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I’ve been a little negligent about these updates, but that’s because nothing much is happening. My M-protein level, which is a good proxy for the total cancer load in my plasma, has been stable for the past three months, with a slight uptick in the most recent test:

I saw my doctor today, and he seemed happy enough with everything, especially since my lactate dehydrogenase levels were also OK. I’ve never heard of this before, but apparently if it’s high it indicates cell damage, so a low number is good. All the other test results have also been nice and stable over the past three months.

The only side effects of the chemo are tiredness, which is normal, and a slowly increasing case of peripheral neuropathy, which is also normal. The neuropathy is more-or-less untreatable, and a couple of months ago I started to feel it in my hands for the first time (it usually affects the feet first). My doctor suggested a couple of OTC remedies that some of his patients have reported success with. Unfortunately, he agreed when I told him I’d looked at some of those and there was no clinical evidence that they had any effect. I’d be happy to take them as a placebo, but I suppose that won’t work if I don’t believe in them to begin with. This is one of the downsides of having access to clinical literature via the internet. Oh well.

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THE FACTS SPEAK FOR THEMSELVES.

At least we hope they will, because that’s our approach to raising the $350,000 in online donations we need right now—during our high-stakes December fundraising push.

It’s the most important month of the year for our fundraising, with upward of 15 percent of our annual online total coming in during the final week—and there’s a lot to say about why Mother Jones’ journalism, and thus hitting that big number, matters tremendously right now.

But you told us fundraising is annoying—with the gimmicks, overwrought tone, manipulative language, and sheer volume of urgent URGENT URGENT!!! content we’re all bombarded with. It sure can be.

So we’re going to try making this as un-annoying as possible. In “Let the Facts Speak for Themselves” we give it our best shot, answering three questions that most any fundraising should try to speak to: Why us, why now, why does it matter?

The upshot? Mother Jones does journalism you don’t find elsewhere: in-depth, time-intensive, ahead-of-the-curve reporting on underreported beats. We operate on razor-thin margins in an unfathomably hard news business, and can’t afford to come up short on these online goals. And given everything, reporting like ours is vital right now.

If you can afford to part with a few bucks, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones with a much-needed year-end donation. And please do it now, while you’re thinking about it—with fewer people paying attention to the news like you are, we need everyone with us to get there.

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