March 12, 2020

Health Update

My latest M-protein numbers came back yesterday. They’re up from the previous month:

This is not as bad as it seems. As you may recall, I was on a cocktail of drugs last year that included something called Pomalyst. In December, suspecting that the Pom might be causing the shortness of breath that I was suffering, we discontinued it. This is why my M-protein number has increased.

I’ll see my oncologist next week, but the answer to this is almost certainly to start back up on the Pom. There’s no reason not to, since my shortness of breath has continued for the past three months, which means it wasn’t the fault of the Pom to begin with. Presumably it’s caused either by the Darzalex or the dex, and I can’t discontinue either of those. So I’m just going to have to live with it.

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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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