08/07/20 Windscreen wipers and transplants

All as normal for me at the moment. Being Wednesday it's dex day - took my 20mg this morning and felt sufficiently energised to tackle the task of replacing both front windscreen wipers on Sue's car. As usual it was a bit of a puzzle in three-dimensional geometry to figure out how the fittings work but I was cautious and took some photos of the old ones first. All done now without too much trouble. There's a very gentle rain outside so choosing the right moment for a walk is going to be critical - haven't done as much as I should have done for the last couple of days and mustn't let it slip too far.

Something of a mixed day on the very supportive and helpful UK Myeloma Support group on Facebook. Some people going ahead with transplant and getting excited about harvesting, others in various stages of recovery, mostly not having a great time, and rather too many deaths or close to it. Here's just one:

"Dads chemotherapy treatment has now been stopped. A joint decision between the consultant and him, the last few horrendous months of chemo, Dex, various heavy dose painkillers, anti sickness, Zometa, radiotherapy, mri’s, ct scans, ambulance emergencies, hospital admissions with neutropenic sepsis and all the side effects along the way have been too much for him. We had the call yesterday that now treatment is stopping he may just have weeks (not months)"

That, more or less, is what awaits us all at the end of the line. Or lines. It's why I will not rule out the one-way ticket to Switzerland for when I get close to that stage.

Back to transplants - I'm surprised that so many people are now going ahead without any apparent concern about COVID-19. Perhaps three months of lockdown has made everybody too blase abut it. For myself, it's a NO until we know there won't be a second wave, and/or we have a vaccine that works for immune-compromised people, and/or at least one effective treatment. Or until the current Len/Dex regime and the subsequent Len-only maintenance stop working and the paraproteins start going up again, which will inevitably happen sooner or later. Next set of bloods due at the end of next week...