Bye Bye 12.29.2019
Hello to posting on the 10's
Yep, this girl made it to 10 years since my Myeloma diagnosis. Very surreal, still not able to fully absorb all this cancer nonsense, but it's my life.
Yesterday was December 29, 2019, the last 9 of this year, and of this decade! Wow! How did that happen :))
I wasn't feeling up to posting a post, as I've had a lousy head, chest cold for over a week. And as my bugs go, they start with a headache, which I often can't differentiate from chemo side effects. Then the headache morphs into a sore throat. And from that, I know I'm a sickie. The sore throat then morphs into a bit of sneezing, and that morphs into my chest, with all the lovely coughing and hacking. Fortunately, it didn't go deep, and I never had a fever. But the worst part for me is as a result of the muscular action of blowing and coughing, I pull chest and rib and shoulder and back muscles, often spraining or fracturing something along the way. If you've been reading my blog for years, you'll remember my posts around this time of year, with awful muscle, nerve, bone pain. So here we go again, same story, different year.
As always, I never expect to have the things happen to me that they do, as they do, so I didn't think I'd be suffering this long. Had this thing for almost 2 weeks now. The headcold part isn't the worst, it's the disabling muscular, nerve, bone pain, and non stop headache. So for the last several days, I'm eating Tylenol and Advil like candy, along with hugging a heating pad, along with taking a muscle relaxant at night. What a way to ring in my 10 year diagnosis, survival anniversary and 2020! I still want to do a BIG party for my 60th birthday and 10yr cancerversary... I'll let you know when that can happen. Everyone will be invited!
And that's not the entire ridiculous story of our life this month.
I'll just highlight, as it's too tedious to tell, and you're probably tired of all my downer, negative stories.
Jim's situation continues to be so challenging. The mood swings and physical challenges he goes thru everyday are just exhausting, painful and completely draining. Alzheimers and Dementia are just so awful.
I continue to be everything to everyone. Having to navigate all that is required to keep our lives and household afloat, all the while doing chemo and related side effects. Yes, I have lots of help, but it all still comes down to me having to micromanage everything. Just visualize all you do to make your life and household work... I'm in charge of it all, not by choice, just what it is. I lost my "do it all" guy.
Had to have a big part our roof repaired, redone due to rain leaks from last year.
Had electrical work done for faulty wiring... could have caused a fire in part of the house.
Jim has fallen several times this month, necessitating the need for others to come and assist.
Classic Alz mood swings are happening more often, you can read here for Alz details, just awful...
My vehicle battery died when I went to pick up a Wal Mart Grocery order one evening at the start of all this cold weather. Had to replace that.
Christmas Eve, after Jim's falling incident, the carbon monoxide alarms began screeching at 1:00am
Due to the holiday, had to wait for hours and hours for the Gas Co tech to come.
Had to have all the Gas appliances off, till he arrived at 5am... after calling in around 1:30am...
Yes, up all that time, with windows opened, no heat in the house.
Gas Co tech discovered something crazy in our main house water heater. It was emitting "aldehyde", a byproduct of natural gas not being vented, burned off properly.
As a result, no hot water for a few days, as this happened on Christmas Eve, Christmas Day.
Replaced 2 water heaters, as the other one was very old, and leaking.
The "aldehyde" created Soot in the pipes. So crazy. Have you heard of this? Ever experienced it?
Yes we could have "died" from the fumes emitted. Thankfully daughter Alissa was here to help, and encourage me to call the Gas Co. I just wanted to smash the alarm and ignore everything going on.
And more falls, more mood swings with Jim.
Then to top it all off, all my horrible tweeked muscles, nerves, bone pain from all my coughing reared it ugly self... The pain is just horrible and temporarily disabling, along with this mysterious non stop headache...
On top of everything else, and this may seem small to most, our horse hay was delivered was wrong. See as the horses get older, I transition from all Grass hay to part Alfalfa hay for the cold winter nights. I have the grass hay and alfalfa stacked in 2 separate rows. Well the delivery guy stacked the alfalfa in the back and grass in front, so we're not able to access the alfalfa. Big deal you may think. Yes, just one more thing to deal with, with the possibility of medical issues with the horses.
Alfalfa hay is very rich, like us eating pasta, steak and cheesecake all the time. Horses have the chance of "Foundering" from it. Also known as Laminitis or "Cushing's" disease. Our mini pony has this, and therefore must not have free access to Alfalfa hay. Anyway, the routine is messed up, and I'm too sick to deal with it, so let's hope for the best, and our horses don't get sick....
And on top of the top of all this... I received news my Myeloma numbers are climbing again. I only "cheated" on the Dex steroids 2 times, where I took 20mg vs the usual 40mg, and boom up go my numbers.
My IGA went up 200 points to 899, M Protein up to .81.
Normal for IGA is 70-400
Normal for M Protein is zero
And there's so much more, so many more things that have happened, irritants, disappointments and minute by minute challenges. So many challenges, so much to think about, I've just let it go... I had a meltdown in the barn on Dex steroid crash day, the other day... I cry and laugh. Cry and laugh. Cry and laugh. Then get up and get going, and push it all away. Alissa happened to come out, and I felt bad her seeing me that way. I used to process everything psychologically, and encourage others to do the same. Now, I STUFF more stuff than I ever have my entire life...
Well, this post was going to be a 10 year recount of strength and resilience, celebrating my 10 year survival over Myeloma. But I'm just too beat up to pretend it's all ok, and that I love life, and all is great and wonderful. That would be a lie and huge misrepresentation.
So cheers to surviving Myeloma for 10 years as of today! Yes, this time today, 10 years ago, I became a Cancer Patient. My previous posts recount my perspective over the years. Hopefully I'll be full of hope and gratitude my first post of 2020!
Happy New Year to all, and I do sincerely hope you have wonderful holiday celebration with your loved ones, and cheers to health and happiness for all of us, right!
Here's to 9 years of myeloma diagnosis posts:
2018
https://juliesmyelomamoments.blogspot.com/2018/12/9-years-ago-today-i-learned-myeloma.html
2017 https://juliesmyelomamoments.blogspot.com/2017/12/happy-new-year-you-have-myeloma.html
2016
2015
https://juliesmyelomamoments.blogspot.com/2015/12/6-years-ago-today-and-im-still-here-to.html
2014
https://juliesmyelomamoments.blogspot.com/2014/12/5-years-ago-today-boom-mm-forever.html
2013
https://juliesmyelomamoments.blogspot.com/2013/12/
2012
https://juliesmyelomamoments.blogspot.com/2012/12/
2011
https://juliesmyelomamoments.blogspot.com/2011/12/
2010
https://juliesmyelomamoments.blogspot.com/2010/12/
And onto 2020 with my posts on the 10s!
