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

Having bought all that gardening stuff last week, what was the obvious thing to do at the weekend?  Yup - go out and buy some more.  So off we went to Lowes for some azaleas, a white rhododendron and a ton of topsoil.  Then, as I am not allowed to play in the dirt, we cracked the whip over poor Sam to get him to cart a ton of complost from the compost heap to go with the ton of topsoil. Meanwhile I put on a mask and gloves and spread lime all over the place to get our acid soil into neutral territory with a bit of luck.  So our lawn looks like a cocaine truck has had a nasty accident on it. Tomorrow is my last day with the help of a sub at school - Chris has done a brilliant job and I've only got to keep these guys gainfully engaged for the next 3 or 4 weeks: the seniors will be checking out earlier than that.  The robotics class are working on a robot of their choosing (we have a selection of robots that throw empty soda cans, fire rubber bands, play loud mus...

... Don't do any gardening, they said. Okey doke.  Sounds fair to me.  So on Wednesday, after my two classes at school, I headed to Lowes to buy some storage boxes for my robotics bits (the cardboard boxes they were shipped to me in are less than serviceable and mostly long gone) and a couple of bags of lime for the lawn.  I am supposed to refrain from digging in the dirt to avoid the mould and microbes that live there so I reckoned spreading some lime would be OK.  And what greeted me as I arrived?  A heap of 24 split bags of sundry gardening supplies - landscaping pebbles, fertiliser and yes, lime.  Marked down from $245 to $15 and all piled on a palette wrapped in saran wrap. Never could ignore a bargain, especially as I was going to buy gravel and lime later in the year anyway, so I bought it.  Which left me the unenviable task of loading it into the Subaru.  And, even more fun, unloading it when I got home.  Only then did I think "And w...

So much for the Day +100 optimism.  It turns out that my transplant wasn't entirely successful.  I still have this crap inside me although the rate at which it is spreading has decreased.  I am supposed to be showing a zero M-spike but all it has done is drop from 0.7 to 0.2.  No, I don't really know what that means other than that this bastard thing is going to get me sooner or later and probably sooner. I'll be going back on chemotherapy in the near future - a reduced dose compared to my previous one - and we can only hope that our lovely government doesn't defund Medicare in the meantime as this stuff isn't cheap. Meanwhile, I have spent the morning re-installing Windows 10 on Susan's computer after it developed all manner of idiotic behaviour.  I think I have managed to install everything essential and my paranoid multiple backups appear to have been unnecessary as all her documents, pictures, emails and music are all there.  There's no sign of M...

OK - this is it.  Day 100 (plus a few, courtesy of weekends, Easter and stuff).  So we've driven possibly one last time to Wake Forest Baptist Health cancer center to see what kind of shape I'm in.  I've looked at my num bres, of course, and they are all either right in the range they should be in or very close.  The only ones that stand out are my Kappa and Lambda free light chains - Lambda is OK but Kappa is still too high but way down on where it started (as in it started at 76 and is now down to 2.2 so I guess that's an improvement).  I don't get a lot of readings for these things as they involve collecting my urine for 24 hours and then having it analysed in the lab whereas the blood tests are analysed while-u-wait. I hope it's not a sign - the harp downstairs (or is it a piano?) - is playing "Morning Has Broken", my unfavourite hymn from school.  If all goes well today, I will be going back to school kinda unannounced over the next couple of day...

We're heading for the magical Day +100 when all is revealed as to the state of my health.  From where I'm sitting (more about that in a minute), I have never felt better though I am still not all that physically fit.  This week is Susan's spring break so Sam and I were left to our own devices while she swanned off to Arizona for some very hard-earned R&R.  Our weekend started at lunchtime on Friday when we drove up to Danville in Kentucky for Sam to experience a bit of immersion at Centre College, one of the two colleges that he has narrowed his search to.  For some odd reason, I managed to wind up on my own for dinner at a definitely not Michelin-rated barbecue joint (Brothers in 4th St) for the most excellent half rack of ribs I've ever had.  I shared a table with a family from Greensboro who didn't seem at all perturbed when I wiped the table down with hand sanitiser before joining them.  They were good company, the food was excellent and my g...

... if you see the top of a trail you have never taken before and the bottom of a trail you have never taken before, do not assume they are the same trail.  I did that at Biltmore today. It is a lovely grumpy day today - temperature in the 50s and threat of rain. (It actually started raining the moment I got in the car to come home). Someone has laid fresh wood chips on the path round the bass pond to deter me from heading off the beaten track again. The fence in the picture is the one I got stuck behind a few weeks ago. At a rough punt, I walked between 4 and 5 miles today. My route is marked in yellow,starting and ending by the lagoon, top right.. It's odd to think that just 3 months ago I was really pushing myself to do 5 laps a day of the 200 metre walking track at Wake Forest. And that was dead flat and I had Marvin to lean on - not that I miss him. I also had to wear the Darth Vader mask which is now a less than fond memory (though it's still in the glove ...

I thought yesterday was going to be a nice gentle trot around the JBL soccer fields in pursuit of a couple of under-12 soccer games.  Lesson 1 was "Check the weather forecast".  I'd looked at the temperature - 50 degrees going up to 66 later in the day - and dressed accordingly.  I should have looked at the note that said "Howling gales from the north."  Thanks, Canada.  Fortunately, I had sweaters and jackets in abundance so, while not working on the games, I was able to bundle up. Alas, on the second game there was one young lady who thought that playing back meant standing on the 18 yard line for the entire half.  So I stood and watched her do just that, occasionally needing to break into a casual stroll to keep level with her when she went back to chat with the goalie.  Sam got to freeze while watching her in the second half. All round it was a fun couple of games, though.  Definitely nowhere up to my admittedly low level of fitness last sea...