Ach well- I made cycle 5, and Diabetes

Firstly, hello to the couple I met at the Oncology centre yesterday and good luck with the 4th or 5th? cycle on the Lenalidomide trial. Glad you enjoy the blog and always good to meet folks going through the same thing. Second- thanks to Don for the advice on statins. I might need to come to the US to discuss with you!

Quite a week. My wife is still off work and now has a compression bandage to address the lymph issues in her arm. This will go on for a couple of weeks and is all a legacy of the surgery for her breast cancer. She is also to take a break from work for a while so we might be able to do one or two things while we are both around.

As some of you know I've now stopped taking insulin for four days now and have had no adverse effects- in fact this morning my blood sugars were down to 5 so wee bit of a concern that they still seem to be going down. I'd also thought that I would have the usual difficulty of trying to adjust to the effect of the steroids this morning as I started cycle 6- the last cycle in the protocol of the trial. However- I haven't made cycle 6 as decision made by all ( including me as always) that it might not be worth it- my paraprotein is unfortunately still going up. Even if that hadn't been the case, I am in fact neutropenic ( neutrophils at .8) so wouldn't have received my treatment yesterday in any case. Ach well, I made and finished cycle 5 which was an achjievement in itself. There does seem to be something in my form of myeloma where the myeloma is able to adjust to resisting whatever treatment I get after 4 05 cycles. Certainly fighting hard just now to stop me going on with treatment. So its an unusual day for me today- no steroids and no insulin! Long term plan is now to monitor me but let me have a break- I've had 5 different regimes of chemotherapy over the past 3 years and also a stem cell transplant- so its been hard going. So now having a break till we get to plan B- assuming there is a Plan B!