Orlando and Farber Patient Symposium

Things are a little bit crazy right now.  We just returned Monday from 6 wonderful days vacationing in Orlando, Florida with Jason and his girlfriend, Jessica.  No, we didn't buy the time share they tried to sell us during the obligatory sales pitch.  It sounded like a pretty interesting proposition, but to buy both a house and a time share at the same time would be the height of foolishness.  I've been known to be foolish, but not that foolish.  Besides, we both think that a time share would be too constraining on our choice of future vacations.  We don't like limits on where we can go, even if they are broad limits.

We had a terrific time with Jason and Jessica!  We bought multi-day, two-park tickets to the Universal Studios and Islands of Adventure parks, and we spent most of Thursday and Friday there.  It wasn't crowded and the lines were only 5-10 minutes for most rides, so we got the most out of it.  Unfortunately, Gretchen can't do any of the rides because of her head injury, but she enjoyed kibitzing and chatting with people while the rest of us were whirled, dashed and thrashed around in dizzying 3-D rides and death-defying roller coasters.  I'm proud of myself that I almost threw up only once.  Young people are so great to be around...they infuse an energy and vitality that makes us feel young again.  The two Harry Potter attractions were terrific (especially Diagon Alley)!  I would highly recommend them if you decide to visit Universal, that is if you can afford it.  In a stroke of marketing genius, each of the Harry Potter attractions is in a different park, so you have to buy a two-park ticket to experience the whole thing. 

Dinner at Clearwater Beach

Then on Saturday, we drove to Clearwater Beach, where we sunned ourselves in the 80 degree temperatures and dipped our toes in the waters of the Gulf.  We capped off the day with a delightful dinner on a waterfront deck as we watched the sun set. Nice!

Reality set in as we returned home to Boston on Monday to face a temperature of 23 degrees (yikes!), followed by a Nor'easter with howling winds that dumped 5 inches of rain on us over the next couple of days.  It could have been worse.  It could have been 3-4 feet of snow.  Now why is it that we're buying a house in Massachusetts again?  Please remind me.

Today I went in to the Farber to attend their annual Patient Symposium, where Ken Anderson, Paul Richardson, and others brought us up to date on the latest MM laboratory and clinical research, including results from the ASH conference held last weekend in San Francisco.  This the 4th time I have attended this Symposium, and it is always an exciting, uplifting experience.  I'm looking forward to being around to attend many more.  It's really encouraging to see how much progress is being made in finding new MM treatments from year to year.  I was especially interested in the encouraging new results for monoclonal antibodies and immunization approaches, as well as recent progress in genome sequencing giving better understanding of MM mutations.  I haven't had a chance to digest all the information yet (it's like drinking from a fire hose), but I hope to provide a summary in a future post.