Category Archives: Dear Diary

Things Are Better for Me

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I’m doing better at coping with the slow recovery, I think. At least I’m not so whiny as last week.

Last week I managed to walk Sasha 2x/day for 15 mins each. Sunday morning I walked her around the block (which is about 25 mins). It was a huge accomplishment for me. Better still, I’ve done that every day (except today). Moreover, J. and I have been starting to do strength training in the evenings. M-W-F are focused on the upper body, T-Th-S on the lower body. It’s early days yet to say how its going, but I have high hopes.

I’ve learned that I just won’t exercise regularly if its up to me. Aside from walking the dog, that is (and that’s a chore). I need a partner, someone to be accountable to, to talk to, and to go with. That is a tough admission to make, it breaks my ‘I can do it alone’ image.  Yes, I still cling to that even after this nine months of not doing anything alone (except suffer). The upshot of this increase in exercise means that I am quite sore from shoulders to feet. Which is uncomfortable . . . but necessary. I’m not ‘over’ doing it — I just am very weak and out of shape, so basically doing anything other than the ordinary is an effort. Effort = building muscles/ shedding fat (we hope). So, I start slow and work my way into larger and larger efforts.

Right now, for example, 15 mins of strength training is my limit. Luckily, I have good form and can pace myself well.

My goal(s): walk 2x/day 25 and 15 mins and strength training for 15 mins.

Other than that: J. and I are off to Ashland for the weekend.

I am not in a good mood

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It’s been lingering all day. I didn’t sleep well last night, that’s the first problem; but I just haven’t been able to shake a deep sense of . . .  BLAH.

I spent some time ‘sitting’ with the blah and came to two realizations: part of it is tiredness, but the other part is a reaction to the chemo. (Hold your ‘duh’ reaction justa  moment, please.) You see, I’m ‘supposed’ to be back to normal. Or something akin to normal.  Instead I’m still having trouble sleeping, I’m still experiencing food cravings, my body hurts (somewhere, all of the time), I’m the heaviest I’ve ever been (and not comfortable with it), and I’m having hot flashes. (On the bright side, my brain seems to be working more-or-less normally again.)

It’s damned uncomfortable being me right now.

The only thing that will fix this is time and hard work. Time will take care of the body aches and the cravings and the sleeping. It will also presumably lead to an increase in my energy. Hard work will take care of the weight gain, leading to an improvement in the aches and an overall feeling of increased vitality.

But I don’t have any motivation at the moment, plus it is HARD to even walk (still). I’m doing it, twice a day. But I am so not motivated to do anything else.

(/start whine) It’s HARD getting much of anything done. (/end whine)

A Long Moment of Silence

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Please, stop what you are doing. Take a breath and close your eyes in memory of Jeanne Robinson.

The wife of Spider Robinson, Jeanne and Spider co-authored the influential Stardance trilogy in the late 70s. If you haven’t read it, do so now.

I can’t say it as well as Spider does, so I’ll let him do it. Moreover, my eyes are full of tears. Not for her passing, but for our loss.

Walking!

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It’s been 3 1/2 weeks since the last chemo session, and it’s been a hard recovery time for me. I’ve been physically exhausted, compounded by not sleeping well or through the night. My spirits have been good, my attitude generally positive, but the lack of physical fitness has been disturbing.

Having to work last week was an unexpected setback.

Mostly, I haven’t even been able to walk as long as 15 minutes. Until a day or two ago, I couldn’t even go 5 minutes without feeling wobbly — like I’d run a marathon. Going up and down stairs too many times would produce the same feeling of exhaustion in my leg muscles, complete with pounding heart.

I am the heaviest weight of my life, all because I can’t move more than briefly without wanting to fall over. It’s been a terrible time, and a terrible feeling.

Now, I’m not one to give in to adversity (a blessing and a curse, of course), so I’ve been trying to get out with J at least for the evening Sasha walk. By slowly pushing it, I could make it as far as 10 minutes.

Today, however, I took Sasha for a 15 min walk all by myself. (It was even raining.) Although I feel tired, I do not feel exhausted. This is a huge step forward. HUGE.

And yes, I realize its a screwed up life when you need to celebrate walking for 15 mins.

Scary evening

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Tonight when Sasha came home from her usual swim she started exhibiting signs of extreme pain. We’ve seen swimmer’s tail’ from her before, and stress fractures — this was something else.

She would sit (which she won’t do with swimmer’s tail) but not lie down. She wasn’t limping, she just refused to move at all, and her stance was very odd, like she was braced. She was so tired she was wobbly, but wouldn’t lie down. She ate, but didn’t pursue her bowl when she nudged it out of her immediate range.

Our vet has partnered with a group called Acces for after-hours care; we went there. After a careful survey, visual and kinesthetic, the vet tentatively diagnosed Sasha as suffering from a muscle injury, likely in the neck. Like a pulled muscle from fatigue. But a really bad one. They gave her a muscle relaxant and hydromorphine (aka Dilaudid!) and we all just hung out for awhile to see how she handled it. It definitely relaxed her, but the stress of the unfamiliar place was starting to freak her out a bit.

So we brought her home. J has her in the guest room downstairs. It took her about 45 mins once she was home to calm down, but she’s completely unconscious and sleeping on her side. Our only worry now is that she hasn’t had anything to drink for a lot of hours. She had wet food for dinner, so that will help any dehydration, but it’s something we need to pay attention to.

It was a very scary time.

Ten Things I’d Save . . .

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. . . if my house caught fire.

  1. J.  Of course he’s number 1.
  2. Sasha.
  3. My most recent computer backup. I backup monthly and it fits on a couple of disks, so this is easy.
  4. My jewelry – not because of its value so much as because several pieces are family heirlooms.
  5. My stone jaguar. Representing JaguarMoon and the first gift to me as a priestess . . . long after I began walking the path, but long before I began to lead others.
  6. My handmade athame. This was made for me by a special friend, and cannot be replaced.

That’s it. It will even fit easily into a pillow case.

Everything else in my life is basically replaceable, or too cumbersome to save. In the latter category, I have three tubs of memories going back to my childhood. I also have about 30 pieces of Belleek that is essentially irreplaceable. If I had time, I’d save them because the loss of those things is major. But I’d rather save my dog.

I was supposed to be resting this week

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I planned to have this week as another recuperative week . . . and really, honestly, I should have kept to that.

But an email exchange on Sunday night at 9pm prompted me to get into the office, and I’ve been work 3/4 days since then. Evenings have been new-house focused (Mon we looked at ‘upgrades’, Tues and tonight are the last of the Realtor interviews). So these have been long days.

I give so much at work, I have no energy for anything else. Not good. Physically, this is taking its toll. I am barely able to muster the energy to walk the Miss at night, and certainly not 2x/day . . . as I’d hoped I would this week.

That’s all I have for now. I’m looking forward to more energy later.

3 down!

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Chemo #3 went just fine. No bad surprises.

In fact, I mentioned earlier that I was worried because I had a blood draw about 10 days ago and the number was VERY low (2.5). The MA said that I’d likely have to do a course of Nulestra (which forces the bone marrow to produce white blood cells). I don’t want to, at the least because it’s painful.

So I’ve been visualizing little factories in my bones, producing wbc’s at a high rate.

My blood draw today? 28.5 🙂 My oncologist said “keep it up.”

No Nulestra for me. We are good to go for the final chemo session on May 5th!

Feedback Please: Mehndi?

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Now that I am seriously bald (there’s just a light shadow of hair . . . sort of a 5-o’clock thing) I’m strongly contemplating doing a mehndi tattoo.

For those of you who don’t know, mehndi is a temporary process that uses henna to stain the skin, usually in intricate patterns. It’s from India, and is a part of their celebrations, eg wedding parties will often be tattooed as part of the festivities.

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