Update 34, July 7, 2009          LAST   NEXT                                                            

Ten months since the last update!

Good news! This past Tuesday the lineup for this years Calgary International Blues Festival, August 6-9 was announced. I'M ON THE BILL! Three months from today. Last September Maurice Ginzer, co-producer of the festival, invited me to put a band together to feature yours truly on guitar. ANYTHING IS POSSIBLE. Go to checkone2band.com for more info about the group of musicians I've assembled. The last time I put a band together myself was 'Tricycle" in 1983! Come out and see us!  It will be a blast. Mention is made in my bio on the Bluesfest site about my Amyloidosis survival. .Hopefully that will help garner some more awareness.

Things have been pretty stable physically although my weight has dropped to just over 120 pounds in the past year and I still bruise pretty easily. I must say that I have had some anxiety/depression issues since somewhere around December, 2006. After hedging about it for a long time I finally sought out some help from a Dr Fitzgerald at the Peter Lougheed Hospital, had four sessions and was prescribed 20mg of Celexa (Citalopram) per day. It has made a lot of difference. It's an SRI (serotonin re-uptake  inhibitor).

Exams with  Dr Bahlis are now at three month intervals and I'll be seeing him on  May 19. I had the routine bloodwork done on April 30. Hopefully this time I'll get the current results of my free light chain levels. The tests are done in Ontario and it usually takes a couple weeks. I'm also due for a standard medical within the month.