Wednesday 21 June 2017

Psychophysical

Destiny is calling me. Open up my eager eyes
Mr Brightside - The Killers

I decided this week's update should come before my clinic appointment. After all, 99.8% of my life occurs between appointments. I live life merely reaching from one appointment to the next.

It's been a strange - and not always easy - few weeks, accompanied by a sense of foreboding of what is ahead. I've felt increasingly tired, run down and achy. The weird thing about symptoms is that even with many years of self observation I am no closer to being able to separate physical from psychological. I guess it is simply not possible. Consequently, I am unable to tell for certain if I am suffering anaemia or depression. They could both deliver the listlessness; the lack of energy, interest and concentration that I have been feeling.

Then again, I have been feeling much better the last few days, so maybe it was just a virus. Anything is possible. It's not nice feeling watered down. I'm glad its gone again.

Marisa sent me to the GP to get some better painkillers (back on codeine), and to have my repeated complaint of possible kidney stone problems checked out. The Dr gave me the impression that she thought my symptoms were more likely bone pain than anything else. But a urine test showed positive for blood, so maybe I am right. Either way, I will at least get a referral to have my kidneys checked over.

Life feels even more hand to mouth than normal because if this week's appointment is a bad one - another +100 - that's basically the signal for going back in to treatment. I do so want to make it through the summer first. But the waiting is killing me almost more than the myeloma, right now.

As I'm preparing to post this, the hospital calls. This week's clinic is cancelled. I ask for my blood results over the phone. My light chains (KFLC) are 654. That's +50 on last month - just little enough, I would imagine, to tide me over another month. And my Hb level is back up to 12.0, so no dramatic anaemia, either. I'm grateful, really. But if you are hit by a speeding car, you have a lot less time to think about it than if you are flattened by a road roller like Otto in A Fish Called Wanda.

"I'm going to k...k...k...kill you!"