10 months since my last post.....yikes. I wanted to write this post for a while, but something else always seems to come up. The picture you see really is the pile of pills I take in the evening, although we have now added one more. It makes me think of a conversation I was having with a friend a few months ago; he also suffers from multiple health issues, and we were commiserating about our problems. After he shared his, he asked me to describe my situation. As I finished, his eyes were a bit wide and he said, "You win!" HAHAHAHA
I also take a pile of pills at breakfast, but unlike the ones in the picture, they are mostly supplements to try and keep my health up. The point here, as my wife notes, is I take a lot of pills. The good news of this is that they seem to be working!
I may have already said this in another blog, but I am "generally" healthy in the sense that I am not in the hospital, not in painful agony, not currently taking chemotherapy, and not getting substantially worse. I am almost fanatical about taking my pills and doing my morning and evening routines. In some sense, I feel a bit like I am juggling multiple balls at the same time, and so far, things are going OK. Keep juggling! Kudos to my wife who tolerates and supports me in my fanaticism.
I admit that there is some anxiety underneath all of this. What if I miss several doses of something and one of my multiple conditions starts to get out of hand? What this be like a wooden tower of Jenga slowly tipping over? Hopefully not, but that is what is in my head!!
So what is the latest?
Overall, more of the same, which is a good thing. My M-spike is holding at 1, although I don't think it has dropped below one (like it was sometimes doing before) in quite a while. My oncologist moved me to Zometa treatments every 3 months with full blood work-ups and meetings every six months. I had a recent PET scan (my annual tradition is usually a full-body CAT scan, but they did PET this year to see if there were active tumors). The results showed NO large very active tumors. 👍 Obviously, there are still myeloma cells in my bone marrow, or I would not have a suppressed immune system, ongoing fatigue and weakness, and any M-spike, but it seems like the cancer is just maintaining status quo for now -- it is keeping itself there and alive, but not growing quickly which would show up on the PET scan. The only worrisome sign are the labs that track the proteins that can damage my kidneys. They have been slowly going up, so we are keeping an eye on those.
We had another great report recently -- for the first time in 5 years, my dentist said I showed improvement in my gum disease. Wahoo! After being frustrated for all this time that I could not seem to get rid of the gum disease, I switched to a new toothpaste designed to attack gingivitis and periodontitis, and I am using an Amway mouthwash; one of these, or maybe the combo, has lead to this success. The periodontitis is not gone, but I feel like I beat it back under the bushes. Hopefully the next report will be even better.
Having Cancer During COVID
I don't think I'm alone in feeling like this year has been one awful roller coaster ride. It didn't start too badly at the beginning, but now 2020 feels like: