Living with MCL

Well, it’s 38.3°F this morning, and I doubt I’ll be going out for a ride at my normal time, so I thought I’d take the extra time to do a little rambling.

First off, as most of my regular visitors should have already noted, I’ve finally decided on a new theme. There are still some more improvements I need to make, as time goes on, but for now I am happy with it.

Yesterday, Edie got a letter in the mail, formally denying her transplant. That wasn’t unexpected, and may actually have been welcome, if you remember from my last post. She also had an appointment with her oncologist yesterday, where they discussed how to proceed.

Edie is in at least a partial remission, so they both decided it’s best to stop all treatments for now, and see what transpires over the next several weeks/months and hopefully years. This should give the neuropathy more time to improve, and the heart damage to reverse itself. There is strong evidence for both this will occur.

So here we are in what is called the wait and watch (aka worry) mode. We’re still planning on going to New Zealand the last two weeks in March, but I’m trying to convince Edie we should move the trip up a few weeks. I sure would like to get away from this brutally cold winter, which seems to have no end in sight, for a couple of weeks. After all, it is summer in New Zealand.

Edie’s nueropathy is still presenting some problems for her, so that is my one concern. I would like to see her feeling better before we take the trip, but who knows, the warmer weather in New Zealand may actually help.

I know it will help me!

You rationalize it away of course. Everyone does it. Well…., at least I do.

I did it two weeks ago, when I couldn’t keep up with the group on a Thursday ride, chalking it up to the fact I had ridden hard the last two days, and just didn’t have it.

Then this past Saturday, after getting my second flat within about 5 miles, and not being able to do the hammer zone portion of the ride, I rationalized I was tired, and needed to conserve my energy for the Sunday Palos Verdes ride, which is a pretty intense ride.

Now, while there was some truth to those excuses, I thought I was feeling good that Thursday, and I really did want to do the Hammer Zone on Saturday, and besides, it’s never stopped me before from riding hard two or three days in a row.

But then yesterday, Edie got news her scheduled transplant was a no go. It seems she has experienced some heart damage, which I believe was the result of the Doxil (a drug I posted on just recently) she had been taking.

I’m pretty sure Edie wanted the transplant, even though I have always had my doubts about the efficacy of an autologous transplant, but when she received the news she didn’t seem very upset.

She rationalized the disappointment away, stating it was probably best, since all the extra drugs etc. she would have had to take, could have resulted in further kidney damage, possibly putting her back on dialysis, a prospect she did not want to have to endure again. Now while there is some truth to that belief, I’m just not sure she really meant it.

Oh well, such is life. That’s something I would normally say under these circumstances having always believed in fate and a predetermined destiny.

When something doesn’t happen just the way you planned or expected, it’s probably for some good reason, and there’s nothing anyone could have done to change that eventual outcome anywaze.

Remember that old song, Que Sera Sera?

OK, as some of you may have noted, I’ve reverted back to the old theme. I guess I wasn’t really happy with the new theme either, so…………….

In the interim, while I work on a new and improved design, I thought I’d give everyone an update on what has transpired, over the course of the past month, with Edie and me.

I’m pretty much still the same, although my lymphocyte count did take a big jump, from 86 thou/cum in November to 106 thou/cum in December. I have been as high as 95 thou/cumm in previous months, so that’s not as big a jump as it might appear at first glance.

The good news is my hemoglobin and platelets were stable, even improved some, from November, so my bone marrow still appears to be functioning, at least partially well, leading me to believe the test may have been a fluke. It is known that when the numbers get that high, the variations also increase. I’ll know more next week, when I have my next blood test.

As for Edie, she is currently getting ready for an autologous peripheral blood stem cell transplant (PBSCT).

Today she goes for a tread mill test and tomorrow an echo cardiagram to make sure her heart is up to it. If everything looks good, she’ll receive her first cytoxan infusion on Friday, to kill off what ever myeloma may be left after the Velcade treatments. Then the following week she’ll be receiving growth stimulating drugs, stimulating the production of stem cells.

If all goes well, she’ll have are stem cells collected at the end of the month, and the transplant sometime either the end of this month, or the beginning of February.

After that’s it’s simply a waiting game, hopefully learning how successful the transplant was about 30 days afterwards.

I’ll keep everyone posted as time goes on.

It’s not a simple task changing themes. There’s a lot of modifying of code, changing images, adding widgets for all the little extras in the sidebars, and just general tweaking of the theme to make it look perfect.

I’m sure for most experts at this it only takes a few hours, but since I’m still learning all the ins and outs of PHP and XHTML, it typically takes a couple of days, and depending on the complexity of the theme, as in this case, it can take several days or even weeks.

Now while I still have some more work to do, I am generally pleased with the outcome, but………..

Edie just informed me she doesn’t like the theme. After all that work, tonight she tells me she doesn’t like it.

Jeez, what’s a cat to do!

Any comments, suggestions or even criticism would be appreciated.