Update to previous Addendum...

I'm doing better.  Still pretty blah, but overall better.  As far as the procedure goes, I have no more discomfort to speak of.  There's a tightness, almost like the feeling of a bra, but all in all, rarely do I have any real discomfort any more.

Psychologically, I'm doing better.  I realized when it was refill time, that I had more Lexapro left than I should, so I guess I kind of forgot to take some after surgery, and therefore crashed pretty hard in that second week. 

However, I'm also noticing some disturbing symptoms in my left arm, my radiated side.  It's a little swollen, but there's also a tingling and feeling of discomfort.  I've slacked off on wearing my compression sleeves since the surgery, and I'll start being more diligent about that this week, but I have noticed it in the past when I'm wearing my sleeve, too.  The swelling I can trace directly to smashing the back of my hand on the edge of a piece of furniture while playing Dance Central.  As the bruise has faded, the puffiness has gone down.

However, as much fun as I've had choosing sleeves, and as much as I didn't mind wearing them last year, I really don't like it now.  At this point, my hair has grown back.  If you didn't know me, you'd never know that I'm a "survivor."  And the sleeve is like a neon sign that says, "Hey, something's not quite right with this chick."   Not only does my body not feel like my body, not only does my mental state not feel like me, not only do people who know me look at me differently, but dagnabbit, strangers do too.  And it is a neon sign, like being obviously pregnant, that encourages people to just get into my business, like the elderly gentleman who approached me at the community center one day or the woman who hounds me there and thinks she's my best buddy because she, too, had cancer.  My sleeve was what prompted her to come up and talk to me, and now I can't get rid of her.

It's only recently that these things have bothered me.  I don't know why they do.  And I don't hold it against these people.  This is clearly MY issue, not their issue.  I just want to blend.  I want to be the wallflower I enjoy being.

I didn't get to see Dr. Mo for my appointment.  She had to reschedule.  I see her this coming week.  Then I imagine the rounds of medical tests will start.  Since I've met my co-insurance and deductibles for the year, I guess we might as well throw a few extras in there for good measure.  After all, they'll be free.

Thanks for everyone's concern.  I think getting back to work, having a reason to get out of the house, having some purpose for every day has been really good for me.  Who would have thought that teaching would keep me sane?  Generally, I feel it's the other way around....

Now what?

Here I sit, one week away from what I have been hoping is my last surgery.  It's not a significant surgery.  It's scheduled for 8:30 a.m. and I expect that I'll be home around lunch time.  It's a simple procedure that is mostly cosmetic, just a re-adjustment of my one implant, making the "normal" one match the abnormal radiated side.  The recovery is supposed to be on the painful side since the surgeon will be stitching the implant to my rib and there will be lots of pinching, pulling, and tugging as it heals. The surgeon and the second opinion I sought out  both suggested that I'll have to restrict movement, lifting over 8 lbs., and not engage in anything physical for two to four weeks, but both also said I might find it really uncomfortable for up to 8 weeks.

I've been resigned to this for a while now.  Although the "problem" isn't significant and truly is mostly aesthetic, I really do feel like a freak when my fake boobs can't even line up right.  So I'm going through with it.

Lately, though, I've been noticing that I'm losing range of motion in my left arm.  At first, I thought it was just me, just in my mind, just my perception.  I guess I began noticing it when I was in Zumba class and tried to "windmill" my arms backwards.  My right arm went back, my left rotated to the side, and I looked like a fool.  Now, looking like a fool in Zumba isn't too disturbing to me.  I'm rather used to it.  As soon as the music starts, I look like a fool.  ::shrug::  It's what I do best.  It's fun and I'm by no means alone looking like a fool in Zumba class.  But, for shizzle I'd like to be able to rotate my arm backwards.  It's hard to feel remotely graceful or strong when your arm makes maybe a 105 degree angle from the side of your body instead of closer to 180.  One side of me does backstroke.  One side does the elementary backstroke.  Unkind.

Now that my one exercise teacher has also noticed it, I no longer think it's in my head, which is making me paranoid.  On the bright side, at least I no longer have to feel like I'm incapable of doing a push up because I'm incapable of gaining strength.  It's because I'm incapable of doing a push up.  Because this left side isn't working right.  But will it ever?  Is it going to get worse?

I suppose I need to make an appointment with someone about this.  Surgeon?  Radiation Onco?  I don't have time to actually go to any appointments in the next week since I'm cramming in as many office hours and one-on-one opportunities as possible with my students before Spring Break.  Then, I'm not ruining Spring Break any more than recuperation will ruin it, plus Amy and I are going out of town for most of it.   Later this month, I have a check up with Dr. Mo, so I guess I'll start with her.  I imagine, knowing her, there won't be a good answer or an easy path.  On the bright side, her office is very good at making appointments for me, so at least I don't have to make all those calls myself. 

I wonder what other damage has been done?  So, now I worry whenever I'm out of breath, whenever I cough, whenever I am miserable doing cardio-work if my heart and lungs aren't damaged.    I've had a little cold, sometimes I feel "chesty."  Is that lung damage?  Heart disease?  When I'm exceptionally tired, I worry about heart failure.  I've taken a nap for the last two days.  What does that mean?  Am I just tired?  Or is it something more than that?  Do I even want to know?

I bet it's back on the medical appointment merry-go-round within the month.

Tending to Everyday Basics

My chemo brain is pretty profound. Just dealing with the everyday basics of managing a family has become a real challenge. Therefore, I have to find a new way of doing what used to come easily and naturally. Dealing with with groceries and meals is the first order of business.

The planning and executing of meals is challenging in ways it has never been before. I don't think to make meals until too late in the day. Organizing and executing a frugal shopping trip is my undoing. It's the "connect the dots" part that is such a challenge. It's like I'm in a brain fog. I can open a cupboard, look in, see food items, and see no way that those ingredients can come together to make a dish. To complicate matters, I also am unable to recall what is in the fridge or freezer. Looking at the weekly sale fliers used to mean something. I could see what could become of sale and loss leader items. Not so much any more.

I can't really explain it any more clearly. It's almost like my head is stuffed with cotton balls. Nothing "clicks."

So, I have decided that I must simplify the shopping. I shall mostly shop at Aldi. Can't get lost or distracted there. Six aisles. They rarely change. No decisions as to what is the best buy. I can flesh out what I can't get at Aldi at some other store.

Since I struggle to plan meals, I think I'm going to go with meal types. I used to, just based on my whim, come up with meals for lunch and dinner (back in the days when people were home for lunch) and shop. Now I stare at a piece of paper and think, "I have no clue what to have on Monday, let alone on Tuesday and I can't think of anything to have....so how can I shop?"

Instead, I think if I were to know that I have to have a soup/stew meal, salad meal, casserole meal, etc...I should be able to look at sale fliers or the Aldi layout and figure out what to buy.

I hope.

So, what types of meals are out there? Here's what I've come up with off the top of my head today...what else can I toss into the rotation?

Soup/Stew
Sandwiches
Breakfast for Dinner
Pasta
Casserole
Pizza
Salad
Traditional (aka “grandma’s recipe box”)
“International” (aka pick an ethnicity)
Regional (aka pick a USA region)

Cold Headed Woman

No, not hard headed woman nor a soft hearted man, but a cold headed woman.

Something I've noticed since the weather has started to change from summer to fall is that I hate, hate, hate cold air on my head.

That seemed logical last winter, when I had no hair. In fact, kudos to bald people everywhere who live with that day in and day out, especially here in breezy NW Ohio.

However, it still bothers me. Chills me. Cold on my head never used to bother me. I despised wearing hats and tried to avoid doing so during the winter months. Yet now, the slightest breeze upon my head sends a chill down my spine and me looking for head covering.

Theoretically, I should be noticing less cold air in my head. After all, my hair is curlier and coarser than it was before. Therefore, if my general science knowledge is accurate, it should provide more insulation than my "old" hair. Plus, it's short and I wear it curly. I'd guess it is much more like sheep wool than ever before. Or a poodle's hair. And we all know that design is ideal for its insulating factors.

Yet, why am I miserable with the slightest breeze on my head. I frequently wish for a hood when I'm teaching. Right now, I'd wear a toque sitting at my kitchen table if I weren't so lazy that going to find one would be off putting. Perhaps I'm conserving my meagre energy supplies to keep hypothermia at bay.

::shrug::

Regardless, I'm cold. And I don't like it.

Life in the "Normal" lane

So, I've been absent from here for a while. It's not that I haven't thought about blog posts. In fact, I regularly compose them in my head. It's not that I don't sit down at the computer any more. Those of you on facebook know that's certainly not true.

I don't really know what it is that keeps me from blogging, other than it is harder and harder to sustain the intellectual energy required for longer pieces of discourse. I can snap off facebook updates easily, probably too easily. Certainly, I do that too frequently. However, crafting and sustaining coherent larger pieces of discourse just seems beyond my capabilities lately. In fact, I'm barely able to sustain coherence long enough to get the writing done that I need to do for work.

This is partially due to my cognitive capacity being damaged from chemo, for sure.

But even more so, I think it is due to the fact that there have been so many changes lately, over the past four months or so.

For one thing, I'm back at work, so I have to expend energy in that direction. More on that in another entry. For another, I'm going to bed a lot earlier, with the exception of tonight. For yet another, I've been getting up earlier in the mornings, but I'm not yet capable of figuring out what to do with myself during that time, being newly converted to being awake during the early hours. Furthermore, I'm no longer watching much tv, which is when I used to do quite a bit of writing. I just can't bring myself to watch tv any more. Sort of like those people who eat a favorite food to the point it makes them sick and then can't eat it any more, I no longer can really tolerate watching tv any more. I don't even have much of a desire for any of my favorite shows, to the point I can't even order the dvds from Netflix. I'm also using quite a bit more time exercising, so that detracts from the time I used to be able to devote to my blog. In fact, it's not unusual for me to be physically active for two or more hours a day. For instance, last week, I met a friend and ran in the morning before going to teach, taught from 9:30-2:30, then did a 2 hour bike ride, and went for a pedicure. Sure, it was only 7:00 by the time all of that was finished, but when one is typically heading for bed by 9:30 or 10:00, there just doesn't seem to be enough time to blog.

And I do miss it. I compose entries in my head whilst running and biking. I will admit that I don't while in the midst of the exercise classes I've been taking. Mostly what runs through my head during those is not fit to be printed where it might be read by those with tender sensibilities. Maybe those who have survived basic training in the military could read it, but the rest of you are probably better off without.

But the changes a friend asked me to write about, the new normal, are still becoming apparent.
For one, I no longer enjoy or crave animal flesh. While not by any means a vegetarian, I certainly won't go out of my way for meat and rarely consume it. In fact, last week, I made lasagna for Sunday evening dinner and bought the Morningstar Farms version for myself because the idea of the meat in the lasagna just turned me off at a deep, visceral level.

Second, I'm really enjoying life quite a bit and I'm generally not being bothered by little things that used to bother me. When I am bothered by little things, those kinds of things that really don't matter in the grand scheme of things, I'm much more aware that I'm being bothered by silliness and recognize it for what it is.

Third, I have gotten quite a bit stronger. In March, I could barely sustain 60 seconds of jogging followed by 90 seconds of walking for a total of 20 minutes. Last week, I ran 4.5 miles without any walking and wasn't tired. I stopped because my feet hurt and because my back hurt. OK, so "ran" is probably a misnomer for what I did. But I can certainly say I was truly "jogging."

And, finally, as of today, I've officially dropped yet another pants (jeans) size. That's about 7 sizes in two years and probably 50 lbs in the past....um....15-18 months.

But really, I have a lot more musing rolling around in my head, and someday, I'm sure I'll sweep them into a corner, sort them out, and turn them into something sharable.

I promise.

But meanwhile, off to bed.

New step into the new year

I dismantled the power alter in my bedroom today.

I've kept one pink boxing glove and one pac-man oven mitt.

The rest has been dispersed throughout the house.

Yet another step into the new normal...

I have emptied the bulletin board which was full to overflowing with all the cards and other small tokens of thought given and sent to me while I was in treatment. I have them all in a safe place, but it is now time to take another step away from that period.

Thank you wonderful people for all the encouragement and love. I couldn't have done it without you.

I will never forget.

xoxoxxoxox

Reclaiming my life

For the past week or so, I've had this insane "nesting" urge. It's very similar to the irrational urges I got when preparing for a new baby. I normally have the urge to tidy up and get things in order before starting a new school year. Sometimes it happens. Frequently it doesn't.

However, for the past two weeks, I've felt compelled to get the house in order.

Sometimes, I'm not all that quick. But I've finally figured out where this insanity is coming from.

We closed on this house on May 5th, spent the month of May painting, laying floor, and moving in slowly. My husband had a pretty serious ankle injury and wasn't able to do much of the heavy work, so Nathan and I did most of it. We were officially in the house on Memorial Day weekend. One week later, I headed out to score AP exams for a week. Returned on a Thursday, and then on Friday headed out for a weekend of camping with the boys in W. Va, all of which was followed by out of town visitors for a week and three weekend soccer tournaments....and on July 20th, my world started falling apart and I got my pathology report on Friday the 24th. On Aug. 10--one year ago today--I had my port put in and on the 13th had my first chemo.

In other words, I just never really got the house together. Sure, I got stuff put away, and it looked like we were settled, and to a large extent we were. Yet, I never fine tuned the house. Certainly, as the year progressed, things just began to spiral downward. Today, for instance, I finally got through a pile of paperwork that included the pathology report from my initial mammogram as well as forms that I never turned in when enrolling Aidan in school last fall.

I've been experiencing quite a bit of anxiety over starting back teaching this semester. At the same time, I've been incapable of doing any productive work toward getting ready to teach. Totally incapable of even knowing where to start. This is producing even more anxiety. It's not like this August is any different than any other August in the past 20 or so years. I'm teaching the same classes, using the same books...but I can't remember how to access my e-book, am frozen in indecision as to what to put into my Achievement Requirements, and basically can't even begin to begin.

However, I'm getting closer. As I've started to reclaim my life, I'm starting to reclaim my house, and I actually have some concrete ideas about how to reclaim my teaching.

I will have a syllabus by the end of the weekend. I will have 5 complete writing assignments composed by the end of the weekend. I will have accessed my e-book and popped a link to it into my Blackboard shells by the end of the weekend.

But the time I go to bed Sunday, I will have everything I need for the first week of classes.

And all with a week to go.

In Celebration...

...is that the word I want to use? Celebration? Maybe "honor" would work better.

Anyway, to mark the beginning of the New Normal, I have sorted through all my chemo hats and scarves, kept some, donated some, giving some to others who are currently without hair due to chemo.

I feel a little creepy keeping some, but I think I'm a little too pragmatic to get rid of things that worked super well, just in case (knock wood) I should ever be unfortunate enough to need them again. Creepy, right?

I also kept some that were made especially for me, out of love, by friends, some of whom I've never met in person. That seems less creepy. Keeping those hats and scarves is very similar to keeping baby clothes, right? Of course, many of those hats were knitted, and therefore I'll also be more able to wear them with hair. A few of the wonderfully warm, stylish, and comfortable fleece hats a friend made me fit so well when I was bald that I won't be able to wear them now that I have hair.

On the other hand, I wore those fleece hats the most when I felt the worst, and looking at them now makes my stomach clench in memory.

Also, now that the Year of Suck is over and we have a new normal in our lives, I cleaned off the corner of the kitchen counter where I kept all my meds and supplements and that kind of stuff. It's empty. And I found an area in a cupboard where the few I'm still taking can be kept, you know, like normal people do. It's not the focus of the kitchen now. Instead, I also got a new pot rack to hang up and that's the focus now. Something normal and healthy like utensils for cooking food to share with loved ones. I'd show you pictures, but for some reason blogger isn't allowing picture uploads at this moment. They are on facebook, though.

Slowly, I'm also finally getting around to figuring out how to live in this house. You see, I got diagnosed 50 days after our official move-in date. During those 50 days of "old normal" (must come up with some better way to refer to that time--BC almost works, except that it is also the commonly used abbreviation for breast cancer), I was out of town for 9 days doing AP scoring, there were three weekend soccer tournaments, and we had out of town company over at least a week. So, while we were "moved in" it wasn't like I had the opportunity to really "settle." And for the past year, things have just devolved from that point. For instance, today I finally cleaned out the very first junk drawer...the drawer that I just randomly stuck stuff in during the month when we were working in her before we moved in...things like receipts, and hammers, and extension cords, and whistles, and fertility goddess necklaces, and exercise ball plugs, and freezer tape, and Buffalo nickles. You know, that stuff that you just need to put down, but you don't really deal with it.

It feels good, like I'm reclaiming my life whilst reclaiming my house.

Some of what I have to say...

How to tag this?


"...cancer brings a profound sense of community. It's really the best thing that came out of my cancer. But by bringing connection, community also brings loss. It's inevitable and often painful.
But that sense of community is so good and so strong. Harold Kushner captured its essence when he wrote, 'What cannot be achieved in one lifetime will happen when one lifetime is joined to another.'"