I can feel it in my bones...

When you've been through this cancer thing once, and you've really paid attention to the things that led up to your diagnosis, you don't forget. All of this started up again about seven weeks ago. We'd just come through the death of my beloved mother-in-law, Marci, and then my own mother suddenly going into hospital for what turned out to be a pretty severe gallbladder infection.

I started to feel a little pain in my right shoulder back in May and thought that it was a rotator cuff injury. I took care of it, but the pain started to worsen as June became July. I also began to feel a pain near my groin that caused me to limp from time to time. Because neither of these things started to heal despite the care and attention I was giving them, I began to take some mental notes as I prepared for my next visit to the oncologist.

The numbers in my blood work were exceptional and the full-body bone survey I had in April showed nothing of note. When I presented the symptoms to my doctor last week, he hesitated a bit as the numbers were still incredible. Still, he didn't like what he was hearing, so off to x-ray I went. As it turns out, there was a terrible amount of progress in the damage done to my upper right arm and a bit to the top of my left leg and hip socket.

Stunned, Dr. V proceeded to make plans for treatment that had me back on my full chemo cocktail of revlimid, dexamethasone and velcade. I will need to have a bone marrow biopsy done to see exactly what is going on with my M-protein levels (the marker of the disease). Since I am non-secreter (one who does not pass the protein in blood or urine), it is difficult for doctors to track the progress of my disease. Still, there should've been some indicators in my blood work to indicate a change. I will have to see a surgical oncologist to have a look at the arm. It's quite possible that they will need to insert a support rod into my humerus to keep the arm functioning.

In my fertile imagination, I will somehow become Colonel Steve Austin (The Six Million Dollar Man) or possibly Wolverine. Oh, if adamantium implants were real!