By Monday he was, at best, the same so in we trundled to Dr Callandar who cultured everything, gave him IV antibiotics and a new even more heavy duty oral antibiotic to take home. We found out that night that his main issue was a virus called RSV which is known for inflaming airways and takes quite a while to clear. He also was starting some low grade secondary infections. Unfortunately, one of the side effects of the chemo Revlemid is that it reduces your immune system response, so he was taken off that too, for the rest of the month.
Which brings me to now.
He's 99.9% done with the cough so "Haa, take that RSV!!" but his Myeloma #s are back with a vengeance. So he's back on both the Revlemid and the Dex and we have every reason to think he'll respond as well and quickly as he did when he first used them.
Unfortunately, he's back to "0" in his ability to cop a few Zs on his Dex night. Before he stopped he'd gotten up to 3 or 4 hours pseudo sleep on those nights. I'm hoping that next week he can sleep even an hour, since he doesn't seem to be able to get more than 6 or 7 on the other nights to compensate for it.
And of course, "there's no great loss without some small gain" so though he's getting less total sleep because of the Dex, he is also getting the anti inflammatory benefit of the steroid which helps his knee feel much better. So the guy will be able to dance if he has the energy to stand up!
In the non medical arenas of our lives, we did a picture perfect prairie burn earlier this month, I started milking goats at Fantome Farm again and will be raising the buck kids (5 so far, 5 more coming) for the flourishing goat meat market, again. (ah how quickly one forgets the misery of last summer with Diablo and the Outlaws) Hopefully I've got the containment issues worked out more successfully. And they are darn cute.
Gil's been working on shaping the driveway with the heavy machinery he has come to know and love. I'm appreciating the slow spring so I can try to get on top of things like pruning raspberries before all the other garden tasks seduce me away and I return to a jungle as happened last year.
It's very important to have good berries this year because
Piper Rose et al are arriving May 25th and will be living with us til ?Septemberish?
And that girl sure does love her berries!!
We've got a full month ahead of us with graduations and family visits and visiting David
This slow, cool Spring has kind of been an extended "season of March" my favorite season of the year because before things take off and grow like gangbusters, I can actually see the lay of the land and feel the mounting tension of possibilities.
Now it's time to get it in gear and "get this puppy done!"
It's going to be a good and full year.
