We heard from Emory, and an appointment has been made with Dr. Lonial for October 23. We are still completely in the dark about what our schedule is going to be after that. I guess we'll go up to Atlanta prepared to stay, and take it from there. Do you remember the scene at the end of the movie Forrest Gump, where Forrest is sitting and waiting for the school bus to bring his little boy home, and the camera focuses on a feather that is being blown and tossed in every direction by the wind? That's the way we feel, just like that feather.

In spite of all this, we're loving being at home. Today is a spectacularly beautiful fall day, cool and clear, with that certain golden quality to the sunlight, peculiar to this time in October. And Jimmy continues to do so well, has gotten into a routine, and at times seems almost normal. We have more of an idea now of what he can and can't do, and we make allowances. We know that on chemo days, when he takes a lot of steroids, he gets hyper, and talks a lot, and talks faster than usual. Sometimes he's irritable. On the days after, he crashes, and is weak and shaky, and these effects are cumulative; at the end of a round of chemo, he's worse.

Initially, the purpose of this blog was to report on the progress of the myeloma. Lately though, while we are treading water, it seems to occasionally go off on tangents, completely irrelevant to Jimmy's medical condition. Writing it has become something of a habit. When the serious stuff starts back up, it will revert to its original format, but in the meantime, digressions may occur.