Status Update: Jan. 21, 2013

Hello everyone, and Happy New Year!  Well it looks like the predictions for end-of-world-disaster (at least according to the Mayan calenders) were wrong - whee!  Guess we're gonna party like it's 1999 2013.  And can you believe it's already 13 years into the century?!  I mean wasn't all the buzz about Y2K just last week or something?

It's been a little over two months since I updated - the holidays make time pass so quickly!  But here's my first 2013 update.  So far, so good!

1. Port flush: once every six weeks - last week, all's good.
2. INR: once a month - stable readings, no changes in blood thinner.
3. Oncologist: once every quarter - last week (details below).

There's not much to say about 1 and 2 above - everything looks good.  I used to have some drawback problems periodically during my port flushes, but that hasn't happened in quite a few months.  It's possible the blood-thinner has helped with that recently.

My INR has been smack-dab in the middle of the desired range (at 2.6 for the 2.0-3.0 range) since I started the blood-thinner protocol in late Sept.  I am changing my primary care physician so that he's in the same system as my Oncologist, just to make reviewing of records easier, and I believe they do a finger-prick to test INR, whereas my current primary care uses a regular blood-draw.  Apparently the finger-prick test, while faster and easier overall, has more variability in terms of reading.  The first time I was on blood-thinners, back in 2008, my numbers varied all the time, which meant they had to keep changing my dosage, which was a pain.  It's been very stable this time, so I guess I'll see if the test change throws a wrench in things.  My first test through the new primary care physician will be in just over a week.

I had my quarterly meeting with my Oncologist and they did a basic labwork-up on the spot.  I mean that literally - they had the results minutes after drawing blood.  It all looked very good.  There were a few numbers out of range, but the direction out was actually positive for my post-transplant status, indicating my immune system continues to trend upward in terms of attaining it's new status.  We scheduled my next PET scan for the end of May, and will review the results a week later, at the beginning of June.  By then it will have been 1 year since my last PET scan, and 31 months since the transplant.  Keep your fingers crossed for me!  If that goes well I'll only repeat the PET scans once a year, and of course the big milestone hanging out there is 60 months.  Not gonna worry about that till this summer's test is through, though!

Okay, so health stuff out of the way, here's an update on my writing:  I have three books in progress, from two planned series.  Book 1 of the first series is complete, and I've begun the agent-search process - no results yet, but I'll definitely do an update when there is!  I've started book 2 (it's a 4-book Young Adult series), and hope to finish the first draft sometime this March (fingers crossed again!).  I've also finished about 1/3rd of book 1 of the other series, which, strangely enough, is a prequel series to the first one, but intended to be read after it, even though it's set in time before it.  Editors like an author to treat writing projects like an airport control tower: have a plane ready for take-off, a plane in the air, and a plane approaching the landing strip.  Guess I've got that strategy down now!

I hope everyone's having a good year so far.  Remember that spring is right around the corner now!