Wow. I haven’t been this sick in…ages. On Saturday morning, I woke up with a nasty sore throat, symptom no. 1. But Stefano and I had already made plans to go outside of Florence, not a pleasure trip by any means ( = long story that wouldn’t add anything useful to this post), and I didn’t want to back out. So, after coffee and Manuka honey, off we went. By the late afternoon, the sore throat had vanished, but symptom no. 2 was about to rear its ugly head: THE DREADED COUGH. Whenever I’m about to get a cough, I get a strange, almost metallic taste in my mouth. I know it sounds odd, but that taste always precedes THE COUGH. As soon as we got back to Florence, therefore, I took an antibiotic. Good thing I did… Sunday, same thing. We couldn’t leave a job half done, so, instead of being able to sleep it off (which might have made this “thing” a bit less virulent), I was up and about the entire day. By the afternoon, THE COUGH had set in…and, yes, it was bad. To make a long story mercifully short, I haven’t really been out of bed since Monday. And, as though the debilitating cough weren’t enough, a fever set in, too. Today, thus far, is my first day without fever, and my cough is 90% gone. And so I’m up and about,…officially convalescent… 🙂 But the point of this post is not about my stupid spring “flu.” It’s about my test results. Yes, I had tests done last week…luckily, days before I got sick. Compared to my July 2016 tests, these April tests are so much better:

• No Bence Jones. Back in July, a small amount of Bence Jones appeared in my urine. Its disappearance is excellent news.
• ESR: the lowest it’s been since 2012.
• Creatinine, calcium, CRP, etc.: all good.
• Total IgG is down several mg compared to July. Indeed, compared to July of 2015, it is down a full 1000 mg.
• My IgA went from a terrible 5 to a less terrible 6. You know, this is the FIRST time ever that I’ve experienced an increase in one of the other two immunoglobulins. A small increase, for sure, but for me it’s very exciting, even though 6 is nowhere near 70, which marks the beginning of the normal range, of course…
• My m-spike and monoclonal component have both gone down. Yay!
• My Freelite chain numbers: much much better.

My hemoglobin, however, has dipped under the normal range again. Just slightly, so it should be an easy fix. Nothing else sticks out to me…I mean, apart from the fact that I STILL have smoldering myeloma! Duh!  😉  But…I’m stable. Ah, before I go back to bed to watch another documentary, I have one more thing to tell you. A note on one of my test result sheets reads…in Italian, of course: “Paziente già conosciuto. Il tracciato elettroforetico non presenta variazioni significative rispetto ai precedenti,” which means: “The patient is well-known. The electrophoresis graph shows no significant changes compared to previous ones.” No significant changes…I definitely like the sound of that!!!