Results…..hmmm

Have to say, have been knocked a bit for 6 by my results this week. As ever, it's like doing a jigsaw with pieces missing, with your eyes shut and using someone else's hands to try and work out what the new information means, but no matter which way I look at it, it's not massively good news.

The Paraprotein numbers never tell a clear story. Looking back over the past 2 years there has been one occasion when after a 3 month gap between appointments, it hadn't moved at all, god bless its cellular intertia. There were several occasions (all last year, this year is telling a different story, the more results I get) when it had barely moved, maybe by only 0.03 in 2-3 months. And of course I look at it in two ways, closet quantie that I am, as an absolute number going up by an amount, and at the percentage by which it moves each time. In the vain hope that even if one looks crap, the other might be preferable to mentally cling onto.

But this year, it's clearly been in training. Three visits ago it was still nice and sluggish, only shifting up by 0.07, a 3% rise. But then it went a bit batshit, leaping up by 0.72, a 20% rise. Hopefulyl a one off I thought, But no – on to this time, where the bloody thing has gone up again, this time by a massive 1.28, which is a 30% rise.

So, having been in the nice low 3's for a steady year, now its suddenly 5.54. And as ever, there is no 'magic number' to look to or hope to avoid – things could go wrong now or stay fine even if it rose to say 15. Or, more probably, go wrong somewhere along the way. when I was diagnose dit was 16 and had already wreaked a fair bit of damage, though no idea if that is my 'tipping point' score, or not this time round.

Have had a very loud voice in my head all weekend saying – 'but if it continues to go up say 25% every 3 months from now – it'll be over 10 before next summer's here'. Which then will mean treatment almost certainly has to start next year - with the words 'one way ticket to hell on earth' dancing in front of my eyes.

So – Hawksey and I have retailated with a, possibly foolish but what the hey, booking of a trip to the British Virgin Islands in late March for his birthday, on my Companion Voucher. It's bloody hard to keep up that devil-may-care attitude when actually it's the first time in ages that treatment has suddenly felt closer rather than further away. And of course not just treatment, but the inevitable closeness of the 'end date' which will be related to how long a remission I mamange to carve out this time… It's still real this sodding thing, even if its kindly stayed in the background for a long time, it seems to be keen to soon come back out to play.

Anyway – enough gloom for a Sunday evening. It's a fucker and I hope the goddamn PP slows up again (maybe it's been multiplying extra fast in the excess heat?) but we won't know more till the next appointment in November. Till then – FU Big Style Myeloma. You can keep your bloody hands off me for a bit longer yet.

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