February 12, 2016

Health Update

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As I mentioned a couple of weeks ago, my chemo regimen changed last month. The Revlimid reduced my M-protein level for a little while, but then flattened out around 0.6, which is still a long way from zero.1 So now we’re trying Revlimid plus dexamethasone. Dex is pure evil, but it’s also pretty good at fighting multiple myeloma, so let’s all give a big round of applause to evil! My first test result came back yesterday, and after only three weeks on the dex my M-protein marker has finally budged from 0.6. It’s now down to 0.48. There’s still a long way to go, but at least things are once again moving in the right direction.

1Standard explainer: myeloma cells produce M-proteins, so measuring them is a good proxy for the level of cancerous cells in my bone marrow. This will never get to zero, but when the M-protein marker reaches zero it means the myeloma is at a very, very low level. So that’s the goal.

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From the desk of Mother Jones CEO, Monika Bauerlein...

Newsrooms can be funded in many ways. One of the most controversial (and volatile) ways is by a for-profit corporation or a billionaire owner. We see it across the headlines on a weekly basis: the claw backs in public media, the gutting of The Washington Post, the bending over backwards to appeal to Trump and his allies.

But not here.

When Mother Jones first started publishing 50 years ago, our founders made a critical decision: to be a reader-supported nonprofit. They knew that no corporate owner would be interested in a muckraking newsroom; they also knew that no muckraking newsroom would be interested in following the agenda of a corporate owner.

And so, we’ve been reader-funded for half a century. We rely on contributions from our readers—readers like you—whether it’s $50, or $15 a month, or whatever fits your budget. People give what they can, and every donation makes a difference for our newsroom, which has grown tremendously—in size and reach and renown—since its inception in 1976.

You may be wondering: What does it take to publish an investigation? And what does my donation actually fund? The answers are one and the same: It takes people, resources, and time. And that’s what your donation funds directly.

Every donation Mother Jones receives from readers fortifies our newsroom, whether we’re covering underreported scandals out of Washington, DC, or the most important news of the day. And right now, each donation will be doubled because of our $50,000 match. So when you make a donation—$5, $50, any amount—it’ll go twice as far.

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Thanks for reading.

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