The point of the log

The first one is the hardest.

Summer here in southern Oregon is neon green when it first emerges from Spring. I like it just fine. I'm transplanted from California.

Life is a rope and a rope comes from threads. I wanted to write about how Multiple Myeloma changed my life. Problem is that it didn't make a huge change in what I do, but it did modify the way I look at what I do. No surprises there. But I don't think I can write it all--all those little threads are important, and looking at the rope is complicated, because I can't seem to see both the threads and the rope at the same time.

Our rental house overlooks the Rogue River. We're in a downstream sort of neighborhood, a mile or so downstream from the little town of Gold Hill. Gold Hill is a river town, with three restaurants and a Harley shop. Two of the restaurants are breakfast places, and the third serves excellent Mexican food. I could throw a rock, and on a lucky day, maybe I could hit the river from my back yard. It's for certain I could pick off the rafters with my wrist rocket--but I wouldn't. Not me. The walls in the living room and kithchen are all glass, so, even though our place is sort of small, we have decent ambience...brings the yard into the house, so to speak.

The landlord uses the 150 foot space between the house and the river as his landfill project, so part of our ambience include his piles of brush. In the winter he burns the garbage there, too. On the other hand he keeps the dump pretty tidy.

Out neighbors are accommodating. This is closer to people than RedBud and I have ever lived, but we are adapting. The landlord--his name is Bud--also owns a small place right in front of us. An experiment with the previous rentor was unsuccesful, and he's gone. He was a druggie, but a nice enough kid. About two weeks after they moved in he brought his project car over and dismantled it in the driveway, leaveing parts in stacks all around it. His girlfriend made him pick up the parts and pull the car into their carport. Shortly after that they had a spat. He broke the glass windon in the front door. The deputies arrived shortly thereafter, and looked on while she removed her belongings. He got notice from Bud some weeks later, to move, but he sort of tried to ignore it. Didn't work in the long run. He made friends with river trash who live a bit upstream, and they got to be a problem--people I don't know walking through the yard to the river, all hours of the day and night, knocking on his door at midnite or two in the afternoon, stuff like that.

Anyhow, he's gone, and a new couple moved in. He works nights. They don't play loud music. He claims they are spades players.

I found out about the MM in May, this year (2004). I had broken my hand in a freak accident, and radiolist told me the bone looked funny, and made sure I was having my regular doc follow up on it. Lindy Gomez at the Roseburd VA did her job the right way. In short order I was up a Portland, getting handled by the cancer people from the OHSU, or whatever it's called. They are linked to the VA both literally and figuratively--literally by a covered ramp.

I went to chemotherapy. Four months on a PICC line. Now I'm in remission, waiting for the final word on a stem-cell transplant. I'll do that in Seattle.

The chemotherapy wasn't as bad for me as I suppose it is for many people, but it was a roller coaster ride nevertheless. Kicked my ass pretty good, is what it did. Hair loss and pumpkin face, too, but by the time the fourth month came around those were the most noisome of the symptoms. Fatigue and out of control appetite were my companions. At first the appetite thing was okay, because I was losing a few pounds to the VAD regimine, a good thing.

But once the cancer was under control the weight loss stopped, and the appetite only slowed a little. I felt stuffed all the time. Anyhow that's done. I'm still weak, but I feel better than I have in a long time. My other blood problem used to kick my ass daily, but the steroids seem to have brought it under control. This is a good thing--no cappilliary bleeding and its associated pain for me to deal with.

I kept a fairly detail journal of all these happenings, so I'm not going to go into any more detail here in this blog. I do hope to keep up with my Seattle goings on, if I can figure out how to do it from Seattle. We are taking RedBud's laptop--a Mac--with us. I am not a Mac-qualified operator.

A stem-cell transplant is a big deal. I don't know how much it will cost the government to do this, but I'm grateful to them for doing their job on me. Briefly, persons with MM live about seven months after they discover they have it. This disease sucks your bones dry, and you die from associated pathologies, such as spinal collapse, kidney and liver failure, and other stuff. People with treatment live a few years longer. Right now about fifty percent of us hit the 5-7 year mark. A smaller lucky few of us last quite a bit longer, for various reasons. A statistically insignificant few of us who have alleogeneic stem cell transplants may be cured. I'm getting an autologous stem cell transplant.

Alleogeneic transplants require a donor with a near perfect HLA blood match...this takes a lot of luck in the stem-cell donor data base search, or a twin. Mortality from this process is high. Anyhow, I don't have a twin, so I'm going for the other one. New research is hopeful, and if I last five years, there may actually be a cure for this shit. Every day is a blessing, then.

I'm becoming familiar with a whole new set of terms, which I shall introduce in my next blog session.