"I feel it in my fingers, I feel it in my toes..."

Hello All,
Day 1 of cycle 5 - I called RSCH last week to tell them that there'd been an increase in peripheral neuropathy (that's tingly hands and feet, to the uninitiated!), so they wanted a doctor to review me before getting my next dose of Velcade-action, due today. So I prepared myself for a long session of sitting on my arse, waiting for a doc to be free. But my luck was in and I was seen almost straight away. They decided to press on, but said they'd keep a close eye on it. I think you have to be really debilitated (unable to hold a pen or difficulty walking) before they reduce the dose. Bloody hope it doesn't get to that stage - what a fucking laugh-riot that'd be! "Soz, can't come to work, can't drive cos I can't tell if I'm holding the steering wheel or not." Let's keep our fingers crossed - actually, you can all keep them crossed for me; maybe I won't be able to uncross them! Anyway, had my £1,000-worth of the magic potion - my typing is shit, but I can't blame the drugs; it was always chronic! Oh, yeah, nearly forgot to say, I've also had nasty crampy pains in my legs and back - they didn't seem to give a flying fuck about that, really - just advised me to keep necking the painkillers.
Went to the Brighton Myeloma Group meeting on Saturday, along with Pammie. Can't say I learned a great deal, but it never hurts to hear some stuff again. With only a couple of exceptions (hello Kerry!), I'd say the average age was 60+, which is to be expected, I suppose. (Going to the big Infoday thingy in London, too, in acouple of weeks - sure that'll be like God's Waiting Room too, on more than 1 level! Good excuse for a night away in London, tho.) Towards the end, one of the registrars from RSCH Haematology gave a talk on Stem Cell Tranplants, in which he spoke quite a bit about donor tranplants, and used the magic phrase "chance of a cure". A few of the delagates got rather excited at this - I assume that they'd not been told much about it cos most of them were too old. Then one of the other docs there (one of the consultants - not mine) got up and started banging on about how they aren't really generally an option, what with the mortality rates and the paucity of research/studies and how (and I quote) "we really aren't very good at doing them". Cheers for that, Dr G Reaper. One of the sisters from Haematology was there -she was pulling "wish-he'd-shut-the-fuck-up"faces at me. It would have been interesting if my consultant had been there - to get his opinion on what was being said, but he'd already left.
Anyhoo - gotta wait and see if my hands and feet drop off or shrivel up or catch fire or something equally nasty over the next few days; wish me luck!
Will post again soon,
A xxx