Yesterday gave us the first hard frost of the year, with added fog that lasted all day. Temperature never got above 2 C. Here's the familiar shot out of a back window:
Otherwise, no news on the myeloma front except that I was exceptionally bad at falling asleep during the day and evening yesterday. I just keep taking the tablets and we're at the stage of the four-week cycle where I start thinking about the next set of bloods (to be taken on the 31st, full results a week later).
Sooner or later the paraprotein numbers will start going up again, and that will mean making a hard decision between stem cell transplant or moving on to second line chemo. Psychologically there's a big point here - as long as I carry on as I am at the moment, it's possible to believe that remission will carry on without limit, or at least until I drop dead of something else. But once I go from first line to second line that view becomes impossible - things become finite and third line becomes inevitable. And with each new line of chemo the treatment becomes less effective, the side-effects become harder to deal with, and the remissions get shorter. Not many people get beyond fifth line.The effects of myeloma on bone, kidneys, etc. etc. get stronger and the inevitable end becomes not only closer but a lot less pleasant than where I am at the moment. That's why I start getting a bit nervous around this stage of the cycle, waiting for the next set of blood test results. As long as the paraproteins stay at zero everything is ok, once they start going up again, we're in another world. And not a very pleasant one.
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