Almost nine and still awake!

Dear Friends and family,

Busy day today: a lovely lunch with friends from RSNS (our synagogue). I left just in time; another 10 minutes and I would have been extremely tired. As it was, I went right to bed for a couple of hours afterward.

Then I had a pretty good work day, progress on 3 projects. And finally at 6:45 I went to the PT for evaluation and therapy for the painful thumbs. Part of the reason for the pain is--SPIN. As soon as the PT heard that I had been to SPIN that morning, she said absolutely not to SPIN. She's had at least 100 patients who have ruined their hands with SPIN. This reminds me of the time I had to give up running, which is how I got into SPIN in the first place. Finally she agreed that if I sat through the whole class and did not do more than rest my hands on the handlebars, I could try it. She demonstrated to me that even just using the 4 fingers and not the thumbs, as I have been doing, when standing on the bike, is not enough because the thumb is engaged in any case. So I will go and sit.

The other development is the spleen: now it seems bigger to me. It's uncomfortable as it has not been before. At the conference the other day, one of the doctors showed a slide of a man with an enlarged spleen, from rib to groin. The normal spleen is virtually invisible. Then he showed the x-ray veiw, and you could see the spleen extend all the way down the body right next to the liver, which was also enlarged. Then he showed the pictures after the therapy this man received. The spleen and liver shrank to more normal size. That's what we are hoping for, but today it seems I look on the outside just like the man on the slide.

OK, what to do? Nothing, I guess. Take my meds, hope for a change, and try something else if this doesn't work. Dr. Raza at St. Vincent's Comprehensive Cancer Center had suggested three therapies to try, so if T&P fail, I will hope for better results with something else.

I have no complaints, though. So many minutes of my day are enjoyable, and I can forget the whole body business for hours at a time.

Hoping you are all well. I am happy to hear from you by email if you would like to respond to my blog or just chat: I still can't talk on the phone very well, though face-to-face seems to work all right.

My address is bkliman@optonline.net, and if you want to include Merwin, his is mkliman@optonline.net.

Love to all,
Bernice