Winding Down on Birthday Celebration aka Protein or No Protein

Fairly tame as far as birthdays go.  Two beers with dinner on Thursday night. One beer Saturday.  I didn't even open up my giant bottle of Shmaltz Beer that I have.  Who am I?  Saturday night we did get to Baskin Robbins for my ice cream splurge. Rocky Road plus Oreo & Chocolate. No Cone.  The highlight of the weekend was a trip Sunday to a place called the Gentle Barn. It's an animal sanctuary about 60 miles from our house.  Just an awesome, fantastic place.  For about a year prior to my diagnosis, I had given up meat. I still ate fish and occasional chicken. But that was it.  As I was getting sick, but didn't know what it was, my energy was really suffering. At first, I chalked it up to not getting enough protein in my diet. Wrong.

Anyhow, once diagnosed, I was told I needed to eat protein to keep the body strong to fight the impact of the chemo and the cancer. And since I had kidney damage from myeloma, I had to limit (and still do) my intake of foods high in phosphorus and potassium.  This ruled out nuts, beans, legumes, and soy as my protein source. So I started eating meat again. Well, after visiting the Gentle Barn I'd like to give up meat again. But again I'm faced with the question of where I get my protein. But is protein really that important? I don't know. I'm curious what other myeloma patients think. Nutrition has always been a challenge. Doctors don't talk much about it. They just tell you to eat. A cancer patient eating is a good thing to an oncologist.

In terms of the week ahead. I've got Berenson this Friday. Should have my lab results mid week. I did notice that I slept through the night last night without once having to get up to pee. That's amazing and must mean the myeloma is under control. Typically, my myeloma produces a whole lot of protein and I pee a lot. At it's worst, I was getting up 4-5 times a night. Of late, it's only once or twice.  But to not get up at all is pretty darn nice.  And having slept through the night, makes me want to spend the entire day in bed.  This is a story for another day...but as much as I like my job, getting up to go to work while having the myeloma hanging around is becoming less enjoyable all the time.