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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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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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