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The short version: nothing has changed. The long version: nothing has changed.

Literally. The M-protein level that we track so assiduously has stayed at the exact same level for four months running. The exact same level down to the hundredth of a gram. I’m beginning to wonder if I’m just being humored and they’re only pretending to do the lab work. The guy is nuts about his M-protein level. Just mark down 0.58 and forget about it.

Everything else is stable and relatively normal too. My immune system is, of course, compromised by the chemo meds, but it remains in tolerably good condition. My red blood cells are fine. My platelet count is sometimes a little low, but not enough to be worried about. I go through weird cycles of fatigue (Friday was unusually bad, for example), but nothing close to what happened during the initial rounds of chemo. Mostly I just have to take naps more often than I used to. My neuropathy is annoying but seemingly fairly stable. And now that I’m off the evil dex, I’m no longer gaining weight. Sadly, I’m not losing it either. Even cancer can’t kill off my weakness for chocolate.

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AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

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