Hiatus

June 2023. Hi all, this year, we took a hiatus (pronounced “Hi, ate us!”) from our blog posts, a rather sad hiatus. There’s a good reason for this hiatus, as illness has entered our lives this spring, summer, and fall.
Over the winter, I knew something was wrong with me. I was getting short of breath just walking (even short distances). I didn’t know what was wrong, and because I didn’t want to burden anyone with this, I didn’t WANT to know. I ignored it for the most part. Deep inside, I thought it had something to do with my lungs, like COPD or something. Well, you can’t ignore it when your Wife tells you, “I see you’re having trouble breathing. You should go in and have that checked out.” Busted.
We went to the “Minor Med” clinic only to be told that they could not test or treat my symptoms due to the complexity and lack of test equipment. Then we went to the emergency room. When I said my main symptoms were “Shortness of breath” and “swelling of the feet and ankles,” they said, “Uh huh, probably heart-related,” and got me in right away. My heart sank… I KNEW in my “knower” that I had been putting off something that could very well have killed me.
They ran several tests and said I had Congestive Heart Failure. CHF was the disease that took my Dad out in ’88. I could see the “Game Over” sign lurking in the distance, but I was looking for that “Extra Life” pellet. They ran a stress test on my heart but found no indication of blockage or other abnormality.
They ran an echo “Ultra-Sound” of the heart and found my valves in good working condition. However, they found that the heart wall in the receiving ventricle was thickened. It was then that they began looking for evidence of a couple of cancers called “Amyloidosis” and “Multiple Myeloma .” They did a bone marrow biopsy, which later showed both cancers present in the plasma. The biopsy results categorized the Myeloma as “Smoldering,” meaning it was not actively growing and producing.
They diagnosed “Congestive Heart Failure caused by Amyloidosis”. The cancer is plasma-based (similar to Multiple Myeloma), causing the blood to deposit proteins within specific organs, in my case, thickening the heart wall in the receiving ventricle. This thickening makes it harder for the heart to pump enough blood to carry oxygen to the organs. When the heart works that hard, it back-fills fluid into the lungs, gut, legs, and feet (that’s the “congestive” part).
When they told me that Multiple Myeloma and Amyloidosis were in-curable but were controllable, I wasn’t sure how to feel. I was numb at first, just trying to take it in. When we researched this on the “Inter-Web,” we found that these cancers (if left untreated) would kill within a relatively short amount of time. Doc said something like, “Boy, we ain’t gonna let that happen.”
The prescribed treatment is Chemo and possibly a bone marrow or stem cell transplant. We began the Chemo in mid-April, when we were in San Diego, and knew we would have to transfer to a cancer clinic in Memphis (our hometown). We set up the transfer and asked our Son-in-Law (who did an AWESOME job) if he would help us drive our camper back to Memphis in early May. I was not feeling well enough to drive our RV back to Memphis from California. Now, I am somewhat of a control freak. It was difficult for me to relinquish control of the driving, and it didn’t help knowing that I had already lost control of my health. Depression was lurking. It was (and currently is to this day) the prayers of others that buoyed my spirits and kept the depression at bay.
Chemo was adjusted and picked up again in mid-May, only missing a few weeks, and the side effects have been minimal. The hardest part of this has been keeping the fluid retention down. My weight has fluctuated as much as 12 to 15 pounds within a week or two. I’ve had two hospital stays where IV Diuretics have reduced the fluid around my lungs and once manually (inserting a tube to suck the fluid out). We found that if the fluid stays in the gut long enough, the intestinal tract soaks it up and then cannot absorb nutrients from food or medicines taken orally. When this happens, it is a “Tipping Point,” where IV Diuretics would be the only effective medicines.
Fortunately for me, the cancer has gone to sleep and is no longer producing these proteins. The Chemo is now working on keeping the cancer at bay for a while. Doc says it’ll be a while before I’m back to normal, but normalcy can be achieved with a maintenance dose of Chemo (monthly to start, graduating to quarterly) to keep the cancer in a dormant state.
I’m still experiencing reduced strength and stamina, and I still get short of breath occasionally, but not nearly as often as I did this past spring. We should be able to resume our travels soon, but I won’t be climbing any mountains for a while.

Update: It’s early December, and my strength and stamina have mostly returned to pre-cancer levels. My fluid retention levels have become much easier to control. I feel well. We’ve resumed some traveling, as I still must come back to Memphis periodically for maintenance-dose Chemo.