Here are the latest lab results for my M-protein level. As always, the lower the level, the better my cancer is under control:

So everything is fine. There was a tiny uptick in November, but it’s probably just noise.

Unfortunately, there’s a little more going on. Beginning four weeks ago, I’ve been sick constantly. I get something that feels like a normal stomach bug for a day or two, and then it goes away. But then it comes back. And goes away. And comes back. I’ve stopped counting, but I’m now on my ninth or tenth round. It seems to have nothing to do with food, nothing to do with an actual bug, and nothing to do with whether I’m currently taking my chemo med. (I take Pomalyst for three weeks on, then one week off. I’ve gotten the stomach problems both when I’m on and when I’m off.) Needless to say, perpetual rounds of stomach upset and diarrhea are pretty unpleasant.

The most likely cause is simply that a year of taking Pomalyst has finally produced this side effect, something that’s pretty common with chemo drugs. The usual reason for stopping a particular chemo med is either (a) it stops working or (b) the side effects finally become intolerable, and it’s possible that (b) has kicked in. In any case, I’ll discuss this with my doctor during my next visit.

Possibly related to this is that I’ve been deeply fatigued and depressed for weeks. Now, this could just be random. Moderate depression often comes and goes for no discernable reason. Or it could be physical, possibly linked to my stomach ailments. Or it could be due to external events. That doesn’t typically seem to be the case with me, but God knows there’s been plenty of reason lately. Between COVID-19; Trump’s tweeting; conservative malevolence; progressive blindness; climate change stagnation; and some personal stuff, there are plenty of reasons for me to feel unhappy.

Hopefully this will all go away eventually. In the meantime, it’s reduced my posting frequency for two reasons. First, I’m tired. Second, posting while depressed is a bad idea that mostly produces epic rants. This would probably be pretty entertaining for everyone, but not a good use of time or pixels. For now, I’m going to keep things slow and make sure to edit myself rigorously. I have never trusted myself when I’m in the throes of depression.

POSTSCRIPT: That said, I have no apologies for the headline to the previous post.

WE'LL BE BLUNT

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Getting just 10 percent of the people who care enough about our work to be reading this blurb to part with a few bucks would be utterly transformative for us, and that's very much what we need to keep charging hard in this financially uncertain, high-stakes year.

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WE'LL BE BLUNT

It is astonishingly hard keeping a newsroom afloat these days, and we need to raise $253,000 in online donations quickly, by October 7.

The short of it: Last year, we had to cut $1 million from our budget so we could have any chance of breaking even by the time our fiscal year ended in June. And despite a huge rally from so many of you leading up to the deadline, we still came up a bit short on the whole. We can’t let that happen again. We have no wiggle room to begin with, and now we have a hole to dig out of.

Readers also told us to just give it to you straight when we need to ask for your support, and seeing how matter-of-factly explaining our inner workings, our challenges and finances, can bring more of you in has been a real silver lining. So our online membership lead, Brian, lays it all out for you in his personal, insider account (that literally puts his skin in the game!) of how urgent things are right now.

The upshot: Being able to rally $253,000 in donations over these next few weeks is vitally important simply because it is the number that keeps us right on track, helping make sure we don't end up with a bigger gap than can be filled again, helping us avoid any significant (and knowable) cash-flow crunches for now. We used to be more nonchalant about coming up short this time of year, thinking we can make it by the time June rolls around. Not anymore.

Because the in-depth journalism on underreported beats and unique perspectives on the daily news you turn to Mother Jones for is only possible because readers fund us. Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism we exist to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we need readers to show up for us big time—again.

Getting just 10 percent of the people who care enough about our work to be reading this blurb to part with a few bucks would be utterly transformative for us, and that's very much what we need to keep charging hard in this financially uncertain, high-stakes year.

If you can right now, please support the journalism you get from Mother Jones with a donation at whatever amount works for you. And please do it now, before you move on to whatever you're about to do next and think maybe you'll get to it later, because every gift matters and we really need to see a strong response if we're going to raise the $253,000 we need in less than three weeks.

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