Early Spring, Late Treatment and Ten Years On

Around here we may still have a couple of weeks to go before spring officially arrives but for all intents and purposes it's here.  We've got double-digit temperatures, people in short sleeves, outdoor beer pubs, the skating rink on the canal closed down, and with our days filled with glowing sunshine, the snow is melting faster than water down a drain.  That's the good news.

The not so good news is it feels like forever waiting for my radiation appointments.  Last week I spent some time at the hospital for tests and bloodwork.  I had a pulmonary session - blowing into a tube with graphs catching my lung strength on a computer - an EKG and a heart scan - an ultrasound, which was kinda cool.  Yesterday I was back again for a bone scan.  But still no word on a date for my radiation sessions, followed by my bone marrow transplant.

By way of reminder, I have multiple myeloma, a kind of cancer that affects the bone marrow and the blood.  If you want a re-cap, click on the label cancer2 at the bottom of this post.  As many of you know this isn't the first time I've been through this.  The last time was about 2 years ago.  The upside is it's treatable not terminal.  But the treatment can get a little intense and tiring from time to time.

Anyhoo, I'm anxious to get this on and over with because I know it will take a couple of months to recover from four days of 2 intense radiation sessions each and the five months of chemo and an array of pharmaceuticals - oral and sub-cutaneous (needles) - several times a day.  And it seems the more you take, the more you have to take because the ones originally prescribed for a certain purpose have side effects for which you need more drugs to deal with and on and on.  I'm feeling like a guinea pig, but overall I'm not feeling too bad.  The outcome of the chemo, radiation and finally a bone marrow transplant is it sets my immune system for a loop so I have to be wary of infection.  I recently battled a flu bug that left me near deaf with infected ear canals for two weeks.  That seems to be clearing up - so I can hear you now.

Earlier this week, I got tagged by How To Become A Cat Lady...But Without The Cats - who I call "CL" because it's too long to type that title every time I refer to her.  She's a great blogger, a great writer and leaves me pithy, thoughtful comments.  So, as much as I detest these things, for her I'll respond.   The idea of the meme is to share with folks what you hope life holds for you 10 years down the road.  Here goes:

1. I'd love to be cancer free
2. Be healthy and fit and have all my faculties
3. To celebrate my 15th wedding anniversary with the love of my mid-life
4. To be able to sit back and watch and enjoy my grandkids grow
5. To be able to bask in the success achieved by my own and my wife's kids in their own lives...they're great kids and we're proud of them.
6.  To be surrounded by loving family and friends
7.  To travel to Maine, California, Florida, Central America and Europe
8.  I don't know if I'll still be blogging in 10 years, but if I am I hope I still have the great blogging folks I know now to call my friends
9.  I hope I still have my sight to enjoy reading as much as I do now.
10. I hope I have my hearing to enjoy listening to music as much as I do now.

Pretty simple, really.  And it all depends on #1.  But there are improvements in this area of medicine every day.  I've got my fingers crossed for a cure.

The other part of this meme is to pass it on to 10 more bloggers.  But, hey, they're my friends.  So, I'm not going to do that.  If you want a sense of who they are check out my blogroll or take a look at my regular commenters.  They're pretty great people.  Please visit their blogs.  And have a great weekend!