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

 Dunno if it's the chemo but I slept like a baby until 4:30 this morning and am ready to roll though my appointment is at 1:30 this afternoon.  Same treatment as yesterday - having a couple of pints of stuff slowly dripped into me.  First job after breakfast will be to shave my left arm - having all the hair yanked out of your arm with an industrial-grade Bandaid (tm) really loses its appeal after the first couple of dozen times. The day has started pretty normally for a day in a hotel - begging the hotel wifi's permission to get email, most of which told me it was Black Friday and that I desperately needed to buy a load of stuff.  No news of trump's demise so it was a waste of effort checking. A bit buggered so more tomorrow which promises to be busier. 

 We had a fond farewell from Sam this morning as Susan and I headed for Charlotte for my two weeks of treatment at Atrium Hospital.  The back of Susan's Subaru is loaded with clothes, books, computer and other necessities of 21st century living before we move into our new temporary digs.  I'm currently hooked up to an IV which is dripping the third batch of stuff I've never heard of into me, including something to stop me barfing (which I have felt no inclination to do).  It's getting on for 5 pm. and our apartment is only about a mile away so rush hour traffic shod not be a problem.  We haven't checked in yet and, considering how much stuff we've brought in addition to 2 suitcases of clothes, we're hoping that they have a sturdy baggage cart or two. I've resisted the temptation to bring a guitar and have settled for a pile of DVDs, half a dozen books that range from sci-fi to calculus, the inevitable laptop and, of course, a cribbage board and a deck ...

 Another round of tests in Charlotte last week to see if it is money down the tubes to treat me.  Good news is that just about all my numbers are in the acceptable range or close to it so we are all systems go.  Our bags are slowly getting packed - Susan is far more methodical than I am in that area.  I reckon that if I have all my meds, a couple of clean pairs of y-fronts and a functional credit card, I'm ready to roll. We are going to be stuck in a hotel suite (we've coughed up a few extra bucks to get more space) for 3 weeks so a paperback and a laptop really aren't going to cut it. The neighborhood ladies delivered a magnificent care package to Susan yesterday evening - a handful of novels, some wine and a bunch of other goodies I may be tempted to sample - so she's looking well set.  I'll be taking along a couple of stamp albums, some jigsaws (the ladies brought me a rather tricky looking one) and my rugby watching laptop (I believe I have now silenced all ...

A longish day today, most of which fell upon the shoulders of Susan , my wife, driver, emotional support and generally wonderperson.  A not very early start got us to Charlotte a bit early to have a dollop of marrow and a chip of bone removed from my pelvis for lab examination.  All done at Atrium with amazing skill, kindness and gentleness, it was all over in an hour.  The twilight sedation left me feeling a bit dopy and they loaded me into a wheelchair rather than have me stagger around the place drunkenly.  I dozed most of the two hour drive home so I can see why they insisted on me having a driver.  It's now 8:30 and I can barely keep my eyes open.  I've also got typos in about 20% of the words so I will call it quits for tonight.  Another 3 hour trip to Messino Cancer Center here in Asheville tomorrow accompanied by a handful of steroids so tomorrow night may be a Flying High and rugby marathon. It  actually turned out to be half a night'...

 I am rapidly coming to the conclusion that all Window apps are written by people who have never had to use a Windows app but I am determined to get the hang of it again. Second day of chemo at  Messino Cancer Care today - I didn't blog about the first one.  Not particularly grueling, starting off with having an IV line stuck in my arm followed by a couple of pints of various liquids being dripped in my vein.  The liquids are cold which is a bit disconcerting to start with though my nurse was spot on with the needle and complimented me on my pencil sized veins right on the surface of the skin.   I would post a picture but I hadn't taken my camera and my $1.95 cellphone has pathetic zoom out range.  Will try harder in future. Today's drugs included a handful of a drug favoured by dead Tour de France cyclists so sleep may not be a major feature of my night.  I do apparently have friends in high places and TVNZ is showing a T20 cricket match bet...

Morning, All They said the multiple myeloma treatment wasn't permanent and it's back so here we go again.  This time we're going for a thing called CAR-T which the doctors tell me is far longer lasting and needs less maintenance.  A recent brain scan, not connected to the MM, revealed that I am decidedly lacking in certain grey matter and heading for Alzheimer's so yesterday Susan drove me to Charlotte for a load of tests.  I'm delighted to say that, other than remembering the list of words, they were all pretty much a piece of cake.  This senitility test included having to identify a giraffe - the "intelligence test" that a certain orange person was so proud of acing recently.  I'm sure he did fine on reading the list of big words, too (none of which was "acetominophen"). Oddly enough, if you read a list of ten common words to me, the chances of my remembering more than about 4 are pretty slim. I was also working on half a hearing aid whic...