One down, 729 to go.

Took my first dose of the new chemo regimen this morning.  Revlimid pill chased with a low-dose aspirin, an Acyclovir, a Bactrim and some calcium.

Freaked out, depressed, anxious, you name it.  Questions continually form in my head mixed with doubts that overwhelm slender, battered hopes.  There's just no scarier thing I can think of than chemotherapy ... HIV drug regimens, maybe, but my understanding is that that's no longer a death sentence.  Will this work?  How long until it stops?  Will I have side effects or totally reject the meds?  The mind never shuts down.

Took Ariana  to Tiny Town yesterday ... kind of ridiculous, but I saved the tickets for the train.  Thought I'd insert them in my next letter to her, a little treasure to have along with the words.

My mail.

Hate bills?  Be thankful, I get bills and this fun stuff in my mailbox:

Hi.

It's been a while, hasn't it?  I suppose that's pretty rude of me -- when you have a blog about having a terminal disease, vanishing for two months isn't exactly "nice" to people who get news about you from it.  So sorry, for what it's worth.  I know anyone I actually know personally that reads this, however, can (and does) text or call to get updates if I'm gone from here too long.

The news hasn't been good which is the primary reason I haven't written.  I've certainly thought about it a lot these past few months, but this is painful to me -- understand that most of the time I keep composed about all of this by doing my utmost NOT to think about it.  I can't do that when I write, however -- it just all comes streaming out and most of this cancer-related stuff is really hard on me, emotionally, to keep going over and over.  But I will try to keep this updated more.

To make a long story as short as possible, I was doing pretty good mentally and emotionally and then I got my 60-day results.  They indicated that the stem cell transplant hadn't been very effective.  That subsequently sent me spiraling into depression but I still tried to keep my spirits up, telling myself that Dr. M. at the Mayo Clinic had said the 100-day results were really the ones to pay attention to.