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

After a bit of nutty couple of months, life is threatening to return to normal.  Not that I'll be sitting on  the deck drinking beer and eating cheese & pickle sandwiches but at least I should have a clue what I am doing from day to day.  My medicine taking has become so routine that I sometimes forget to do it - must watch that.  Today was the last day of a Revlimid cycle so I should feel a bit more chipper as the week goes on, not that I walk around in a fug while I am taking the stuff.  Tomorrow I get to see the nice ladies at Cancer Care here in Asheville - they'll take an armful of blood and send the results to Wake Forest for my oncologist there to look at.  I then go to see him next week to hear how I'm doing  Apparently he has 24 appointments that day. Rather him than me. I'm keeping busy at home turning the big storeroom under our bedroom into a monster laundry.  This means that all the old boxes, Lego sets, roller coasters, CD cases...

Blimey - is it that long since I last posted here?  Shame on me.  So, what's new?  As the page title is meant to imply, I have been busy busy busy, far more so than I ever was when I was gainfully employed.  So, in no particular order, here's what I have been up to with varying degrees of pleasure (but all on the plus side). Tutoring About this time of year, many kids / parents realise that a decent math grade will be a good idea to take to college or next year at high school and so tutoring work ramps up.  I've been lucky this year with two bright new students whose Bs I am helping them turn into As.  It's good to know the old brain cells can kick into action when required (oddly enough, I have discovered that I can't remember the names of people I have met over the last couple of years but can still solve differential equations - at least first order ones - in my head.  Weird.)   Me and my big mouth If you've been to our house, you'll kn...

leather skin and the fingers of a three year oldHmmm.  Been a long time since the last post.  Nothing ominous about that - I had a few days feeling crappy in there somewhere and suffered from really gruesome jetlag upon my return to NC but I am really feeling fine. I had a lot of fun in NZ getting lab results - the results from some labs got emailed to me (or not) while other labs insisted on mailing them to me for security reasons.  The mailed results never arrived so I hope whoever got them enjoyed them.  So, having had a couple of weeks to recover from the NZ trip, I trotted off to Cancer Care of WNC to find that all my blood numbers are pretty healthy - a couple a bit out of whack and most of them towards the lower end of the  "acceptable" range but nothing to set the alarm bells ringing.  I will have a quick whinge about the format of the new reports, though - the old ones came in a simple table form, one line per item.  It is all now laid out "p...

I'm most pleasantly installed at Jeanette & Kevan's place in Maraetai, housesitting for a couple of days while they are away.  I woke up this morning unsure whether I was awake or not - I've been fighting a cold / sinus infection and today was the "I am an idiot" phase.  My original plan to catch the ferry to Waiheke went completely out the window as I simply couldn't get my arse into gear.  So having consumed my entire daily water requirement as hot tea, I finally hopped on a ferry to downtown Auckland.  I hate to say it but this erstwhile lovely city has become quite ugly - maybe it will be better once it's finished.  I do like the name of one of the takeaway places downtown, though.  Pausing downtown only long enough to buy a delicious but extortionate ice cream cone, I hopped on the next ferry back to sanity. But there was more insanity to come.  I had decided that the Franklin pub looked promising for dinner so I set it in the GPS in my phone...

Everyone remembers where they were when JFK died - I wonder if I will remember that I was sitting on the couch at Georgia's place when I heard that Billy Graham died.  I have the luxury today of having about 10 hours to do the two and a bit hour drive from Waihi to Auckland so I'll take the back roads and soak up some sights.  Until I suddenly realise that I am not going to Auckland, I am going to Hamilton to stay with my friends Hugh & Maureen.  So, with bags of time in hand, off I trotted by the back route (I don't think there is any other kind between Waihi and Hamilton).  Hugh, in true Hugh style, had sen me detailed instructions with which my GPS agreed so I was confident about getting there.  The high spot of my stay, other than Maureen's brilliant cooking, was the one day cricket international between the kiwis and the poms.  Our tickets had us sitting on a grassy bank for 8 hours but a quick appeal to the ticket office revealed that a large ...

As you may recall, I seriously considered staying another night in Wellington but was beset with an excess of energy on Sunday and walked up Kaukau, visited our old house in Ngaio and went to Te Papa so, along with a load of other little odds and  sods, I had pretty much done all I wanted to do in Wellington.  Besides, there was the tail end of a cyclone on its way and I didn't fancy driving through that.  So I headed for New Plymouth. Please excuse the lack of photos.  My beloved Lumix camera has decided that several thousand photos is enough for one lifetime and has shuffled off.  So I am reduced to using the camera in my phone which, to be as nice about it as possible, is a piece of crap with a mind of its own. STOP PRESS!!!!!!!!!! My camera lives!  Holding down the power button for half a minute caused the lens suddenly to groinch into action and I am apparently becameraed again.  I promise to be nicer to it in future and not just shove it in ...

[My camera cable is in the car which is parked 100m up the road and I am too idle to go and get it.  Will do so tomorrow] This morning I woke up moderately bright and fairly early in Taupo (or Wairakei), almost ready to hit the road.  Georgia and I had one last stop to make - at the thermal valley near the Wairakei thermal power station.  Rather than go to the fancy manmade area at Wairakei, we went back to nature and trudged along the slightly crumbly bush tracks.  We were given a thermometer to take with us to measure the temperature of the ground which is a neat idea.  I think we topped out at 60C. Having fed the local ducks and chickens, Georgia and I parted ways, her to head north back to Waihi, me heading south to Wellington.  I could have chosen the fancy new road bypassing Taupo but I fancied a look at the lake and the mountains so I went through downtown.  Scenically this was a good choice but it added maybe an hour to my trip.  This ...