Alternate Wednesday

I love these alternate Wednesdays, like today, a non-infusion day. It's far enough away from the treatment that I'm feeling pretty good, and that the next one is still a week away with a potential for a lovely weekend in between. After this next time, the chemistry will change and there will be no in between weeks for 3 months. That will be a new adventure. I'll embark on it when I get there.

I went to renew my auto tags after work today, the last day of the month in which it was due. The line for the emissions test was not long, surprisingly, but the line at the county clerks' office was brutal and the ceiling there is a skylight which amplified the already intense sun shining down on my head. I had to ask the folks behind me to honor my place and allow me to go stand in the shade as I was wilting.

I came home to find the screen porch project nearly done; we finally, after 12 years in this house, decided to screen in the back patio. I'm so excited. Xena even used the doggie door, which we installed to allow her to enter and exit the screen room on her own, tonight without prompting. I'm proud like a mama, as she is so slow to try new things. She took 2 years to decide to use the one in the house.

Feeling great today after a lovely massage this afternoon-oh how I needed that-only a vague headache right now. It's about time to go to bed anyway.

Monday again

It was a really hard day at work. Not just for me, for the entire PT staff and the front desk. I'm not sure why...maybe because one of us is out sick, or because of some kind of energetic thing in the air, the storms brewing that slammed into the afternoon, something. One patient after another came in to tell me about the major challenges they are facing in their lives: a breast cancer survivor whose husband has been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer while her father is in the hospital for treatment for an acute infection and had become incoherent; a handsome young man in his prime who has survived a head on motorcycle crash and is relearning to walk while dealing with hardware holding his leg and back together; a woman in her 50s who has been suffering chronic pain since the birth of her daughter 21 years ago; another woman in her 40s who is recuperating from brain cancer and dealing with the ravages of treatment - as perspective on my own quality of life, I'm grateful for the stories I heard today. It makes for a very hard day, but I leave the office feeling grateful for my good health.

I know it sounds odd for me to say that, but I really do feel that way. So far anyway, I feel healthy. It was a rough weekend, but there have been years in the past where just the intense heat that we experienced this past week would knock me out. That would have been excuse enough for me to take the weekend off and lay in the cool bedroom watching TV. And it is a luxury to give in to extensive rest and hours of sleep; chemo gives me total permission for that. So comparatively I am well and this is a blip on my life experience. Every good day is a good day. Today was another good one, even if it was hard.

Okay, so I didn't feel so well this morning. It was brutally hot on my way in to work, and the air was not working in our office nor the treatment rooms early today. I was wondering if I was going to make it through the day during the morning, feeling vaguely nauseous, but by midday the air cooled and my energy improved. The queasiness that I feel so much of the time lately backed off and lunch revived me. Getting adequate nutrition and frequent enough food input if a chore these days, and some things are beginning to not taste as good...green tea for example, and spices have lost some of their potency. But a healthy meal feels good in the belly no matter what it tastes like. And once the icky post-chemo feeling diminishes, I begin to force feed myself the numerous capsules and pills that provide the supplementation I am prescribed by my doctor and that I desire based on my research and on the way I notice I feel after taking them. They make me feel better. And I feel pretty good.

Swimming back up out of the miasma

This treatment was a doozy. I have been more subdued by this than either of the others. The nurses had warned me that sometimes the 3rd is the charm, and it seems that this is true in my case. Not only have I been tired, but I've been sore all over. Tender to the touch in the neck, shoulders, chest, breasts, back, base of my skull, jaw...my legs and feet are okay, at least.

I did back out of the staff retreat yesterday; they went to Carnton Mansion, a wonderful historic site of the Civil War, where I have spent some amazing times, but I'm not up to the heat and the bugs at the moment. Hated to miss it, but needed the rest. And the continued rest into today. I did get out a bit this morning, I met Grace and Billy and went Farmers' Market hopping, and spent a couple of hours seeking shade and enjoying a lemonade sweetened with agave...delicious....but I crashed and had to head home. Spent the afternoon in bed, zoning in and out of consciousness and watching NCIS in the background. Aside from feeling so weak, it's pleasant to just chill out like this.

Once Dave got home, I took a nice hot soak in the tub, after giving myself a massage, and felt much less achy afterward. So we went out to dinner at one of our favorite spots-a little Persian restaurant in the neighborhood. As soon as we got there, a storm hit. Power flickered and went out for a bit, but came back on and we were able to eat our meal by electric lights. Got soaked running out to the car, but who cares-it's warm. On the way home, we passed limbs in the street, dodged traffic at intersections where the lights were out and narrowly missed driving into a half-downed power line in our street. Wouldn't that have been ironic? Death by accidental electrocution while on chemo? I made my first-ever 911 call to inform the powers that be. Hope nobody ran into it before the fire department got out here to fix it.

The day after the day before

This was written on Thursday, 6/24.

This time it got me right away. I passed out very early after coming home from the infusion last night, and don't expect to be up very long tonight. I'm queasy as I've been after the previous treatments, but not actively nauseous, just so tired. I'm SO glad I shortened my work schedule for Thursdays and Fridays. Tomorrow is a staff retreat event, so I have only 2 patients in the morning before the retreat, and if I feel too funky I'll back out of that, and just come home.

The blessings of baldness

This was written Tuesday evening. 

This morning I went downstairs to let the dog out and a bug buzzed my head. I thought it was a moth that had come in during the night after flirting with the porch light when the door opened. I brushed at my head, brushed the bug away and noticed that it ascended on a thread, not wings. Whew...if I still had my mop of hair, it would have surely been tangled up in my curls and emerged later in the day to scare me, perhaps in the middle of treating a patient. Or I would have ended up with a spider bite...just what I need (not). I still think that the tick bite I suffered a year ago led to my immune system being weak enough for the tumor to get out of "in situ" status.

Manic Monday

It was a very busy day. Tomorrow will be, too. But you know, it feels good to be able to do it, to work that hard. Wig is still getting complements-I keep forgetting how different I look. Inside my own head, I feel remarkably the same, and tend to not remember that the package has changed and throws people off. I try to remember to introduce myself when I see someone I want to greet and who I think may not recognize me. But it's easy to neglect to do that, and to be set back a moment when I'm unrecognized.

Feeling well today. No headache, no nausea, no pain to speak of...just a little of my oral neuralgia, about a 3 on a scale of 10. Trying to avoid thinking about Wednesday.

I did start tracking my food yesterday. I think that may be informative. And I don't want to lose any more weight, but I don't want to gain either. It's helpful to have an idea of how many calories I'm actually consuming. The Livestrong website has an awesome food tracker-much easier to use, for me, than Weightwatchers was, although I did lose a lot with Weighwatchers online when I was trying to lose. But this one is free and quite user-friendly. I hope I can keep it up. If I would also track the supplements, I would be aware of everything passing my lips! But for now, that is too much. The day only has so many minutes in it.

Sundays go too fast

Sunday morning always looks like an open field, limitless and inviting. Sunday afternoon is always a surprise, as I become aware of the swift flight of the day. Sunday evening, back to reality. Gotta get up for work in the morning.

Not much to report today; I felt fine. Dave and I went to the Y and did a bit of cardio, then to Whole Foods for grocery shopping. Came home, made sun tea, took the car to the car wash, thinned the tomato plants, meditated, and did a lot of food prep. A long bath, a lot of trying to not think about Wednesday, and no headache. Horray.

On days when I'm feeling queasy, I just can't face taking my supplements, but today I am not. I took the handful of pills. I'll have to get up to pee at least once tonight. Lately it's been twice as I drink so much water and herbal tea late in the evening. Other than that, I'm sleeping okay. 

Happy father's day to all fathers. See you tomorrow.