Whatever happened to thalidomide?

This last month has seen me move to a new (to me) drug, Revlimid, which is apparently a development from thalidomide.  I suspect the Distiller's Company is trying to make back the money they lost on thalidomide by bumping up the price of this beast (about $30,000 a month, very little of which, I am delighted to say, we pay).  My first month of taking it is coming to an end and I'm pretty glad about it though I don't know what next month etc has in store.  I took it for 21 days (last one is today) and will then have 7 days off during which I hope the minor side effects will go away.  The side effects are my old friends - my appetite is back to that of a 100 kg man rather than that of a Russian weightlifter, I still don't sleep Tuesday nights (that's the steroids) and I have lost my sour sense of taste which makes my exorbitantly expensive British pickles taste like crap and a carefully prepared Caesar salad taste a bit like paint.
On Wednesday, Susan and I head for Wake Forest University to meet with someone who wants to tell me all about a stem cell transplant (this uses my own stem cells, no yucky snaffling of bits form someone else).  I'm glad that Susan is taking me as a sleepless night followed by a 2 hour drive on an interstate with every insane driver in the southern states would not be a good combo.

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