I can’t believe I haven’t blogged in a month! It’s been QUITE a month. I thought that by now I’d be writing about my adorable tutoring students, and how every day I could see in their happy, fascinated faces that I’d made a REAL DIFFERENCE in their little reading lives. Unfortunately, Health ran interference on…
Category: Rx Pain Relief
Acclimation
This year has been a long journey of learning to acclimate myself to a new – everything – it feels like some days. Recently I was in a group where we were asked to describe ourselves using a series of adjectives. It was a confusing exercise, and at first no one did very well with…
Missing In Action
It’s been a very emotional week for me, not least because my doc has had me cut back on my Oxycontin to half of my previous dose, although I also have 5mg Oxycondone I can take for breakthrough pain. I’ve done this step-down twice already since ending chemo, and I agree that it’s necessary to…
Things Change SO Quickly
I had big plans to make a chocolate cake today.
It doesn’t sound like a huge deal, but it is. Getting downstairs isn’t the marathon it was just a month ago, but it’s an effort. STANDING is harder than anything, and baking is more about standing than anything else. Silly things like lifting up the mixer to move it over by the electrical outlet, carrying eggs, sifting flour, etc., are very difficult when the back is so painful.
Chronic Pain Revisited
After the past 9 months I’d be happy never to see the inside of a hospital again, but part of me is also wondering if a knee replacement is in my future. I see an orthopedic doc in a few weeks, the same doc I saw 2 years ago who gave me a shot in my knee that helped quite a bit, and I’m curious to find out if this knee pain can be surgically remedied.
It’s SNOWING!
I don’t think I can actually go out into the snow, I slip and fall SO easily, but maybe Andy will bring me in a bowl of it and I can play around with that? I hope as it gets warmer my legs will grow stronger and I’ll be walking outside without a cane in the Springtime!
“Once more unto the breach…”
In many states once you get outside of the city areas the highways have poetic names like “Highway M” or, “Highway Z” or, “Highway PP.” Every time Kathleen and I drive through Wisconsin we pass a sign that reads, “Hwy V” I have yet to be on top of my passenger duties enough to snap…
I’m HONGRY, Mama…
Having cancer, for me, means that I’m FRIGGIN’ STARVING almost all the time, but very few things sound good, and fewer things taste edible. Once I light on something that I can actually EAT, I spend days hoping that my tastes won’t change again. What I love on Monday can sometimes taste like doggy-do on Tuesday, and there’s no rhyme or reason to it. It’s not about spice, or temperature of food, or sugar content, or really anything.
One constant has been tea. I love a good cup of tea, and for better or for worse THAT is a delicious thing to cling to. I’m also good with bananas and peanut butter is generally a positive. There were a few days when the smell of it made me nauseas, but since then I’ve returned to the land of Smucker’s peanut butter, and in small amounts it’s good food.
Hello Again, My Friends!
I keep racking my brain for ANY food that is remotely appealing, but everything I try (even stuff that “sounds good”) ends up being a vehicle for nausea. Even my old stand by, ice cream. Oy.
So, I’m still here. A little shaky, a little pale, and apparently I’m right in the “eye” of the chemo, but I’ll get through it. Thank you for being here with me.
What Doesn’t Kill You…
I can be relaxed about this so far because it’s only day one. We’ll see how happy I am on day 7, when the side effects begin to come into their own. For now, I’ll enjoy what I can enjoy, not that getting liters and liters of fluids pumped into me all day is terribly ENJOYABLE, but it’s not horrible.