Fingernails

Team Miner:  

I thought I'd just take a moment to publicly sing Jeff's praises.  I am really proud of him.  Every day he is bearing with some degree of physical challenges and fatigue.  Some days are better than others.  No matter the day, however, Jeff is facing it all with a lot of grace and a ton of courage.  

This morning, for instance, he looked at his fingernails and noticed that we could see something like tree rings on them.  Almost halfway up from his nail bed you can see an appreciable change in color.  We chalked it up to the chemo.  Like most everything else these days.  At first my Wikipedia research suggested that the symptom is called "Beau's lines," which made them sound rather romantic.  Upon further (minimal) research, I suspect they are the less winsome-sounding "Muehrcke's nails" or maybe "Mees' lines."

This change to his fingernails is a little thing.  As far as I know his fingernails are not causing him any pain.  But it is that kind of thing that I would probably obsess over if I were in his shoes.  Jeff, by contrast, has been really focused on taking this in stride, and I am glad to be a first-hand witness to him fighting such a good fight.  (Of course, I would rather not have to witness him going through this at all, but that goes without saying.)  

All this said, he is maybe (?) halfway done with chemo at this point.  We will know more after a PET scan before the fifth round of R-EPOCH.  It has been uplifting for me to see so many people supporting him, and I know he has really appreciated it as well.  Keep it coming amigos.

Love,

Katina