Thursday 3 April 2014

4M

I don't say my prayers but I pray for you. I might say "Who cares?" but I know you do. You're the one who knows that my lies aren't true. When I see you cry I think tears are cool.
Tears are cool - Teenage Fanclub

Check up (from 17th March tests): ... Haemoglobin 12.9 ... Neutrophils 2.44 ... Platelets 225 ... Kappa FLCs 60 ...

I'm in the midst of trips to Mexico, Moscow and Manila. 3M. It's a bit like the old days: global strategy consulting; exotic destinations; I've begun a new teaching placement, too. And, later on today, Marisa and I will begin another adventure, taking the children backpacking for a few weeks. A lot of fun, and not relevant for DialM. (But don't worry: when I see you I'll take every opportunity to tell you all about it.)

Of course, there is always another "M", with myeloma. My scores are, actually, getting marginally better, month on month. I've bandied the word "normal" around rather liberally, but my blood count really is almost unremarkable now. Except the excess light chains, proof that something is still lurking there. I wrote a melancholy blog post, from a hotel room in Moscow, about not being able to move on from myeloma. I didn't post it. I won't now. It seems inappropriate, when so many good things are happening. I have really "got my life back", which was all I could have asked for, 12 months ago. A small dose of amnaesia would be nice now maybe; I'd really like to be able to get it completely out of my mind.

Still, maybe I have my "M"s out of sequence? Myeloma came long before Mexico. The "M" directly ahead of me right now, is Manila. And on that I will focus. I will live to experience more "M"s (we all will), so there's little purpose obsessing about the future, to the detriment of now.

Off to get the boys from school, and then a taxi to Heathrow.