Thursday, June 18, 2009
Checking In
It's now Thursday, and I'm finally feeling fairly normal. Each session takes longer to recover from, it seems. I was functional by the weekend, but I was constantly tired. I did stuff, but I had to make myself keep moving. And mentally this is tough. When it's all done I want to take some time and just recover from the harshness of it all, and just chill for a while without the constant knowledge that in a few days I will be dragged down into a well. De-stress, if you will. I have been dealing with this since February of 2008 and I know I will some need decompression time. Luckily, I have pretty good support for that. And I don't think that's unreasonable. I think that most people need some recovery time after such a life-threatening and life-impacting thing such as what I have had to endure. Regarding work, I do intend to return to work. I just hope my co-workers don't take it personally if I don't rush back right away and take a little time to recover. The previous me always wanted to say and do the things that would please everyone else, sometimes to the detriment of what was best for me. But in this case I think that I should put myself first. It'll be better for everyone in the long run.
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
Garden Pics
I have uploaded some new pics of the garden progress, taken 6/15/09, along with notes in the captions. This link will take you directly to the album.
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
Summary For New Readers
I was thinking that as I direct new people to this blog I don't always tell them how this cancer stuff got started. So, here's a summary of how this all began:
It started out as colon cancer, discovered February 13, 2008. I had surgery to remove the tumor and underwent chemo from March - September. In December 2008 mets were found on my liver during a scan. I had surgery in January 2009 to remove them. I then started chemo again in February 2009. I hope to be finished at the end of August.
So, that's the "quick and dirty" to get everyone up to speed.
It started out as colon cancer, discovered February 13, 2008. I had surgery to remove the tumor and underwent chemo from March - September. In December 2008 mets were found on my liver during a scan. I had surgery in January 2009 to remove them. I then started chemo again in February 2009. I hope to be finished at the end of August.
So, that's the "quick and dirty" to get everyone up to speed.
Round 7
OK, here I am in the middle of Round 7. I guess it's good to be more than halfway through this. It'll get easier to see the end though when I get closer to it.
Monday when I came home I just headed to bed as usual. Around 6:00 or so Dave offered me some Jell-O. My stomach felt unsettled but I said OK, I'd try it. Such a sweet husband. I was so tired that I didn't want to open my eyes and the chewing and the swallowing of the Jell-O was as much as I could manage. He spoon fed me the whole thing. What a wonderful guy. Later he brought me an Ensure. Between the Jell-O and the Ensure I was feeling better. Not good enough to get up, but good enough to go to sleep. I actually slept well that night. Actually I was able to go to sleep when I asked Dave to come up and lie down with me for a while. Just lying with my head on his chest, hearing him breathe and hearing his heart beat quietened things down inside my head and allowed me to sleep.
Tuesday morning I got up, drank a glass of freshly squeezed orange juice. And then a small glass of chocolate milk. Read the paper, then headed to bed, where I was for most of the day. David brought me another Jell-O and Ensure meal. Later I got up and went downstairs, drank some water, ate 1/2 of a tamale (which I helped make on Saturday!) and watched TV. When I went to bed I was able to sleep well again.
Today I woke up, drank the OJ that was waiting for me beside my bed. Then went downstairs for some chocolate milk. Read the paper, showered and then we went to have my pump removed. I came home, went to bed to watch some TV and took a nap (I also ate a vegetable tamale with some salsa and sour cream). Here I am now updating things and drinking another glass of milk.
Last time I started feeling a bit blue-sy, a little depressed. It's because out of each 2-week cycle I have more bad days than I have good days. The oncologist offered me some anti-depressant pills but for now I will decline them. I don't want to commit to taking chemicals for 6 months when I will be finished with this in 3. And I don't want to even out my mood, so that not only do I not feel "down" I also would not feel "up". I don't want to miss out on feeling happy. So, I'll just see how it goes and resist the drugs.
Everything that I am feeling is normal, I am told.
Monday when I came home I just headed to bed as usual. Around 6:00 or so Dave offered me some Jell-O. My stomach felt unsettled but I said OK, I'd try it. Such a sweet husband. I was so tired that I didn't want to open my eyes and the chewing and the swallowing of the Jell-O was as much as I could manage. He spoon fed me the whole thing. What a wonderful guy. Later he brought me an Ensure. Between the Jell-O and the Ensure I was feeling better. Not good enough to get up, but good enough to go to sleep. I actually slept well that night. Actually I was able to go to sleep when I asked Dave to come up and lie down with me for a while. Just lying with my head on his chest, hearing him breathe and hearing his heart beat quietened things down inside my head and allowed me to sleep.
Tuesday morning I got up, drank a glass of freshly squeezed orange juice. And then a small glass of chocolate milk. Read the paper, then headed to bed, where I was for most of the day. David brought me another Jell-O and Ensure meal. Later I got up and went downstairs, drank some water, ate 1/2 of a tamale (which I helped make on Saturday!) and watched TV. When I went to bed I was able to sleep well again.
Today I woke up, drank the OJ that was waiting for me beside my bed. Then went downstairs for some chocolate milk. Read the paper, showered and then we went to have my pump removed. I came home, went to bed to watch some TV and took a nap (I also ate a vegetable tamale with some salsa and sour cream). Here I am now updating things and drinking another glass of milk.
Last time I started feeling a bit blue-sy, a little depressed. It's because out of each 2-week cycle I have more bad days than I have good days. The oncologist offered me some anti-depressant pills but for now I will decline them. I don't want to commit to taking chemicals for 6 months when I will be finished with this in 3. And I don't want to even out my mood, so that not only do I not feel "down" I also would not feel "up". I don't want to miss out on feeling happy. So, I'll just see how it goes and resist the drugs.
Everything that I am feeling is normal, I am told.
Thursday, June 4, 2009
Trying To Rally
For some reason I just haven't recovered completely yet after that last round of chemo. Usually I start feeling like my old self by the following Tuesday. I was expecting it to be Wednesday this week since my chemo was delayed a day due to Memorial Day. But here it is, Thursday, and I still feel kind of sluggish. My appetite's not great, especially for breakfast. Sleep's hard to come by so I get up tired already. So, I wake up tired, my stomach fells unsettled, so it's hard to eat breakfast. Therefore my energy's low for the rest of the day. Then I just hope I sleep well the next night and wake up refreshed, like someone hit a "reset" button. But it hasn't happened yet this morning. Maybe tomorrow...
I still cannot neglect the things I have to do. Because even though I feel pretty beat up this week it's nothing compared to next week. So I know I won't get anything done next week. And I've put some things off for several weeks already and just need to get things done. Like today: I'm cleaning up the overgrown lamb's ear in the front. The dead brown leaves have to be removed from the bottom of each plant. If I had done this a few weeks ago it wouldn't have been such a big job. But they got so overgrown it's taking me a few hours just to do this one job. And if I don't do it now then it's just going to look worse and be a bigger job later on. So, I have to muster up the energy and get it done now to avoid a bigger, longer job later.
Also, something I had put off for several weeks finally got done this week. I dedicated 2 days to cleaning the windows in our house. I hosed down the 1st floor windows on the outside and cleaned the class and the window sills. The 2nd floor windows took a little more time since I couldn't reach them with the jet spray and the squeegee. So I opened them up (the open inwards like a door, luckily) and wiped down the sills and the window frames and then cleaned the glass with Windex. It was a lot of work but the windows look so much better.
Now I am working outside, cleaning up the lamb's ears. I have a couple of things I hope to get to in the garden . Which is coming along nicely, by the way! Tomorrow I will gear up for a dinner party we are having on Saturday. Some of our friends are coming over and we are going to try our hands at making tamales. Luckily someone's also making enchiladas, so we are guaranteed to have something to eat. ;-)
I still cannot neglect the things I have to do. Because even though I feel pretty beat up this week it's nothing compared to next week. So I know I won't get anything done next week. And I've put some things off for several weeks already and just need to get things done. Like today: I'm cleaning up the overgrown lamb's ear in the front. The dead brown leaves have to be removed from the bottom of each plant. If I had done this a few weeks ago it wouldn't have been such a big job. But they got so overgrown it's taking me a few hours just to do this one job. And if I don't do it now then it's just going to look worse and be a bigger job later on. So, I have to muster up the energy and get it done now to avoid a bigger, longer job later.
Also, something I had put off for several weeks finally got done this week. I dedicated 2 days to cleaning the windows in our house. I hosed down the 1st floor windows on the outside and cleaned the class and the window sills. The 2nd floor windows took a little more time since I couldn't reach them with the jet spray and the squeegee. So I opened them up (the open inwards like a door, luckily) and wiped down the sills and the window frames and then cleaned the glass with Windex. It was a lot of work but the windows look so much better.
Now I am working outside, cleaning up the lamb's ears. I have a couple of things I hope to get to in the garden . Which is coming along nicely, by the way! Tomorrow I will gear up for a dinner party we are having on Saturday. Some of our friends are coming over and we are going to try our hands at making tamales. Luckily someone's also making enchiladas, so we are guaranteed to have something to eat. ;-)
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