Doing Well!

I have not written for a while. That's a good sign. We have been busy doing "normal stuff".

Doug has not had any more trouble with neck pain like what happened in Nebraska. We think it was a flare up of arthritis.

He is still in remission and doing very well. The light chains are in the normal range. He had a Dexa scan last month; his bone density is normal. That is amazing. He won't need to have any more Zometa unless we "have a hiccup" as the oncologist says.

The only not-good news is that Doug's optic  nerve in the left eye has degraded due to the glaucoma. Nothing can be done about that.  I have noticed that he doesn't see detail as well as he used to, but driving and reading seem to be okay.

The diabetes is under control with diet and metformin. The most recent A1C was 6.8 which the nurse practitioner calls good for Doug.

There is exciting news regarding metformin and some cancers, including myeloma. Metformin seems to be able to combat cancer - and Doug is already on it!

The following is from mdanderson.org:
"In separate studies of patients who had prostate cancer, colorectal cancer, pancreatic cancer, triple-negative breast cancer, HER2-positive breast cancer, and multiple myeloma, the median overall survival durations were found to be longer in patients who had taken metformin than in those who had not."

And it's a cheap drug! This almost makes me glad that Doug developed diabetes.

More studies are being done, especially by M.D. Anderson, but it seems too good to be true, even though it is not a cure. If you want to know more, just google 'metformin and cancer'.

We planted a tree in the backyard today. Doug dug the hole. What an entirely ordinary thing - except that wouldn't have been possible if he were not doing so well. We don't take things for granted. Praise the Lord!

Love to all.

"To wait, biblically speaking, is not to assume the worst, worry, fret, make demands, or take control. Nor is waiting inactivity. It is a sustained effort to stay focused on God through prayer and belief."     Max Lucado