Tag: appetite

Somehow Saturdays are so hard

I don’t quite understand, but Saturdays are the hardest day of the week.  I make it through a whole week of infusions with high energy and good spirits, and then Saturday I crash hard.  Same as the previous weeks.  I sleep in way too late.  Have no energy.  Cry for no reason.  Can’t eat.  No fun.

Today the plan was to go to the beach.  Really, it was my brother’s plan.  To take KM to the Oregon coast, and to let one of the dogs play in the wet and.  I was the limiting factor.  He kept asking me if i was ready yet.  I was still in my bathrobe.  I knew that we were going to be getting there really late.  I felt pressure.  And then I started crying.  I didn’t want to hold them back, but I aslo wanted to go.  I also didnt want to go, but I didn’t want to give up and not go.  Oh, what a jumble in my head.

I did go.  It was worth it.  The wind was strong.  The ocean was big. The dog was really happy. I slept on the way there and the way back.

x left this morning (no beach), P left to be with his girlfriend’s family last night, and KM leaves tomorrow morning at some really early time.  LK and I are going to hang out on Monday, but other than that, my friends have returned home.  I am, of course, a little bit sad from that.  But I also know that I have all my friends in NYC when I return.  Seven days.

I’m feeling really stifled by my family right now.  I know they don’t mean to.  But it happens. I’m really looking forward to going back to my regular life.

That said, I’m scared to have to take responsibility for so much of what my mother has been helping me with.  From helping me figure out what I could possibly eat, to making it, to doing my laundry, to supporting me emotionally.  NYC/Brooklyn is going to be a culture shock.  It is going to be hard again.  And there are going to be lots of people.

Interferon reboot: day 11 or day one again

It wasn’t as bad as the first day for sure, but I did have the chills/fever pattern. I was so worried about my liver function being low enough, I didn’t take any preventative Tylenol (as I had been the first two weeks), so I immediately felt the effects even as I was getting up from the infusion chair. And definitely on the way home in the car.

When I got home I took some Tylenol and Advil, and crawled into bed with all the covers and the heating pad. My muscles were on the threshold of contracting and doing the chills/shake thing that Bob told me about. But I didn’t go into shakes. I hugged the heating pad around my chest, slept off the chill for an hour and a half, and woke up sweating with a mild fever feeling. And hungry.

Following my Naturopath’s advice, I ate a lot, exercised a bit (15 minute walk), and am about to go meditate. I feel much more in control mentally. And, of course, I am control minded, shall we say. (Appending the work “freak” just seems unsavory in this context…)

Naturopath 2.0: goals and strategies

i got enough sleep before the meeting with the naturopath.

basically it was kind of like therapy.  except from a cancer survivor.  whose whole deal is finding ways to win the mental war and compensate for the nastiness of the physical war in the body.

he gave me B-12 vitamins.  b/c I don’t eat meat, which is mostly true.  (did you know that pescatarian was added to the dictionary today? So was Fanboy!!! — http://edition.cnn.com/2008/US/07/07/new.dictionary.words.ap/index.html)  and it will also help my liver function

and we talked a lot about goals and how i need to overcome this mentally.  it was a lot of information all at once. and it was just the same information as the last time, but more specific.  lets see if i can remember:

1. I personally have to take on the mental battle.  The drs are doing the chemical stuff, but I have to win the mental battle.

2. I need to set goals.  Part of the problem is that I am just reacting right now.  Reactionary.  I feel bad, I feel good.  I need to set short term and long term goals.  So I have something to aim for.  My long term goal is full quality of life during the 11 month treatment period.  My short term goal is to make it through the next week feeling good, with more energy, and more calmness.  And to have liver enzyme counts that allow me to finish up the drugs.

To accomplish the next week’s goal he told me I need to eat more (whatever I can eat, whenever I can eat), continue to exercise, take my B-12, and I forget the rest.  Oh, meditation.  Meditation.

I said to him that meditation seemed to work, but I didn’t understand why. And he said something that was kind of stunning, but I kind of forget what it was.  maybe it was kind of mystical like ‘maybe you know more than you realize.’

Anyway, it was really early in the morning, and it was so much information, but I forget.  The next meeting is after noon, so I’ll be in better shape.

The other thing he kept saying is that I have to move through this.  I can’t be passive.  I have to move through this, and arrive at a state where I am at peace with the cancer.  Because, as he says, I will never get to the point where the cancer is a non-issue.  He is 19 years out, and he still thinks about it.  As he says, this is now version 2.0 of my life.  And there is no going back.  But there is making peace.

And if there is no making peace, then I play victim.  And that is lame.  I don’t want to play victim.  Laaaame.

i think there was a bunch more, but that is what i remember now, two hours later.

now it is time to leave to get my Interferon.  week 3 begins.  hopefully this will go easy.  and my liver will stay happy.

anticipatory despondency (sp?)

ive been totally despondent all day.  i have no energy, and no appetite.  its like i’ve already restarted the Interferon.  Like this is some kind of psychosomatic preview.  I have shuffled around the house trying to figure out what i can bare eating.

i cried hard today.  for the first time in a long time.

i realized that i’ve been here in portland for a month.  time just slips by when you are sick.  such a strange thing.  i’ve never experienced this until the last 6 months.  Its been six months!  half a year already.  that is so amazing.  so awful (& awe-ful.)

writing it down helps get it out and away.

my parents dont know what to do w/ me.  they keep suggesting these things to do.  go to Multnomah Falls.  go for a bike ride.  go for a walk.  but i feel so awful.  i know that getting out and doing something will probably make me feel better.  but the thought of it also makes me totally revolted.  what a mess

its going to suck again, but i can’t wait for the Interferon on monday, so i can just get this over with

my mom brought me some chicken soup, which seems to be the only thing i can eat when i get like this.  mom’s homemade chicken soup.  so cliche.  but it works.  feeling a little bit better.

i can’t wait to be done with this and back in my normal life.

ADDENDUM

(photo CC-BY-SA from Flickr by 80sAustin)

I spent an hour+ meditating, which helped.  I don’t really understand why it works, but it does.  It calms me down.  Gives me a structure to feel my emotions, cry where needed, etc.

Then, as per O’s suggestion (re: my observation) I took the novelty approach, and walked somewhere I had never walked before.  Kind of.  I walked down the Marquam Trail towards downtown.  We used to walk down this trail when I was little, and I used to run it in high school, but I haven’t walked it in at least 10 years.  The trees were so huge…  It was amazing to be in the woods right in the middle of the city.  I grew up in it, but I clearly had forgotten.  It is nothing like Central or Prospect park, which are so manicured.  And also so full of people.  I didn’t see anyone the whole time.  Though I heard a little brook gurgle.  And lots of birds.

When i got to the bottom, I called my mother for a ride back up the hill.

Walking down was hard, physically.  Which was emotionally invigorating.  But also broke me down enough that I had to stop several times to cry.  I wonder if I am reverting to the state I was in when I first found out and all I did was cry.  I would sit down on the subway, and just start crying.  I hope not.  At least I can cound on the Interferon to blunt all emotion.   I know, I know, that is a totally fucked up concept.

A brief return to un-drugged-ness

my liver function was too high, so i am not getting drugs this week.  this was a kind of a let down.  (i am drinking a detox tea to help my liver get ready for its test on monday)

the unexpected silver lining is that i get to feel normal again for the week.

i have an appetite, some energy, and my sense of humor back.

up to this point, i have had absolutely zero appetite, been sleeping 14-16hrs a day, and yawning constantly.  and kind of emotionally ‘flat.’  not that much pizzaz, shall we say. (which is to say, dull and emotionless…)

i started to feel it on tuesday, but it took until wednesday for my appetite to really come back.  around dinnertime i told my mom that i wanted to go out for dinner.  like, i wanted to go out somewhere nice, joking that i only had another five days of enjoying food, before the drugs started again.  she laughed and asked where, and I mentioned this one restaurant Higgins that I had never been to.  turns out they had a gift certificate that had been sitting around for a year, and she made reservations.

i also went for a bike ride with my dad.  just three miles around the fairmount loop.

and i drove the car over to my friend KT’s studio.  first car driving this trip, which is the same as saying first car driving since last thanksgiving (9 months?).  At thanksgiving I scraped the front end of my dad’s car in a parking garage.

Weekend 1, in bed

I spent most of today in bed.  Total fatigue.  I lost my appetite too.  I guess that will mark the beginning of the chemo negative 15.  Which is the opposite of the freshman 15.

I weighed in at 201.5 this week.  I haven’t crossed 200 since I was a ski racer (2nd mention in less than a week!) and then it was all muscle.  Right now, it is *not* all muscle.  LOL.  It is the result of lying in bed for 6 weeks recovering from surgeries.

And it is also the constipation.  All these drugs they give you stop up the tubes.  Lets just say I’m full of shit right now…

I was lying in my parents glass room as the sun went down listening to Bach’s Cello Suite, regretting that I didn’t even want chocolate, and realized what I really wanted was a milkshake.  So off we go to Ben and Jerry’s. Maybe I’ll even get some pleasure out of this.