10/08/22 (2) Hot again

 Another blisteringly hot day, with more to come...

Went out this morning to post an Amazon return and fill the car up before Friday's planned Suffolk coast expedition. Expensive business these days! Spent most of the rest of the day avoiding the heat; nothing else to report.

10/08/22 Birthday

Today is my myeloma's third birthday. Not the actual date of diagnosis, but the day we knew beyond reasonable doubt that I'd got it. Not so very many years ago, before modern treatments began, I'd have been dead by now. Instead I'm hoping for more time in remission, and when that ends there are plenty more line of treatment to try as well as new gene therapies coming along all the time. Looking forward to a good few more years of reasonable health before it finally gets me, or something else gets in first.

09/08/22 (2) Plumbing

Not the day I expected. The macerator behind the WC in the upstairs shower room came to the end of its working life with a total failure that left rather a lot of foul water in places where it shouldn't be. I'll spare readers the details. Not pleasant, and a long difficult clean-up. Many thanks to Sue for her part in that

Our emergency plumber came round mid-afternoon, and yes we need a new macerator. That'll be sometime next week, meaning I have to go downstairs every time...  Before that, we went to Oaklands  Park for lunch (sausage rolls, forgivable under the circumstances). Grass extremely dry, parched, and brown. As bad as I've ever seen, remembering back to 2018, 1967, and even (just) 1956.

Planning our annual trip to the Suffolk coast on Friday, wondered whether it would be possible to fit both the scooter and Walter the Walker into the car at the same time. The answer is yes, just, if you take all Walter's wheels off.

09/08/22 Consultation

Face-to-face with haematologist Dr.Ch, who has just retired from his NHS work after forty years. Glad to say he's continuing his private practice. Nothing much to discuss as my numbers continue to be good (and no concerns over that slightly high GGT figure). So we continue in full remission and with no treatment for another month...

07/08/22 WJF

Went to the Writtle Jazz Festival - first live music since the same thing last year! Took the scooter and no problems getting it in and out of the car by myself, so another step forward for independence.

Hot. Not ridiculous heatwave hot, but more than hot enough.

05/07/22 (2) Progress

My hearing aids being four years old, I took them, along with their charger, in today to be sent off for new batteries and service. They gave me a loan pair (exactly the same make and model) to use while mine are away. This is the new charger that comes with them: 

This monstrosity is about three times the size of my original one, and takes up rather too much desktop space.

I think it's called progress.

05/07/22 40th

I've just had my 40th set of blood test results since this all began. Paraproteins still undetectable (that's after no treatment at all since mid-January) and after two of my Free Light Chain numbers were outside normal range last month, now they're all comfortably normal again. Moral: if the movements are only small, probably no need for concern. Just wait for the next set of results.

The one strange thing this time is in the liver results - the enzyme gamma glutamyl transferase, which is usually in normal range, has jumped a bit high. Raised GGT is an indicator of a number of things, including drinking too much. Well, I used to consume a fair amount of red wine in the evenings and my GGT stayed normal apart from a couple of months when it went up a little (but never for even two months in a row) - but I haven't touched a drop since mid-January when I came out of Broomfield Hospital's Stroke Unit with the comment that my brain scan showed 100% normal. Maybe so, but I completely lost all desire for alcohol in any form, and it hasn't (yet) come back.

So the raised GGT must mean something else, if it isn't just a blip. I've been taking close to daily maximum Paracetamol as part of the recovery from neck surgery in May, and I'm wondering if that may be a factor. Something to talk about in my face-to-face with my haematologist on Monday... (slightly edited version of a post on the facebook Myeloma Support UK group)