J. Michael Jones

Hi, it has been a little crazy lately and I will try to cram in several thoughts as quickly as I can.

I sat down to do my taxes a couple of weeks ago and started but discovered that I’d been hacked. I had no access to the internet and all my e-mails had been compromised and taken over. I could not log on here due to complexities of not having a working e-mail account or internet access. Then I discovered at a fake used car dealership (actually the IP address was in Africa) was using my FB account to send out adds for great looking used cars (photos I’m sure they downloaded from the Internet) and then asking for a credit card number from those interested to hold a deposit for the car. The biggest problem was us getting $1600 deducted from our checking account to pay for the ads, and they had asked for a total budget of $15,000 for this looser to pay for his fake ads. Anyway, we are still working on it and hope to get our money back. But, for the meantime, I am electronically impaired. My previous laptop was totally destroyed in the process (somehow once the mischief was done, the malware caused my networking software to self-destruct and could not be restored) and now I’m starting with a new laptop. Thank goodness I use the cloud for back up and was able to save things like my book manuscripts. BTW, don’t try to communicate with me via the email listed here, “jmichaeljoneswriter@comcast.net” as it is also destroyed. I have a replacement ristrettorain@gmail.com as every possible combination in the world that had “Jones” in the e-mail address, had been taken.

Whew. . . now with the updates.

I have mostly good news (besides the above) to share, I just can’t remember where to begin. First, about 2 weeks ago I had my routine labs done. My kidney function, to my surprise, was a little better and that was despite easing up on my diet even more. Kidney function is best expressed by eGFR (Estimated Glomerular Filtration Rate). Normal is 60-90. Mine was 4 a year ago. Dialysis is required below 15. Mine was 19, then 20, then 21, and last time 23. I am so grateful for that because it means I can start to eat like a normal human being once again rather then plain oatmeal and plain noodles.

We did a series of tests to look directly at the cancer and, to make a long story short, we can call it in full remission. Not cured as there is still a trace. But it gave us the opportunity to stop chemo for a total of five weeks. Most likely I will be on it for the rest of my life.

If there is a dark lining to this otherwise great story, it is that I’ve starting having rather severe side effects from chemo with profuse diarrhea for 3 weeks and burning from the knees down (peripheral neuropathy). My illness from the diarrhea etc. seemed to have upset my twitching (myoclonus) which had been getting better (slightly) prior to that. Taking a break from the chemo will be a godsend. I’m at week 2 1/2 of my break and I just produced a normal turd this morning, the first since early January. I never thought that poop could look so good!

To end this post on a positive note, we just got back from Index, WA where we celebrated the Jones Christmas, where 14 of our family (kids, daughter in-laws, grand kids) were at an isolated mountain cabin for 4 days. It was great!

We have a couple of days here and then we will be flying to MN to visit with Denise’s family.

Mike