An update on my husband Michael.
I haven’t posted for a long time as he’s been pretty stable: Not much change in the myeloma, and peritoneal dialysis 3 times a day at home (and abroad – Australia twice, walking holiday in Italy, sailing in the Greek islands, on trains, planes, taxis and on mountainsides) has been very successful over the past 2 years. It would have driven me mad if it had been me, but he just adapted to it and fitted his life around it.
But in the last few months he has been gradually going downhill, with exhaustion, nausea, clumsiness and difficulty in walking, and since New Year he (and I) started to get really depressed and worried about himself, something which rarely happens. Last week it was a relief to find out that this is unlikely to be caused by the cancer, and a complete x-ray showed that he still has no bone damage from the myeloma.
Today however we learned that it was what had been becoming more likely – his kidney function has deteriorated almost to zero, and the level of dialysis is no longer enough, so that he has become poisoned by the waste products in his blood. It was some comfort to know that all his symptoms can probably be attributed to this, and also that a return to haemodialysis in hospital 3 times a week should improve things considerably.
This will start on Saturday, at first in the large hospital 25 miles away, but soon hopefully in a small hospital an easy drive from home, where he was before. In some ways it will be a lot less time-consuming, but much less flexible of course, and holidays will have to be planned even more carefully - but still possible. Generally I feel relieved.
So I am just praying that he will start to feel better soon, and return to the near-normal life he’s been leading for the majority of the time since it was all diagnosed (just over 3 years ago)
