(Im)patience

I don't want anything. I know it's not your fault
The Adults Are Talking - The Strokes

... KFLC = 154 ... κ/λ = 22 ...

Lockdown does drag on, doesn't it? Endless repetitions of the same until you can't even remember how many weeks it's been. While 2020 is destined to go down in history as a year of pandemic, for me it was a year of recovery after 2 years of treatment. I breezed through a lot of last year's pandemic restrictions, but even my patience is wearing a bit thin by now. The longer it's gone on, I'll admit, the more I've struggled with everyone else's gripes and groans. I know one can grow through adversity. I know one must learn to make the best of the situation one finds oneself in. Honestly, I worked all that through in my head ages ago. I would really prefer not to be forced to revisit it. I'm at peace with my uncertain future, the loss of autonomy and agency, the excessive amount of wasted time, and the ever-present lurking mortal risk. But I'm just as happy not to disturb the surface of that particular pool.

Hearing people articulate those thoughts now, makes me feel a little lonely too, because it reminds me that as well as experiencing the physical ravages of myeloma alone, you inevitably go through a lot of the mental journey alone too. It's hard for anyone to comprehend something they have not experienced. Last March we had a holiday booked and paid for. The travel agent tried, for a while, to shirk his responsibility to refund our money. In our conversations, he almost seemed to seek my sympathy for his predicament - the pandemic represented a mortal threat to a business he'd been building for years.

"I had a successful business too, once", I replied, a little acerbically.

So... I too will be glad when lockdown is over now. Not so much because of it's privations, but because I'm done with thinking about them. It's gone on long enough! Once the elderly and vulnerable have a modicum of protection, I can no longer see justification for continuing to blight our children's lives. The last year has taken a hefty toll on them. Our collective mental health deserves a bit of respite now please.

There is good news. My light chains had been trudging very slowly upwards. I can't find where I wrote the last few results down, but if my memory serves, they had crept up from 130 to 150 to 170, and I was anticipating they'd be 200 by this month. But at today's appointment, they're back down to 150. And the ratio is right back down to 22 - as low as it's been. My myeloma appears to be static. I worried for a while that 2020 would be my only clear year (much of it wasted due to covid!), and more recently I've been assuming 2021 is the only window I have before I'll probably be dealing with my myeloma all over again. Today I'm imagining I might get a run at 2022 as well.

Have vaccine, will travel (just as soon as they open the airports).