How Do You Feel Today? v4

[Avatar]

Feel fine today, a bit lazy. Did a massive shop yesterday, hopefully will hold us for a while. Lockdown restrictions tightened in response to our second wave of infections, right in the middle of the festive season too, people are going to be upset.

Ban on alcohol sales re-instated as part of that, (over New Years? People are going to be really upset), luckily I'm not a big drinker.

--A
_________________
It's easy to judge. It's more difficult to understand.

[Menolly]

Rabbit
Rabbit
Rabbit
Starting the year off right...

Happy New Year!


_________________

[deer of the dawn]

Happy 2021 to all!

Stag and I have had a couple of weeks off, and spent most of it realizing how completely exhausted we still are. I worked hard at my new hobby: napping. We both had colds, or maybe COVID-19 mildly, but getting a test here is such a fiasco it's not worth the effort. So we've self-isolated a lot and spent a lot of time talking about stuff. Which is always good for us.

There has been some interest from buyers for our house. It wasn't even on the market, but a lawyer friend knows some people with money who might like a really nice place in Jos. We hadn't expected things to happen so quickly, but at our age it seems like that's true for everything, so... we'll see where it leads. We had planned on staying here for a few more years, but the cost and time to maintain a large house, plus the fact it anchors us here and we aren't sure we will be able to stay more than a year or two (if the school where we teach doesn't up its enrollment) and selling it would free us.

The sad part would be that we would be living in campus housing, and would have to find homes for our 2 dogs, both of whom are lovely individuals, kind, fun, and silly. The cat and parrot could come, at least. But I'm trying not to think of that.

We're definitely not getting out enough, which is why I can rattle on endlessly like this.

School will reopen fully online in a few more days. Woohoo. I thought I had de-stressed my life enough to sustain, but it turns out that I'm really good at plugging away stubbornly and overworking myself. I'm the new principal, and my school was the only one to have both a Christmas fundraiser and a Christmas concert (virtual, which I wrote and produced). Ok, I've proven that I can kill this job, now I need to relax a bit and stop overachieving. I'll be 59 next month, for crying out loud!

5 months until school is out and we can travel and see Fawn of the Dawn, Buck of the Dawn, and his new wife Doe of the Dawn. If the Lord is willing, and the creeks don't rise.
_________________
Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a great battle. -Philo of Alexandria

ahhhh... if only all our creativity in wickedness could be fixed by "Corrupt a Wish." - Linna Heartlistener

[Cord Hurn]

Congratulations on all your achievements at the school and on getting better, deer of the dawn, and Happy New Year to you!

[Cord Hurn]

[Cord Hurn]

[Avatar]

Well, back at work next week. Meh.

--A
_________________
It's easy to judge. It's more difficult to understand.

[Avatar]

Well, back at work. Nobody felt anything for a week? Lazy buggers.

--A
_________________
It's easy to judge. It's more difficult to understand.

[Cord Hurn]

[Cord Hurn]

[Avatar]

It counts if you post about it.

And yeah, unprecedented drop in trauma cases on New Years thanks to curfew and alcohol ban.

I'm actually loving it.

--A
_________________
It's easy to judge. It's more difficult to understand.

[sgt.null]

At surgery center. Julie has kidney stones.

If the kidney is infected, no surgery. Antibiotics. Surgery in a month or so.

Will update.
_________________
life's not a paragraph
And death i think is no parenthesis”
― E.E. Cummings

[Avatar]

Hope it turns out well Sarge.

--A
_________________
It's easy to judge. It's more difficult to understand.

[sgt.null]

She has a kidney and bladder infection. So antibiotics for now then surgery to break up the kidney stones in February.

Thanks Av
_________________
life's not a paragraph
And death i think is no parenthesis”
― E.E. Cummings

[Avatar]

Just never ends huh?

--A
_________________
It's easy to judge. It's more difficult to understand.

[Menolly]

Well fudge...

So, a brief explanation.

My chronic myeloid leukemia was in "remission," due to the high dose of my walking chemotherapy. I put remission in quotation marks, because as a chronic condition it never goes away. But it was at a level where it was no longer detected without doing a bone marrow aspiration (never again, please G-d).

About a year ago, my hematologist told me of a study where CML patients were taken off of their chemotherapy completely. About 50% of the patients remained in "remission," and were able to remain off of the chemo. She and I decided we would like to give this a try, especially as the walking chemo puts me in the immunocompromised group, and effects what type of work I can accept as a classified substitute.

The study was done on patients three years in remission and longer. I was six months away from that point, and eagerly awaited my three year anniversary.

When that point came, my hematologist told me that she had consulted on my case with Dr. Brian Drucker, the inventor of the walking chemotherapy I take. His advice was to wait until I was at least five years in "remission," but he didn't see any harm in reducing my dosage, and seeing how my body responded to that. So, we cut my dose in half.

My hematologist wanted to closely monitor me at first, so instead of having my blood work done in three months, as was my norm, the first test was done after a month. That came back negative, and we decided to go back to testing in three months.

I just got the first three month tests results back. I meet with my hematologist this Thursday, my 61st birthday. I'm pretty sure these results are saying I am not in the fortunate 50%.

*sigh*





_________________

[Savor Dam]

I'd been so optimistic that this would work. Menolly is much more herself on the reduced chemo.

Hopefully the hematologist will have some triangulation to offer. If not, we will deal.

_________________
Love prevails.
~ Tracie Mckinney-Hammon

Have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and to try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. Don't search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer.
~ Rainier Maria Rilke

[Avatar]

Ah hell, well, best of luck Menolly. Here's hoping it all works out.

--A
_________________
It's easy to judge. It's more difficult to understand.

[Menolly]

Finally received test results from the biopsy done at the end of December, while a different area, results were the same as the other biopsy I had done last August on the bladder: precancerous lesion. So, no treatment on either area for now, but annual follow up required for both.

Follow up with hematologist today, so I'll learn if my walking chemo is going to be increased, or what the next step is.
_________________

[Menolly]

Back from the hematologist.

Huzzah!

The increase is so small, she says to stay the course on the dose of walking chemo I'm on, and follow up in three more months.
_________________