Sold!

After more than a year of trying to sell our house, we finally did it!  We have agreed on all the terms with the buyer and plan to have a signed P&S agreement by tomorrow.   We were concerned about a couple of issues that arose during the inspection, but the buyer agreed to pay the full offer price.  It's a cash transaction, so there is no mortgage contingency to deal with.  In addition, she will allow us to stay here for several months at a nominal rent.  That's a huge benefit.  It relieves us of a lot of pressure and gives us some breathing room to pack, get rid of stuff, and, oh yeah, find a new home.

This is a huge weight lifted from our shoulders, but it is also bittersweet.  We have really loved this home over the past ten plus years, and we will definitely miss it.  However, it is much too big for just the two of us, and the carrying costs are more than we want to continue to bear.  It's time to move on.  We are hoping to find a smaller home that will meet our needs for years to come (I'm being optimistic in looking forward to "years to come").  I'm sure we will find the right place.  In mean time, we plan to enjoy our last summer on the river.

There has been some recent buzz about a potential new immunization therapy for MM using a genetically-modified measles virus.  Two heavily-pretreated patients were given the vaccine, and the results were dramatic.  In both patients, the MM receded dramatically, but after several months, the MM returned in one of the patients.  The media has played this up, but we all have to understand that this is nowhere near becoming a potential therapy in the near future.  What I think is most exciting about this is that it exemplifies the vigorous focus now being concentrated on finding ways of triggering the body's own immune system to fight cancer.  I recently blogged about this last month:  Immunotherapy Research.  There are a lot of promising developments in this arena, and I expect that there will be some significant breakthroughs in the next few years.  Here is a video by Dr. Ken Anderson of DFCI showing how excited he is about these new approaches:

immune-based therapies for multiple myeloma

There seems to be a sense of optimism among researchers that we may be on the threshold of some major advances in fighting all cancers, not just MM.  I am grateful that I continue to be in remission, which may give me time to take advantage of some of these new therapies as they become available.  I know it's only a matter of time before my multiple myeloma rears its ugly head again.