Sunday 26 August 2018

Corse

I'll be riding shotgun underneath the hot sun, feeling like a someone
Shotgun - George Ezra *

On vacation

Here's my very last ixa, a few seconds before I swallowed it this week. Harmless looking little thing. After seven months, this leg of chemo is almost over. I'm feeling increasingly less dependent on my stash of pills, even the painkillers, which is some kind of progress.

It would be great if I felt confident that this chapter was coming to a coherent close. But my myeloma is never like that. Inconsistency being its one certain feature. One of my consultants sent me for yet another CT recently, which showed up - as she suspected - that I still have residual infection in my lungs. It also showed up a load of fractures, probably new ones, in my ribs and also my sternum. That would explain all the pain I've endured these last few months.

Why things are still breaking, is not clear, if my myeloma is in remission. Then my most recent light chain score came in, and it's up not down. (I had kind of anticipated this - purely on the basis that my myeloma is always contrary.) So, in one possible version of the story, there's a load of myeloma in my ribs that is now resistant to the treatment I am on and fighting back. If that turns out to be the case, it will totally screw up all our plans.

However, for now, we're continuing to assume that the chemo has worked sufficiently to get me to transplant. I'm booked in for a stem cell harvest process beginning at the end of September.

In the mean time, we're away in Corsica. The boys are learning to sail and practicing their windsurfing. Marisa is enjoying (I think!) having a go at water sports too, and definitely appreciating not having any domestic duties to attend to. I'm lying on loungers, or dipping in the pool, and taking my last few pills. We'll be back in London in another week. Whatever the reality of my myeloma is, it can wait until then.

* Whatevs Summer innit. Lyndon taught me the moves to this one.