I’m melting

[hrj]

The weather sites had been projecting a high temperature of 98F for Napa this weekend. Now they’re saying, “Ha, ha; fooled you. It was actually 106F.” Not quite as bad as last year’s A&S Tournament, since we had a fair amount of tree-shade and a slight breeze this time, but given that this is my favorite event of the year, I wish the elements wouldn’t conspire to make it such an ordeal. It’s hardly the fault of the organizers that we got a heat wave on this particular weekend. A number of people decided not to come. Others bugged out on Saturday. Most everyone left on Sunday got up before dawn to break camp – some stayed after that for classes, others just kept going. Despite it all, it was a rather fun event. thread_walker invited me to camp with Villa Luna who were doing a “leave the husbands and kids behind” camp and … well, the watchword of the weekend was “what happens at A&S stays at A&S”, but if you might get some interesting stories from the tavern wenches at the Sword & Lily Inn. But, alas, they all heat-wimped out early Sunday morning. I stayed to attend classes and then ended up pitching in to help take down and pack up the tavern.

Have I mentioned lately how much I love living in the fog-belt? No fog currently, but there’s a cool breeze blowing through the windows.

My mom got the results of her bone marrow test the end of last week – pretty much as expected, she has the “multiple” version of myeloma. (There’s a reason why that word is in the default name.) So now they’re powering ahead with the various treatments.

Comments

[loup_noir]

In regards to your mother, which means what? What sorts of treatment?

[hrj.livejournal.com]

I'd have to check out the e-mail when I get home, but basically you've got:

- radiation at the specific site of the existing lesion (hip) to zap anything the surgery didn't take care of

- extra-strength bone-strengthening stuff (the sort of stuff you get for osteoporosis) to counteract the myeloma's effect on bone structure

- general chemo including thalidomide (that's the one I remember the specific name for) to try to knock out the cells that have gone whacko and promote remission -- I forget whether there are other elements to the chemo currently; evidently there's an assortment of treatments they've come up with, due to the tendency of myeloma to become resistant to whatever worked on the last round

Remission is the goal, but people are very individual in how they respond to the various available treatments.