Always an upside

I forgot to mention that Dr. Lonial wants to go back to seeing Jimmy monthly, instead of every two months like we have been doing for a while now.  The good thing about that is that we often stay with our great friend "Easy" Ed Jared in his beautiful West Paces Ferry condo when we're in Atlanta.  :)

Yes, it does

 A big bowl of hard candies sits on the counter in the reception room at The Emory Clinic, each individually wrapped piece boldly proclaiming that "MYELOMA SUCKS."  Yep.

We braved torrential rain driving up to Atlanta Monday, but we didn't want to postpone this appointment. Jimmy's cancer is on the move again and we've been anxious to get him back on chemo.  He took a Revlimid capsule last night, the first he's had in two years, along with 40 mg of dexamethasone.  Dr. Lonial also wants him to get gamma globulin infusions for the next three months, which should boost his immunity and help with the respiratory problems he's had all winter. 

We feel better about things, now that we are being proactive.  It's unnerving, sitting around doing nothing, knowing those myeloma cells are chomping on his bones again, like an invasion of evil little Pac Men. But once again, we'll send them packing.

Andy "trees" a raccoon

We leave a bowl of cat food on our screened porch for Fred, our ancient adopted stray, but a family of local raccoons help themselves whenever they like.  A few nights ago, Andy's frantic barking made Jimmy open the door to see what was going on, causing the trio of  'coons to scatter in every direction.

The largest opened the door with her paw and exited in a more civilized manner, while one of her offspring tore right through the screen, leaving a big hole in his wake. The third, unable to quite decide what to do, scrambled up the side of the porch, and hung on until Jimmy hauled the ecstatic Andy back into the house.

It's a good thing they didn't try to take Andy on, since the smallest of the critters was probably twice the size of our feisty chihuahua.  Andy would have handily lost that little skirmish.

Portraits by Jake

Jake did a portrait of me last week, and I could hardly wait to get it framed.  I'll cherish it always.

In a nutshell...

Trying to write an update after such a long hiatus feels a lot like picking up a brush after not having painted for a while: a stark, white, daunting, blank sheet of paper, staring you in the face .  So let's take a deep breath and dive in.

Jimmy looks great, and there are good days, but  he has struggled since the end of November, when he developed a bad bronchial infection.  After several rounds of antibiotics and steroid dose packs, a CTscan, bushels of Hall's cough drops and gallons of cough syrup, he still can't quite shake it.

A checkup at Emory a month ago revealed that his paraprotein cancer marker,  low and stable for some time now, has almost doubled.  Dr. Lonial is ready to put him back on the oral chemotherapy Revlimid, but first wants his respiratory issues to improve.  We have another appointment at Emory  in two weeks, and then we'll see.