checking in - endurance

Continuing to travel the road to recovery. The last few days have been good, though nothing remarkable in terms of gains. Probably the best thing today was for the first time, I drank a whole bottle of Boost, and I can say that without having to put quotations around the word "drank." Sadly, there was no taste, but it was tolerable enough that I will now try to drink at least one or more cans of food a day. My meeting with my oncologist focused on swallowing recovery. He indicated it is time to start rehabing my swallowing, starting with thicker liquids like Boost...water and solid food will come a little later. I am anxious to recover some taste buds, but that is too individual a process for him to have any predictions. I have cuts on my tongue which make liquids (especially anything acidic) painful; the pain of swallowing is there, but that is more manageable. I have a product called "Magic Mouthwash" which numbs my tongue and mouth; I take that a few minutes before drinking, and I don't feel a thing.

I continue to sleep through the night, thank God. Last evening, Kathy and I drove over for a short visit with friend Cindy...it was nice to get out and nice to see Cindy (a mutual friend who introduced us 16 years ago.) Getting out of the house for something other than appointments in Omaha is therapeutic, though I worry that I'll have some symptom issue as soon as I am out the door.

I have clients scheduled beginning next Tuesday; I am really counting on continuing to make some gains between now and then; I am planning to see 3 clients each day from Tuesday to Friday. That is a very big deal to me...I pray for the endurance and strength to speak without my mouth totally drying out...right now, I would last about 30 minutes I think. I'll have to practice therapeutic nodding...

For you readers outside of the "good life" we live in Nebraska, we in eastern Nebraska have been spared an early winter...there are already parts of western Nebraska that have received 30+ inches of snow in October and this already exceeds their annual average TOTAL snowfall for the winter...we've had a lot of rain in Lincoln and Omaha, but oh, how thankful I am we've been spared the snow.

I must practice enduring the slow but steady road...I wake up in hopes that there will be huge progress overnight; it's not always that great...then I think back to how sick I was, and I realize I have already come a long way on this road. Some of what I went through already seems like a nightmare that I couldn't possibly have managed.

I never nap during the day, but I start to fade around 8:00PM. Tomorrow, I hope to help Kathy a bit raking leaves...raking is one of the yard chores I sort of enjoy...I love being able to really see the yard again appear from under it's blanket of leaves. I know, I know, go easy and don't overdo it...

GRATITUDE