January:
In January I had my immunization booster shots - 8 again. I also had another pulmonary function diagnostic test as a follow-up to the one in Oct. This time I was just 12% below my baseline, instead of 25%, so the lung problem was definitely clearing up.
February:
In Feb. I had another quarterly PET scan, but this time there were no hot spots - yay!
March:
We've had a very mild winter here in Tucson, and the winter pollen is worse than normal. This year, in addition to allergies, a respiratory bug has worked its way through the population, and I got it. In fact I still have it. I'm always wary of any respiratory issues because lung problems are one of the more common problems post-transplant. You can get scarring of your lungs from the chemo which can affect you later, especially if you're prone to pneumonia, like I am. I went to the doctor, of course, but it turns out this bug is viral, not bacterial, so antibiotics won't help. My doc had it, too. It's been hanging on for 2-3 weeks, but does seem to be slowly winding down.
As of mid-March, that's 17 months in remission. I'm closing in on 20 months - the length of my first remission. Part of me thinks this is a good thing, since in theory subsequent remissions are shorter than the ones that came before, but the other part knows you can't compare pre-transplant and post-transplant results - the transplant is an outlier in and of itself. There's no real assurance for a long time yet, not until the 5-year milestone, and even that is conditional. Still, fingers crossed for the two-year milestone.
The post-transplant weight loss stabilized out at about 70 pounds, so that's three big weight swings since my illness began: down 70, up 110, down 70. Still, that puts me at 30 pounds less than before I was diagnosed, so another yay for that. My biggest issue now is how to regain my strength through exercise and to compensate for my slowly returning appetite. Walking is a bit problematic due to the neuropathy, but soon the water will be warm enough for swimming, and that's perfect for balance problems. That's the plan.
Meanwhile neuropathy in my feet and hands continues to persist - especially in my feet. I flew in Feb. for a writers workshop in Monterey, and between a busier than normal schedule, sitting long hours with me feet straight down, and the pressure difference during the flights, I had some horrible swelling of my feet and lower legs (where I did some tissue damage with the fall). It went away once home again of course, but yuck.
The good news is my book has really improved over the last year, especially once the chemo-fuzzy brain symptoms wore off. I got great advice at this workshop last March and was able to eliminate 40 pages of manuscript for this round, and essentially rewrote the rest in a very different voice. It's really getting close. Right now a family friend at Columbia is critiquing it for me - I'm excited to get on the last draft (I hope it will be the last draft) when I get it back. I've also made huge strides in the 300 year prequel I want to write - the first of those 4 books is completely outlined in chapter form. This is huge, and I think I may be ready to start writing the first skeleton draft in a few days. Since I want to publish the scifi/fantasy kids series first, I'm actually thinking of just putting the prequel on a blog. It's an Indiana Jones-style action/adventure, intended for a slightly older readership, and though it's also a 4-book series, each of the stories is a stand-alone adventure, spanning the timeframe from 2020 to 2062. That one originally was a way-down the line project, but I like how it could drastically reduce the need for back-story in the kids series, while not in any way impeding that particular storyline. Very cool - I'm excited about it.
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