly "How are you?" in the morning (a 3 word report is enough - they don't want or need to know my blood count though I'm happy to tell anyone who is interested). I told the kids that I teach about the illness and some of the side effects of the drugs they may be on the pointed end of (didn't bother with the flatulence and I tend to sit down rather than fall over when the knees get wobbly).  They've all been great when I have got a bit hyper on steroid days or a bit crabby on "coming down" days.  Haven't reduced anyone to tears yet so I suppose that's a good thing. A few people have said they'll pray for me (which is appreciated regardless of their religion) though nobody has asked me to pray with them which is also ap...

Not quite a perfect storm last night but a bit of a mess.  Started with band practice at Mark's new house - new to me at least.  I put its address into my phone and off I went.  It's up one of those winding mountain roads north of here and I was delighted when my cellphone / GPS decided we weren't in Kansas any more.  I tried phoning him and couldn't get a signal but did manage to send a message.  He and Monty talked me in from the church down the road.  Just the 3 of us last night - no drummer - and it was a pretty relaxed affair.  I thought the rhythm was a lot more solid, too but don't tell Paul I said so. I won't go into details but I lost 4 pounds overnight again - I just wish I could do it in one go.  Up brightish and early to get to chemo at 8:30.  This is weird but I had a pretty good time -everyone was super-cheerful and chatty today: the guy who took my blood was a "Young Ones" TV series fan and we talked about that and Reggie Perr...

Well, I suppose sitting and staring at the wall is one option but those folks at CCWNC have got that one sorted out.  After a couple of "interesting" nights' sleep (long time since I've stayed up until 1:30 a.m. purely because I wasn't tired), I rolled into Friday wondering what the weekend had in store. Now I know. Sam is playing Claudio in "Much Ado About Nothing" and we'd seen it on Thursday so Friday was date night for Susan and me - early dinner at Copper River Grill (washed down by what I hope is my first and last O'Doulls beer) followed by The Lady in the Van at the Carolina Cinemas.  Delightful movie and, despite our watching it in the sofa cinema, I don't think I even yawned, let alone go to sleep.  By the time we'd driven over to the school to pick up Sam at 9:45 I was drooping though and I think I was asleep before my head hit the pillow when we got home. Woke up at a decent hour on Saturday (halleluiah!) and trotted off t...

A linguistic disclaimer by John Mycroft Just a gentle reminder that I, John Mycroft, expatriate Brit / Kiwi of this parish,  do use a few words in this blog that some Americans think that Brits think are offensive.  I can guarantee that every word I use would be aired unbleeped on the BBC and / or has been spoken without too much complaint in the British House of Commons or in the New Zealand Parliament building. So please take my word for it that, while you may not hear these words in the Queen's Christmas Speech, they really shouldn't have you rushing for the smelling salts. Ahem.. Bloody / bleeding Drongo Bugger (this was the punchline in a hilarious set of Toyota truck ads in New Zealand) Sod Pee Crap Arse I think that's about it though, as the election draws nearer I may turn the heat up a bit.  I promise no F-bombs or worse (unless Ted Cruz cancels Medicare).

Am I losing it or merely forgetting where I've put it? One of the problems of teaching a course like robotics where you buy new gear for the students is dissuading them from trying it out until you have set the groundwork in place. ("I wonder what happens to the $400 oscilloscope if I plug the probes into an electric socket?")  So when I bought a couple of minorly pricey kits for the end of year projects, I put the first one to arrive "somewhere safe" so the students couldn't do odd things to it and so that both groups of students could start their projects at the same time.  If you're saying "..and then you forgot where you put it," you are clearly paying attention.  Darned if I could find it. So, let's see if you can solve the mystery.   Where would I hide a robotic crane kit?  (a) In an old coffee can marked "Christmas tree lights", (b) in my bookcase behind a can of Spam that I won (?) in a competition when it was safe t...

Insomnia, where is thy stingalingaling? I can't really say I enjoy sleeping as I'm not there to appreciate it.  However, getting up to go to the bathroom at 2:15 and finding that my feeble brain thinks that's it for the night has a certain lack of charm, too.  So, having set myself a couple of deadlines ("If I'm not asleep by 3 a.m., I'm getting up.")  I've been up since 4:05 and what better or more traditional way of celebrating than with a pot of Typhoo.  Not a bag dunked in a mug but a proper laid out on a tray (no lace doily) pot of char complete with milk bottle, spoon and ramekin to drop the bags in when the time comes.  But somewhere hidden deep in the bowels of our expensive kitchen (thanks, Annie) lurks our big green teapot.  I can picture it in every cupboard - up front and centre in the plate cupboard, lurking with the weird half bottles of cooking tequila above the stove, everywhere.  But can I find it?  Nah.  I spread the searc...

They warned me about my brain taking a break.  They were wrong - I am sharp as tacks and even helped a student with his trigonometry homework today.  (I'm not a math teacher any more but let's not get into that.)  I am finding I can do integral calculus in my head and can finally remember all the connections on robotics and electronics components.  But I have become the expert at bloody stupid.  I really did eat last Wednesday's dinner for lunch (not all of it - Susan always cooks enough for left overs: I just happened to eat the leftovers first).  And on Friday I decided to look the other way while hammering a piece of flooring into place.  Good job, too, I suppose, as otherwise I would have seen me mash my left index finger with the hammer: great shot, just missing the nail and neatly trimming the flesh off the tip of the finger.  Didn't half bleed - one way to drop the blood pressure.  Then I lost my laptop charger (Lenovo have invented ...

The idea of a disease support group has always made me say "no thanks" and I still don't fancy the thought of sitting with a load of other people discussing symptoms.  However, I can't express how grateful I am to the people around me who are propping me up right now.  Susan, of course, is her usual unflappable, patient and understanding self, despite the crap she has to put up with at work.  To have to come home to discover that I have eaten tonight's dinner for lunch can't possibly fill her heart with joy. I enjoy the regular phone calls from Ithaca where we talk about nothing in particular.  Susan's sister Jean keeps me up to date on what's happening in Texas and shares, just a little, her own experiences with cancer.  Folks at school are, as always, curious and cheerful and put up with my actually answering the traditional greeting of "How are you?" honestly.  I feel I owe it to them to tell them I feel like crap, a bit wobbly, starving ...

Mr Cruz I watched your Super Tuesday speech with mounting disgust last night.  Your obvious joy at the prospect of removing healthcare from tens of millions of Americans appalls me.  You intend to “repeal every word of Obamacare” on day 1 of your presidency and avoid any form of socialized medicine which I take to mean you will abolish Medicare, too. I am a part-time teacher earning less than $25,000 a year.  I was dropped from my school’s health insurance plan when my hours were reduced.  Fortunately I am old enough for Medicare and, even more fortunately I enrolled in part D just a few weeks before being diagnosed with multiple myeloma, cancer of the bone marrow.  Medicare is covering the bulk of my expenses and the premiums and tax I am paying for it are moderately affordable. Imagine if I were 5 years younger and in the same position with you as president: I could not afford health insurance even if I didn’t know I had cancer and I can only ima...