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

checking in - Oh, blessed relief

I have to hand it to the oncologists...they were spot on with predicting that the "turnaround" would really begin at the end of the second week of recovery or the beginning of the third. Tomorrow ends week two of recovery, and each of the last three days I have felt noticeably better. I feel more energy, less pain, and several mouth and throat symptoms are improving. I slept through the night last night, with only two brief periods of waking of about 15 minutes each. My mood is improving as well, and today, I caught myself singing along with the radio as I drove to the store. I haven't felt like singing in a long long time...

I feel such relief...and I am so thankful for it. Thank you God. Thank you all for praying for me through this. Thank you doctors who had a hand in this.

I have quoted this verse before in some post, but I've been thinking about "the waiting" part of this ordeal, and how that has vacillated...

"THEY THAT WAIT UPON THE LORD SHALL RENEW THEIR STRENGTH..." ISAIAH 40:31

I have waited, I have waited, I have waited...and I wait... through this ordeal... but the waiting vacillates in such extreme ways...

1. A good deal of my waiting has been adrift in a sea of discouragement and fear...that is an awful way to wait, and it is so far from waiting "on the Lord." I know there are people who endure extreme pain and never take their eyes off Him... I so admire those people... unfortunately, that was not my experience, but perhaps I am growing in this area. I pray that I would keep growing here.

2. Waiting with some sense of hopeful expectancy and trust. That's what I feel today...Is it just that I am feeling better and therefore, it is easier to have a renewed sense of hope, or is something else happening on a spiritual level? I don't know for sure. There is such a difference in these two states of waiting. I suppose it's never black or white, and waiting itself falls along a continuum of waiting "in the Spirit" and waiting "in the flesh."

Now I have another wait beginning...about a three month wait for a PT scan that will see if all the cancer has been killed off. I don't think there is much I can do at this point to impact the outcome, in terms of my choices, but I know it would be wise to strive for the #2 kind of waiting. Also, I can't afford to allow myself to dwell too much on the future, rather, I need to continue learning to fully appreciate each day and each blessing as it comes. I wont dwell on that scan too much here, for it will make everyone including myself sick of hearing about it.

I also wait for the day when I can again eat and drink the way we are intended to.

I saw a good friend yesterday, who I hadn't seen in 8 months, as he was working in Chicago...seeing him was a breath of fresh air. A visit last evening from my stepdaughter Amy and grandkids Tanner, Rilie, Avery and Ashton topped off a lovely day for me. They are all such immense blessings.

I write with hope and thankfulness for the day. I feel more alive, more energy, more reason, more sanity, with a tincture of joy on the horizon.

checking in - such a good day...

...all things considered, today was by far my strongest and most symptom free day. I slept well last night, which I am finding, has more to do with the outcome of the day ahead than I had ever realized. I felt more energy getting out of bed than I have had in at least a month. I was feeling so good, I tried a few sips of milk, but I am not ready for that yet. A little disappointing. (The other disappointment of the day was the performance of the Nebraska Cornhuskers, but that's a whole other issue.) After the game, I drove to the library, stopped at my office to check mail, and drove home. I then took a walk around the block, another first...it's been probably around two months since I've taken a walk...it felt really good; it was a cool, misty, autumn day...the leaves have never looked more beautiful. It's around 6PM and I have not had a physical let-down yet for the day. Overall, I feel qualitatively better today than I have up to this point. So, I rejoice and give thanks for this day. My mood has improved considerably.

checking in- in the right direction, at a snail's pace

The last two days have been generally marked by slight overall improvement, but with ups and downs. It is still a half a week early for "noticeable" gains, and so I try not to let a few good hours color my expectations...invariably, part of the day is marked by feeling weak, sick, and miserable. I hate this word, but the "mucositis" is the most difficult symptom to live with right now, and it is what keeps me up a good part of the night, wearing the carpet out back and forth from the bed to the bathroom. I feel an almost continual need to...spit...and the relief only lasts a minute or two...then it's back again. TMI...sorry. But today, for the first time, I have been able to swallow with only moderate, not excrutiating pain. The swelling must be going down in my throat...that is a good sign. I was able to put a few ice chips in my mouth for the first time. Not that the terrible taste didn't still permeate that, but I was able to tolerate it. Who knows, food and drink may be on the horizon. I am also using less narcotic and a smaller patch for the last few days, and so I have felt more alert.

The sitting at home all day is really wearing on me... if i felt the energy to "do" something...anything...it wouldn't be so bad...but that energy is just not back yet. So I feel bored, lonely, isolated and the "D" word. Our cat Simcha sleeps all day under the bed...it is not as good a life as I once thought. She comes out around 4PM and starts paying attention to me for her 5:12 feeding. (Yes, 7:00AM, 5:12PM, and 9:12PM) She has an amazing internal clock. When Kathy comes home, both Simcha and I feel much better.

I want so much to get to the point where I am writing about the great day I had and the food I ate, and the enjoyment of returning to work...for half-days at the start...I know those days will arrive, like I know a snail eventually gets where it's going.

checking in - feelin' better

Today makes one week since my completion of radiation...I met with my oncologist and he again told me that this past week and this week in front of me were typically experienced as badly as the prior two weeks. He said the two weeks following this coming week (i.e. the first two weeks in November), should be marked by dramatic improvements. In spite of that prognostication, I slept better last night, and today I felt quite a bit better and stronger than I had been feeling the last few. I did some walking around in Omaha with Kathy, as we had several hours between appointments, and I know I would not have been able to do that last week. So I will take it as a good day, and be thankful for it. I'm not going to make predictions again about what tomorrow might bring, as I have learned more than once that that is setting myself up. But I am feeling pretty good right now. I have cut back on the narcotic patch and, again, the oncologist was surprised to see that I was not having more difficulty with pain control. Anyway, a good day, and a better mood. Today I daydreamed about how good a sweet juicy orange tastes...oh, that sounds like heaven.
I can't hardly believe I could someday get to enjoy that again.

This is a marathon and not a sprint. Having never run a marathon, (nor a sprint for that matter), it's all new to me.