May Days

     It's a holiday weekend and time for a rest or at least a little slower pace.  May was a very busy month, but filled with lots of enjoyable activities.  My trip to Ashland with my girlfriends was great fun loaded with lots of good theater, good food (according to my friends since I can no longer taste), shopping and a street fair with lots of unique crafts.  Having my cousin from Medford join us Thursday evening and enjoying the art & craft fair with she and her husband on Saturday were an added bonus.  My choir concert went really well and I was able to take enough Advil to keep the pain in my back under control so I could go without my brace for the evening.  One of the choirs sang the next night at a graduation and again I went without my back brace.  I was pretty sore for a couple days after but managed through it.  Wedding plans for Johanna's fall wedding have added to the busy schedule; but, again a happy event is good for the soul!
     Physcial Therapy has finally started.  The Therapist is actually a former student from the early days of choir when our kids were in it.  He has specialized in back problems and we are slowly, carefully starting to build up the muscles above and below my line of fractures.  I have exercises that I do at home in between our appointments.  I must admit, however, that I have not kept up with them like I should as I can only handle so much activity each day and my "fun" activities have taken priority the past 2 weeks.  Now that all of those commitments are behind me, I can budget my time a little differently. 
     I have started my new chemo regimen of every other week.  It is so nice to have a week that I feel well enough to do other things besides "recover".  I am hopeful this schedule will keep the cancer under control. There was a short lapse of time while switching from one schedule to the next that I hope was not so long that it allowed the cancer to gain ground again.  We were just starting to see some good progress.
     One of the tests that I know helps me determine my cancer load is one that is not routinely done.  It is a test for the blood levels of the immunoglobulin proteins.  My particular form of myeloma interferes with my body's ability to produce those proteins, so when those numbers are low I know the cancer levels are higher than what they show on other blood tests.  I requested those numbers to be run a couple of weeks ago and was disappointed to see how very low they are.  I was not able to compare those numbers to the free light chain test as the lab neglected to run that test, which is part of my regular monthly regimen.  If both numbers were low, it would indicate my bone marrow is starting to fail.  If free lights were higher than they've been, then it would indicate the cancer is on the rise again.  So much technical data!!  But learning all of this info has made it possible for me to better understand the amount of cancer that is actually present at any given time and how susceptible I might be to illness or infection.
     I have an appointment with a world reknowned back specialist at UCSF on June 11 and an appointment with their pain clinic the same day.  I'm not really expecting to hear anything different than what I've been told before, but will be nice to have a second opinion.
     We survive day to day on the strength of your prayers!  We thank you for your faithfulness to us through this long journey.  We are grateful for each day the Lord gives us together, even though many of those days are filled with medical stuff and the altered routines of daily living.