We all enjoyed your visit.
Sunday, July 29, 2012
Saturday, July 28, 2012
Better than expected
While it's not all peaches and cream (well, I suppose there have been some peaches, although they've been sub-par since we've missed a few farmers' markets; and it's been a little while since I made some ice cream -- maybe later in the cycle), I do have to say that my gloom and doom prediction for cycle 8 may have been a bit too severe. I hope I'm not jinxing it by saying so, but things haven't been as bad as I expected. At least not yet. Well, the first night did kind of suck. I was utterly exhausted upon leaving chemo (I'm glad I had Lorien pick me up and didn't have to either bike or drive), and went right to bed. Also, I had my first bit of actual nausea. Luckily there's a remedy for that.
But the subsequent days so far have been okay. Not great, and I'm pretty weary, and kind of spacey and foggy, and a bit prone to rambling (even moreso than usual). But really not nearly as bad as it could be. Hopefully things won't take a nosedive once I'm off the Prednisone.
I've even been on my bike a couple of times. And today we rode all the way down to the marina with Dylan (Lorien being the hauler -- that's still beyond me) for the Berkeley Kite Festival. Dylan got to fly his kite (I left my stunt kite at home). And see boats. Both of which he likes. The ride back uphill was a bit slow going for me and not the easiest thing, but I did okay. And feel significantly better now (and well enough that I'm blogging) after some yummy Thai food.
Anyway, that's about it. I guess not nearly as long of a ramble as some of my other posts. But I am kind of tired. I think one of the reasons that I'm doing okay is that I'm getting an okay amount of sleep. Not phenomenal, and sadly not in as continuous chunks as I would like, but as good as can be expected. I once again feel that taking a little break from sleep meds between cycles really helps.
And I'm still hoping that this is the final cycle of chemo.
But the subsequent days so far have been okay. Not great, and I'm pretty weary, and kind of spacey and foggy, and a bit prone to rambling (even moreso than usual). But really not nearly as bad as it could be. Hopefully things won't take a nosedive once I'm off the Prednisone.
I've even been on my bike a couple of times. And today we rode all the way down to the marina with Dylan (Lorien being the hauler -- that's still beyond me) for the Berkeley Kite Festival. Dylan got to fly his kite (I left my stunt kite at home). And see boats. Both of which he likes. The ride back uphill was a bit slow going for me and not the easiest thing, but I did okay. And feel significantly better now (and well enough that I'm blogging) after some yummy Thai food.
Anyway, that's about it. I guess not nearly as long of a ramble as some of my other posts. But I am kind of tired. I think one of the reasons that I'm doing okay is that I'm getting an okay amount of sleep. Not phenomenal, and sadly not in as continuous chunks as I would like, but as good as can be expected. I once again feel that taking a little break from sleep meds between cycles really helps.
And I'm still hoping that this is the final cycle of chemo.
Wednesday, July 25, 2012
This may be the last time
I'm sitting here now, getting chemo. I'm trying to think if I've blogged actually during chemo at all. Maybe once? I'm not sure. And I'm too lazy to look it up.
Although part of the laziness is really just being tired. Which might be partly from the chemo, but also just not getting enough good sleep is probably some of it. As before, I tried to give my body a bit of break from sleep meds before the next round. As before, it wasn't as large of a break as I had hoped. Only about half a week. The first night really sucked. It got better after that, but I still wake up far more often throughout the night than I would like. I don't know how long it's been since I've actually slept all the way through the night without some help. Not that sleep meds guarantee I sleep all the way through the night. I've kind of gotten used to getting up repeatedly during the night (am I reverting to infancy here?), and it's not that bad if I can get back to sleep without too much trouble. And sometimes I can. But not last night. Somehow I feel like not being able to get back to sleep is worse than not being able to get to sleep in the first place. Like somehow I've wasted the karma of initially getting to sleep easily. Am I starting to ramble? Maybe. I'm tired. See above. There's probably a reason I don't usually blog during chemo.
Round 8. As I've said before (sometimes I think I've been doing this through enough cycles that most things I've said before in some form), this is hopefully the last round. But I won't know until after another PET scan, sometime at the end of the cycle. I don't know exactly when; it hasn't been scheduled yet. I'm really really hoping this is the last round of chemo. But (again, as I've said before), I'm trying to mentally prepare myself for the possibility that there could be more chemo. But it would suck.
And there will still probably be radiation even if I'm totally done with chemo. So even if all goes according to plan, this isn't the end of treatment. Not quite yet.
I'm kind of resigned to the probability that the next week or two is going to somewhat suck. That's one of the reasons I wanted to blog now. I suspect I won't feel like it for a little while after today. So don't worry if you don't hear from me for a little bit. And I should put this all in perspective -- the suckiness is a lot less than it could be. And is mostly at the beginning of the cycle. It would really suck if those feelings had continued for 6 months straight. I'm trying not to eavesdrop too much, but it's hard to avoid the conversation the guy next to me is having right now with the nurse, and he's in a lot worse shape than I am.
We continued our tradition of getting pastries at the cheeseboard before chemo. But this time Lorien drove me and dropped me off. One of the reasons I moved my chemo from Oakland to Berkeley was to be able to bike to chemo if I was up for it. Which I was in the past, but that ship has sailed. Last time, biking back from chemo was just a bit too much. It wasn't at all fun. And while I suppose part of me likes to show off and impress people with the idea of biking to and from chemo, ultimately there's nothing I need to prove, and getting a ride is fine.
In non-chemo news, we have taken advantage of the babysitting offer from Judy, Lorien's mother, who is here until Thursday. Sunday night we went to a movie at Kim's theatre. Moonrise Kingdom. It was good. Bonus, it was free (b/c of Kim). I think it's been a while since I've seen a movie knowing nothing about it. I recommend it -- it's an interesting way to have no preconceived notions about the movie. Okay, I guess I knew slightly more than nothing -- I did know it was a Wes Anderson movie. I'm trying to remember when I've seen a movie and really known absolutely nothing. Perhaps it was Best of Show. Which was a very interesting case, since I spent a little while in the beginning asking myself, "This isn't real, right?"
Monday night we had some cocktails at Cesar. This is where I got together recently with the visiting from out of town friends, but couldn't drink at the time. We got into a bit of conversation about armagnac with the guy next to us at the bar when he ordered some. I think next time we'll try the one he got.
Tuesday night we had a nice dinner out (it's been a while), at Rumbo al Sur. We had a $50 gift certificate to here that we won at the raffle at the plant sale at that Edible Schoolyard earlier in the summer. Latin American food, sort of like tapas, although most of the portions were larger than I would expect for that. And we had some more cocktails. My favorite was the Old Cuban (El dorado dark rum, muddled mint, fresh lime, angostura bitters, and sparkling wine), if anyone is local and ends up going and wants a suggestion. I suppose we could make that without too much trouble, except that I wouldn't want to open an entire bottle of champagne just for a couple of drinks. Perhaps we'll do it the next time someone brings a bottle to our house for some event. Or a 6 pack. Yes, Todd once brought a 6 pack of champagne to a party of ours. It was in a cardboard 6 pack holder, just like beer. But bigger.
In Dylan news, Dylan has moved up in the guitar world. He has a fair number of musical instruments, some of them explicitly toys, some not. My least favorite of all of them was his "guitar". It's kind of the crappiest toy guitar I could imagine. I mean it's nice in the sense that it's got actual wood, but it's more of a toy that is meant to look like a guitar than what I'd actually call a toy guitar. Like you can't tune the strings, and you can't really control what you play because there's no fret board, and it barely makes a noise when you pluck the strings. Actually, it's more meant to look like a banjo I suppose, but the term "guitar" has stuck. Anyway, despite the fact (or in spite of it?) that I don't really like it, Dylan loves it. When we started the summer session for Music Together, it clearly became his favorite instrument. Sometimes he takes it to bed, and if you listen carefully and are quiet you can hear him playing with it in his crib. Until he summarily dismisses it by tossing it on the floor. At that point, if there's not another token of affection in his bed, he starts whining for that. "Bop! Bop! Bop!" (His blanket.)
But I digress. When we were visiting Neal and Genevieve in SF when they were here, Dylan was totally in love with Teddy's ukulele. Isn't this picture adorable? I had been pondering getting him one as a replacement for his current guitar, and that visit sealed the deal. I ordered one, and it came yesterday. Dylan had been out and gotten in a very cranky mood on the way home. I had stayed home, and was sitting on the couch playing the ukulele when he came in. The look on his face was amazing -- eyes wide open, big grin, whining stopped. He definitely likes it. I'll try to post some pics and/or video in the not too distant future. But probably not until later in my chemo cycle.
Which brings me back to chemo. Still ongoing, but now I'm getting the final drug, Rituxan. But this goes on for a while -- about 2.5 hours, unless they're not happy with my vital signs (which they check every half hour), in which case it could be much longer. Either way, I think it's time for me to stop rambling and just rest a bit. Maybe put in some earbuds and listen to some chill music.
Although part of the laziness is really just being tired. Which might be partly from the chemo, but also just not getting enough good sleep is probably some of it. As before, I tried to give my body a bit of break from sleep meds before the next round. As before, it wasn't as large of a break as I had hoped. Only about half a week. The first night really sucked. It got better after that, but I still wake up far more often throughout the night than I would like. I don't know how long it's been since I've actually slept all the way through the night without some help. Not that sleep meds guarantee I sleep all the way through the night. I've kind of gotten used to getting up repeatedly during the night (am I reverting to infancy here?), and it's not that bad if I can get back to sleep without too much trouble. And sometimes I can. But not last night. Somehow I feel like not being able to get back to sleep is worse than not being able to get to sleep in the first place. Like somehow I've wasted the karma of initially getting to sleep easily. Am I starting to ramble? Maybe. I'm tired. See above. There's probably a reason I don't usually blog during chemo.
Round 8. As I've said before (sometimes I think I've been doing this through enough cycles that most things I've said before in some form), this is hopefully the last round. But I won't know until after another PET scan, sometime at the end of the cycle. I don't know exactly when; it hasn't been scheduled yet. I'm really really hoping this is the last round of chemo. But (again, as I've said before), I'm trying to mentally prepare myself for the possibility that there could be more chemo. But it would suck.
And there will still probably be radiation even if I'm totally done with chemo. So even if all goes according to plan, this isn't the end of treatment. Not quite yet.
I'm kind of resigned to the probability that the next week or two is going to somewhat suck. That's one of the reasons I wanted to blog now. I suspect I won't feel like it for a little while after today. So don't worry if you don't hear from me for a little bit. And I should put this all in perspective -- the suckiness is a lot less than it could be. And is mostly at the beginning of the cycle. It would really suck if those feelings had continued for 6 months straight. I'm trying not to eavesdrop too much, but it's hard to avoid the conversation the guy next to me is having right now with the nurse, and he's in a lot worse shape than I am.
We continued our tradition of getting pastries at the cheeseboard before chemo. But this time Lorien drove me and dropped me off. One of the reasons I moved my chemo from Oakland to Berkeley was to be able to bike to chemo if I was up for it. Which I was in the past, but that ship has sailed. Last time, biking back from chemo was just a bit too much. It wasn't at all fun. And while I suppose part of me likes to show off and impress people with the idea of biking to and from chemo, ultimately there's nothing I need to prove, and getting a ride is fine.
In non-chemo news, we have taken advantage of the babysitting offer from Judy, Lorien's mother, who is here until Thursday. Sunday night we went to a movie at Kim's theatre. Moonrise Kingdom. It was good. Bonus, it was free (b/c of Kim). I think it's been a while since I've seen a movie knowing nothing about it. I recommend it -- it's an interesting way to have no preconceived notions about the movie. Okay, I guess I knew slightly more than nothing -- I did know it was a Wes Anderson movie. I'm trying to remember when I've seen a movie and really known absolutely nothing. Perhaps it was Best of Show. Which was a very interesting case, since I spent a little while in the beginning asking myself, "This isn't real, right?"
Monday night we had some cocktails at Cesar. This is where I got together recently with the visiting from out of town friends, but couldn't drink at the time. We got into a bit of conversation about armagnac with the guy next to us at the bar when he ordered some. I think next time we'll try the one he got.
Tuesday night we had a nice dinner out (it's been a while), at Rumbo al Sur. We had a $50 gift certificate to here that we won at the raffle at the plant sale at that Edible Schoolyard earlier in the summer. Latin American food, sort of like tapas, although most of the portions were larger than I would expect for that. And we had some more cocktails. My favorite was the Old Cuban (El dorado dark rum, muddled mint, fresh lime, angostura bitters, and sparkling wine), if anyone is local and ends up going and wants a suggestion. I suppose we could make that without too much trouble, except that I wouldn't want to open an entire bottle of champagne just for a couple of drinks. Perhaps we'll do it the next time someone brings a bottle to our house for some event. Or a 6 pack. Yes, Todd once brought a 6 pack of champagne to a party of ours. It was in a cardboard 6 pack holder, just like beer. But bigger.
In Dylan news, Dylan has moved up in the guitar world. He has a fair number of musical instruments, some of them explicitly toys, some not. My least favorite of all of them was his "guitar". It's kind of the crappiest toy guitar I could imagine. I mean it's nice in the sense that it's got actual wood, but it's more of a toy that is meant to look like a guitar than what I'd actually call a toy guitar. Like you can't tune the strings, and you can't really control what you play because there's no fret board, and it barely makes a noise when you pluck the strings. Actually, it's more meant to look like a banjo I suppose, but the term "guitar" has stuck. Anyway, despite the fact (or in spite of it?) that I don't really like it, Dylan loves it. When we started the summer session for Music Together, it clearly became his favorite instrument. Sometimes he takes it to bed, and if you listen carefully and are quiet you can hear him playing with it in his crib. Until he summarily dismisses it by tossing it on the floor. At that point, if there's not another token of affection in his bed, he starts whining for that. "Bop! Bop! Bop!" (His blanket.)
But I digress. When we were visiting Neal and Genevieve in SF when they were here, Dylan was totally in love with Teddy's ukulele. Isn't this picture adorable? I had been pondering getting him one as a replacement for his current guitar, and that visit sealed the deal. I ordered one, and it came yesterday. Dylan had been out and gotten in a very cranky mood on the way home. I had stayed home, and was sitting on the couch playing the ukulele when he came in. The look on his face was amazing -- eyes wide open, big grin, whining stopped. He definitely likes it. I'll try to post some pics and/or video in the not too distant future. But probably not until later in my chemo cycle.
Which brings me back to chemo. Still ongoing, but now I'm getting the final drug, Rituxan. But this goes on for a while -- about 2.5 hours, unless they're not happy with my vital signs (which they check every half hour), in which case it could be much longer. Either way, I think it's time for me to stop rambling and just rest a bit. Maybe put in some earbuds and listen to some chill music.
Saturday, July 21, 2012
Lucky for me, unlucky for me
I remember that some time back in elementary school, my older brother Larry (the middle of 3 boys) had this assignment that involved pairing examples of "Lucky for me foo, unlucky for me bar". (See here if you're not sufficiently geeky to know what I mean by foo and bar.) While not entirely faithful to the format, here's a small window into my life, expressed as such a rendition.
Lucky for me, Lodge said they'd be willing to send us a free replacement cast iron skillet for the one that I broke.
Unlucky for me, we still don't have it. And I forgot to ask how long it would take to receive the new one.
Lucky for me, prior to breaking the french press glass, I remembered seeing replacement glass pieces at Berkeley Bowl.
Unlucky for me, I have foggy chemo brain, and when I went to the Bowl to buy one, it turns out that they don't actually sell them.
Lucky for me, on my third try, I actually found the store that does sell them. (Andronico's, if anyone else out there is local and ever finds themselves with a similar need.)
Lucky for me, I found a replacement tea kettle on ebay, identical to the one that I broke.
Lucky for me, I received the package within days.
Unlucky for me, the ebay description was a lie. And the inside of the tea kettle was rusted. With a hole in the bottom. Making it somewhat useless as a tea kettle.
Lucky for me, all I really needed was the handle. Which I was able to transfer to our old kettle.
Lucky for me, when I contacted the ebay seller, he promptly refunded my money. So I actually fixed our old kettle for free.
Lucky for me, my white blood count is back up. So I'm off antibiotics.
Unlucky for me, my oncologist thinks the same thing is likely to happen again next cycle. And that there's nothing I can do about it.
Lucky for me, I had my [hopefully] last Lupron shot this past week. I hate the side effects.
No unlucky for me yet on that one. Unless it turns out I need more than 8 rounds of chemo. Which I'm trying to keep myself mentally prepared for as a possibility. But it would still suck.
Lucky for me, Lorien's mother is visiting for the week. Free babysitting! Okay, there's much more to it than that. And we haven't actually even taken her up on that offer yet. But the bits that she helps out looking after Dylan on a day to day basis are very much appreciated.
Unlucky for me, she brought a bona fide physical representation of my latest nemesis, Big Bird.
Okay, I'm (kind of) just kidding. Lucky for me, Dylan is quite enamored of the Big Bird doll, so I'm happy he's happy. He even wants to sleep with it sometimes. And it's adorable when he dances and plays his guitar to Big Bird's rendition of the ABC song. And the physical Big Bird seems to satisfy his Big Bird cravings, without having to resort to videos.
Unlucky for me, Big Bird doesn't have an off switch. Seriously. The only way to guarantee that it won't make any noise is to pull the battery. What kind of sadist designs a toy that you can't get to shut up?
Lucky for me, even though Dylan is sleeping with Big Bird right now and I didn't pull the battery this time, Dylan hasn't rolled over on it and caused it to make a noise and wake him up. Yet.
Lucky for me, we took Dylan to the Discovery Museum in Sausalito, and he had a great time.
Lucky for me, we (mostly) got in for free, as the Berkeley Public Library now has a program where you can check out all sorts of museum passes with your library card. (Our previous taking advantage of this was for the Oakland Zoo.)
Unlucky for me, we (Lorien too) somehow forgot to bring our jackets, despite this being "summer" in the Bay Area, and the museum being right by the north end of the Golden Gate bridge, and it being somewhat cold and windy.
Lucky for me, there was stuff inside too.
Lucky for me, we have an abundance of amazing produce available to us, and it's the peak of stone fruit season, and you can taste just about all of it to decide which of the huge selection is best to get at the various farmers' markets.
Lucky for me, Dylan was really into the live music we saw last night while having dinner at the cheeseboard, even though he was up past what ought to be his bed time.
Unlucky for me, I got us on such a late schedule that I didn't start baking a ginger peach pie (with the above mentioned amazing peaches) until way later than I had planned. And it took a lot longer to make than I had planned. Which all caused me to get to bed later than I had planned.
Lucky for me, it was amazing. Lorien thinks it's one of my best pies ever. While I think it's pretty awesome, I'm ultimately still partial to raspberry/olallieberry pie.
Unlucky for me, there still aren't any organic olallieberries available in the market. #berkeleyproblem
Lucky for me, we took Dylan to the Berkeley Marina today to fly kites. And look at boats (another one of Dylan's recent obsessions).
Unlucky for me, soon after we started flying kites, there was a serious lull in the wind.
Lucky for me, it picked back up adequately. And you really don't need that much wind to fly a good kite.
Lucky for me, Dylan got kind of into it. And was even willing to hold the string for his kite a bit. Last time he was a little afraid.
Unlucky for me, despite all of the amazing kites around, at one point he decided to obsess over a ball that other kids were playing with.
Lucky for me, we had a ball back in the car. So I went back and got it. And he eventually got back to paying attention to the kites as well.
Lucky for me, I'm feeling less tired and somewhat more energetic lately.
Lucky for me, I rode my bike today for the first time since last cycle.
Unlucky for me, I know this energy won't last, as it's already about halfway through week 3.
Lucky for me, my next cycle coming up (cycle 8) is planned to be my last.
Okay, I know I said above that I'm not getting my hopes up too much, in case things don't go according to plan and I end up with more cycles. But you know what, I'm feeling lucky.
Lucky for me, Lodge said they'd be willing to send us a free replacement cast iron skillet for the one that I broke.
Unlucky for me, we still don't have it. And I forgot to ask how long it would take to receive the new one.
Lucky for me, prior to breaking the french press glass, I remembered seeing replacement glass pieces at Berkeley Bowl.
Unlucky for me, I have foggy chemo brain, and when I went to the Bowl to buy one, it turns out that they don't actually sell them.
Lucky for me, on my third try, I actually found the store that does sell them. (Andronico's, if anyone else out there is local and ever finds themselves with a similar need.)
Lucky for me, I found a replacement tea kettle on ebay, identical to the one that I broke.
Lucky for me, I received the package within days.
Unlucky for me, the ebay description was a lie. And the inside of the tea kettle was rusted. With a hole in the bottom. Making it somewhat useless as a tea kettle.
Lucky for me, all I really needed was the handle. Which I was able to transfer to our old kettle.
Lucky for me, when I contacted the ebay seller, he promptly refunded my money. So I actually fixed our old kettle for free.
Lucky for me, my white blood count is back up. So I'm off antibiotics.
Unlucky for me, my oncologist thinks the same thing is likely to happen again next cycle. And that there's nothing I can do about it.
Lucky for me, I had my [hopefully] last Lupron shot this past week. I hate the side effects.
No unlucky for me yet on that one. Unless it turns out I need more than 8 rounds of chemo. Which I'm trying to keep myself mentally prepared for as a possibility. But it would still suck.
Lucky for me, Lorien's mother is visiting for the week. Free babysitting! Okay, there's much more to it than that. And we haven't actually even taken her up on that offer yet. But the bits that she helps out looking after Dylan on a day to day basis are very much appreciated.
Unlucky for me, she brought a bona fide physical representation of my latest nemesis, Big Bird.
Okay, I'm (kind of) just kidding. Lucky for me, Dylan is quite enamored of the Big Bird doll, so I'm happy he's happy. He even wants to sleep with it sometimes. And it's adorable when he dances and plays his guitar to Big Bird's rendition of the ABC song. And the physical Big Bird seems to satisfy his Big Bird cravings, without having to resort to videos.
Unlucky for me, Big Bird doesn't have an off switch. Seriously. The only way to guarantee that it won't make any noise is to pull the battery. What kind of sadist designs a toy that you can't get to shut up?
Lucky for me, even though Dylan is sleeping with Big Bird right now and I didn't pull the battery this time, Dylan hasn't rolled over on it and caused it to make a noise and wake him up. Yet.
Lucky for me, we took Dylan to the Discovery Museum in Sausalito, and he had a great time.
Lucky for me, we (mostly) got in for free, as the Berkeley Public Library now has a program where you can check out all sorts of museum passes with your library card. (Our previous taking advantage of this was for the Oakland Zoo.)
Unlucky for me, we (Lorien too) somehow forgot to bring our jackets, despite this being "summer" in the Bay Area, and the museum being right by the north end of the Golden Gate bridge, and it being somewhat cold and windy.
Lucky for me, there was stuff inside too.
Lucky for me, we have an abundance of amazing produce available to us, and it's the peak of stone fruit season, and you can taste just about all of it to decide which of the huge selection is best to get at the various farmers' markets.
Lucky for me, Dylan was really into the live music we saw last night while having dinner at the cheeseboard, even though he was up past what ought to be his bed time.
Unlucky for me, I got us on such a late schedule that I didn't start baking a ginger peach pie (with the above mentioned amazing peaches) until way later than I had planned. And it took a lot longer to make than I had planned. Which all caused me to get to bed later than I had planned.
Lucky for me, it was amazing. Lorien thinks it's one of my best pies ever. While I think it's pretty awesome, I'm ultimately still partial to raspberry/olallieberry pie.
Unlucky for me, there still aren't any organic olallieberries available in the market. #berkeleyproblem
Lucky for me, we took Dylan to the Berkeley Marina today to fly kites. And look at boats (another one of Dylan's recent obsessions).
Unlucky for me, soon after we started flying kites, there was a serious lull in the wind.
Lucky for me, it picked back up adequately. And you really don't need that much wind to fly a good kite.
Lucky for me, Dylan got kind of into it. And was even willing to hold the string for his kite a bit. Last time he was a little afraid.
Unlucky for me, despite all of the amazing kites around, at one point he decided to obsess over a ball that other kids were playing with.
Lucky for me, we had a ball back in the car. So I went back and got it. And he eventually got back to paying attention to the kites as well.
Lucky for me, I'm feeling less tired and somewhat more energetic lately.
Lucky for me, I rode my bike today for the first time since last cycle.
Unlucky for me, I know this energy won't last, as it's already about halfway through week 3.
Lucky for me, my next cycle coming up (cycle 8) is planned to be my last.
Okay, I know I said above that I'm not getting my hopes up too much, in case things don't go according to plan and I end up with more cycles. But you know what, I'm feeling lucky.
Sunday, July 15, 2012
Slow, foggy, and out of control
It's been a tough week.
Friday night I broke our tea kettle. I knocked it off the stove, and when it landed on the floor the handle snapped in two. Big deal, you might think. It's just a tea kettle. But I really like our tea kettle. Dare I even say that I love our tea kettle. Short of our knives, it may be the single most used item in the kitchen. And it took us a while to find one we were satisfied with. Perhaps you can't imagine how many poorly designed tea kettles there are. Or maybe you just can't imagine how opinionated I am about product design. And while I somewhat make fun of people who obsess over how kitchen items look, I have to say that it was a very nice shade of red -- that goes very well with our Kitchen Aid stand mixer. And somehow I just knew that it wouldn't be made any more (I was right).
It wasn't just the tea kettle. Earlier the same day I broke the glass pitcher of our french press (which also we primarily use for making tea). Just a few days prior I broke our large cast iron skillet (I didn't even know that was possible). And a drinking glass.
I suppose the tea kettle was the final straw. I leaned over, buried my head down on the counter in my arms, and I was literally sobbing. Pathetic, I know. And entirely irrational. It's just a thing. Not even a very expensive thing. I could tell at the time that I was being irrational. But that didn't really help.
And it's not just that I've been fragile emotionally. The trend of each cycle being progressively more difficult physically is sadly continuing. My most manifest problem is fatigue. Even when I manage to get a decent night's sleep, and even though I'm generally napping or at least laying down resting for some time each day, I'm very lacking in energy. I was so happy to be biking again and practicing yoga again, but right now those are once again on hold. Perhaps by week 3.
Also, I finally had a weekly checkup that wasn't uneventful. Which isn't a good thing. My total white blood count, and specifically my absolute neutrophil, are very low. Which means that I have a significantly increased risk of infection. So I'm back on antibiotics.
Despite all of this, I did manage to get myself into an okay enough state to take advantage of the coincidence that multiple friends that have since moved away from the Bay area were all in town visiting at the same time this past week -- Neal (who I went to grad school with, was a housemate with at the legendary Avocado Lounge, and worked with at FastForward); Noky (who I originally know from way back when I worked at DEC, and was also a housemate at the Avocado); and Sarah Reznikoff (also from grad school, although she was in Math, not CS).
I'm now about halfway done cycle 7, and things are noticeably improving. But it's highly variable. Early Friday evening I took Dylan out with his bike (I bought him a balance bike recently) while Lorien went to the market and cooked dinner. Unlike earlier expeditions with the bike, in which we confined ourselves to the block right in front of our house, and in which he actually was on the bike the majority of the time, somehow we ended up walking about 3.5 blocks from home, downhill, and he had mostly lost interest in being on the bike. And I started to feel pretty crappy, and really just wanted to go home. So I've got me, a somewhat not entirely cooperative Dylan, his bike, his sippy cup, and my water bottle. And I want to get us all home. It really shouldn't have been that much of a problem. At the very least, I could just pick Dylan's bike up in one hand (it's ridiculously light), Dylan in the other (he's admittedly getting a little less light), and hold the bottles with my fingers. But I just didn't have the energy. I ended up kind of just giving up and sitting down on the sidewalk, and we made our way home at toddler pace. Very slowly. With many distractions. In retrospect, perhaps I should have had Lorien come rescue us. Because I was feeling pretty bad by the time we finally made it home. But that just kind of seemed too lame to ask for at the time.
Despite Friday night's disasters (the same eve as the tea kettle incident), I woke up on Saturday morning with a somewhat surprising amount of energy. I had assumed I wouldn't be up for it, but I ended up changing my mind and heading into San Fransisco to catch a showing at the San Francisco Silent Film Festival. If you've never seen a silent film on the big screen with live accompaniment, I highly recommend it if you ever get the chance. The SF festival is at the beautiful Castro Theatre, and Lorien and I typically see one selection each year. But we concluded this year that the logistics would be too difficult with Dylan, and it wasn't really worth paying for babysitting for. What I went to was a collection of silent Felix the Cat cartoons. When I was very young, I was somewhat obsessed with Felix the Cat. To the point of throwing a tantrum and insisting on leaving the swimming pool early so that I wouldn't miss the TV show. (Which I should probably keep in mind when I complain about Dylan's recent obsession with Big Bird.) Following the cartoons, I went to a birthday brunch at Heather's apartment, which was fairly near by in the city.
And today I felt well enough to do a little bit of yard work, and to again resume going through the backlog of pictures that I have yet to process. (Isn't this picture adorable?) So it's not all doom and gloom, and I'm sorry if this posting has been a bit of a downer. But I do think I'm getting a bit more of a feel of what typical chemo side effects are like. I'm really glad it hasn't been 6 straight months of this.
I should also note that the tea kettle incident had a somewhat happy ending. I was able to find one of the exact same models on ebay. It's even red.
Friday night I broke our tea kettle. I knocked it off the stove, and when it landed on the floor the handle snapped in two. Big deal, you might think. It's just a tea kettle. But I really like our tea kettle. Dare I even say that I love our tea kettle. Short of our knives, it may be the single most used item in the kitchen. And it took us a while to find one we were satisfied with. Perhaps you can't imagine how many poorly designed tea kettles there are. Or maybe you just can't imagine how opinionated I am about product design. And while I somewhat make fun of people who obsess over how kitchen items look, I have to say that it was a very nice shade of red -- that goes very well with our Kitchen Aid stand mixer. And somehow I just knew that it wouldn't be made any more (I was right).
It wasn't just the tea kettle. Earlier the same day I broke the glass pitcher of our french press (which also we primarily use for making tea). Just a few days prior I broke our large cast iron skillet (I didn't even know that was possible). And a drinking glass.
I suppose the tea kettle was the final straw. I leaned over, buried my head down on the counter in my arms, and I was literally sobbing. Pathetic, I know. And entirely irrational. It's just a thing. Not even a very expensive thing. I could tell at the time that I was being irrational. But that didn't really help.
And it's not just that I've been fragile emotionally. The trend of each cycle being progressively more difficult physically is sadly continuing. My most manifest problem is fatigue. Even when I manage to get a decent night's sleep, and even though I'm generally napping or at least laying down resting for some time each day, I'm very lacking in energy. I was so happy to be biking again and practicing yoga again, but right now those are once again on hold. Perhaps by week 3.
Also, I finally had a weekly checkup that wasn't uneventful. Which isn't a good thing. My total white blood count, and specifically my absolute neutrophil, are very low. Which means that I have a significantly increased risk of infection. So I'm back on antibiotics.
Despite all of this, I did manage to get myself into an okay enough state to take advantage of the coincidence that multiple friends that have since moved away from the Bay area were all in town visiting at the same time this past week -- Neal (who I went to grad school with, was a housemate with at the legendary Avocado Lounge, and worked with at FastForward); Noky (who I originally know from way back when I worked at DEC, and was also a housemate at the Avocado); and Sarah Reznikoff (also from grad school, although she was in Math, not CS).
I'm now about halfway done cycle 7, and things are noticeably improving. But it's highly variable. Early Friday evening I took Dylan out with his bike (I bought him a balance bike recently) while Lorien went to the market and cooked dinner. Unlike earlier expeditions with the bike, in which we confined ourselves to the block right in front of our house, and in which he actually was on the bike the majority of the time, somehow we ended up walking about 3.5 blocks from home, downhill, and he had mostly lost interest in being on the bike. And I started to feel pretty crappy, and really just wanted to go home. So I've got me, a somewhat not entirely cooperative Dylan, his bike, his sippy cup, and my water bottle. And I want to get us all home. It really shouldn't have been that much of a problem. At the very least, I could just pick Dylan's bike up in one hand (it's ridiculously light), Dylan in the other (he's admittedly getting a little less light), and hold the bottles with my fingers. But I just didn't have the energy. I ended up kind of just giving up and sitting down on the sidewalk, and we made our way home at toddler pace. Very slowly. With many distractions. In retrospect, perhaps I should have had Lorien come rescue us. Because I was feeling pretty bad by the time we finally made it home. But that just kind of seemed too lame to ask for at the time.
Despite Friday night's disasters (the same eve as the tea kettle incident), I woke up on Saturday morning with a somewhat surprising amount of energy. I had assumed I wouldn't be up for it, but I ended up changing my mind and heading into San Fransisco to catch a showing at the San Francisco Silent Film Festival. If you've never seen a silent film on the big screen with live accompaniment, I highly recommend it if you ever get the chance. The SF festival is at the beautiful Castro Theatre, and Lorien and I typically see one selection each year. But we concluded this year that the logistics would be too difficult with Dylan, and it wasn't really worth paying for babysitting for. What I went to was a collection of silent Felix the Cat cartoons. When I was very young, I was somewhat obsessed with Felix the Cat. To the point of throwing a tantrum and insisting on leaving the swimming pool early so that I wouldn't miss the TV show. (Which I should probably keep in mind when I complain about Dylan's recent obsession with Big Bird.) Following the cartoons, I went to a birthday brunch at Heather's apartment, which was fairly near by in the city.
And today I felt well enough to do a little bit of yard work, and to again resume going through the backlog of pictures that I have yet to process. (Isn't this picture adorable?) So it's not all doom and gloom, and I'm sorry if this posting has been a bit of a downer. But I do think I'm getting a bit more of a feel of what typical chemo side effects are like. I'm really glad it hasn't been 6 straight months of this.
I should also note that the tea kettle incident had a somewhat happy ending. I was able to find one of the exact same models on ebay. It's even red.
Monday, July 02, 2012
Yay to week 3
My friend Heather sent me this link from a blog post a few days ago at the Huffington Post, The Things I Wish I Were Told When I Was Diagnosed With Cancer. It was an interesting read. Not everything completely matches what I'm going through, but there's a lot of commonality. Thinking back over the past few weeks, the point of "You will be determined to have more energy than you do." especially resonates.
But right now it's well into week 3, and I'm feeling sort of close to normal. I don't quite have the energy level I've had at some points in the past, but I've definitely moved beyond the feeling like crap stage. And some of those past energy peaks were bordering on pseudo-manic behavior anyway, so maybe it's okay not to repeat that.
I went for another bike ride up into the hills today. I think it's the third time I've done that. It would be nice if I could keep it up and do it at least once during week 3 of each cycle. Although it was a bit harder this time than the last time I did it (during cycle 4 I think?), it still felt pretty amazing. And I'm not trying to brag, but I did feel just a tad bit cocky as I'm zipping along on Wildcat Canyon Road and flew past several other bikers. Who likely didn't have cancer. (Unless perhaps they did, for all I know.)
After a bit of a lull when I was feeling crappy, my appetite has returned with full force, and I'm taking advantage of that and its intersection with summer fruit season. More strawberry sauce to finish up the chocolate ice cream. The raspberry/blackberry pie that I brought to work ("Friday is Pie Day" was the slogan) -- which was cool, I ended up staying and hanging out for a few hours, chatting with a bunch of people that I haven't seen too much in the past few months. A strawberry sorbet -- which is sadly a bit sweeter than I would have liked. The recipe probably doesn't anticipate strawberries as sweet and amazing as what we can get right now. Likely either no added sugar, or just a tiny little bit, would have been a better idea. Somewhat sad, and mildly ironic given the opposite result from my previous raspberry/lime sorbet attempt a while back that was way too sour. A peach/nectarine crisp (because I need to get more shortening before making another pie crust, and I didn't really have the time to deal with another pie right now anyway) -- which is very tasty, although a bit runnier than I would have liked (I probably should've drained the juice from slicing the peaches, but I didn't want to toss such a sweet and yummy part). We've decided to just shift the target and think of it as a peach/nectarine pudding instead. Plenty of stone fruit and berries just for eating. As well as berries for scones. And on top of homemade granola. Did I mention I've started making my own granola? OMG it's so much better than store bought. Thanks to Jeff Loiter for the recipe. And as topping for waffles, although I think I like good old maple syrup (Grade B, that is) better. Oh yeah, waffles -- after a few tries, I think we've perfected (or Lorien has, at least), the recipe (yeasted waffles) and technique with our new waffle maker, an anniversary present from Lorien's parents. We've also beeen putting the anniversary present from my parents to good use -- it was a new food processor to replace our old one that died, and I think we've already used it perhaps 4 times in the first week. It's good to be caring about food again, and cooking and baking.
Neal and Genevieve are in SF for a few weeks, and they stopped by to visit on Sunday with their son Teddy, who's 9 months older than Dylan. We went to the Steam Trains in Tilden. Which Dylan loved -- he was way more interested than he was the other time we went, which was about 5 months ago. I guess that's a long time developmentally for him. It's interesting to see how much older Teddy seems (like talking in sentences!), even though it's less than a year difference. Teddy was somewhat less excited by the trains -- the noise from the steam whistle was a bit much for him. The two of them were quite a racket together once we got back to our house.
I've also had the time/energy to finally start working somewhat through my backlog of processing of pictures. I'm still not entirely up to date (and haven't yet done anything from our trip to Monterey; and I still need sometime to go through and process pics of our hike on Mt. Tam from before I even got diagnosed), but there are finally a bunch of new pictures up on flickr. Sorry, I need to get to bed soon, no time for inline pics here right now, but see http://www.flickr.com/photos/dingdingwikki/sets/ if you want to see some pics. Which is in general where you'll find most of my pics anyway -- add me as a contact!
After 2 weeks, the rash has faded significantly, and is mostly no longer bothering me. It's still not completely gone, and still sometimes feels a tiny bit itchy, but it's well on it's way to going away. I suppose it might take a while to completely go away, just like it took a lot longer than usual for my cold to fully dissipate.
Oh yeah, another bit of news about my crazy body -- I'm starting to get hair again! Well, first, an observation about what's gone. A while back I expressed surprise that most of my hair other than what was on my head still seemed intact, whereas I had expected it to all kind of fall away with some kind of exponential decay. I was kind of right in my initial prediction, but it just all happened at a slower rate than I had expected. And slow enough that it was harder to notice. A lot of my hair is gone. That includes a lot of what had lingered on the top of my head. And a lot of all sorts of random body hair, like eyebrows, eyelashes, nose hairs, etc. But I'm definitely starting to get new growth on the top of my head. It's extremely light and fine and peach fuzzy, but there's something there. And my beard hair is still kind of peach fuzzy, but I'm pretty sure it's coming in faster than before, and more densely too. I'm not really keeping close track of it, but my gut feel is that I'm having to shave more often than the recent past, although still not as often as before chemo.
That's about it for now. Chemo #7 is delayed by a day due to July 4. So I get a bonus day of week 3 this time. Which is kind of nice, although the flip side of that is that the weekend of week 2 comes one day earlier in the cycle than normal. Which perhaps won't make that much of a difference. Unless it does. I'm trying to make plans and try to squeeze in fun things when I'm feeling well, but it's getting a bit harder to plan things in advance, esp. given the way the first half of the cycles have been progressing. We just found out that Lorien's mother is going to be in town during the entire week 3 of my next cycle, so maybe we'll be able to take advantage of free babysitting and do something nice together. Lorien vetoed my initial thought of skipping town for a week and heading down to Baja to go scuba diving. ;)
But right now it's well into week 3, and I'm feeling sort of close to normal. I don't quite have the energy level I've had at some points in the past, but I've definitely moved beyond the feeling like crap stage. And some of those past energy peaks were bordering on pseudo-manic behavior anyway, so maybe it's okay not to repeat that.
I went for another bike ride up into the hills today. I think it's the third time I've done that. It would be nice if I could keep it up and do it at least once during week 3 of each cycle. Although it was a bit harder this time than the last time I did it (during cycle 4 I think?), it still felt pretty amazing. And I'm not trying to brag, but I did feel just a tad bit cocky as I'm zipping along on Wildcat Canyon Road and flew past several other bikers. Who likely didn't have cancer. (Unless perhaps they did, for all I know.)
After a bit of a lull when I was feeling crappy, my appetite has returned with full force, and I'm taking advantage of that and its intersection with summer fruit season. More strawberry sauce to finish up the chocolate ice cream. The raspberry/blackberry pie that I brought to work ("Friday is Pie Day" was the slogan) -- which was cool, I ended up staying and hanging out for a few hours, chatting with a bunch of people that I haven't seen too much in the past few months. A strawberry sorbet -- which is sadly a bit sweeter than I would have liked. The recipe probably doesn't anticipate strawberries as sweet and amazing as what we can get right now. Likely either no added sugar, or just a tiny little bit, would have been a better idea. Somewhat sad, and mildly ironic given the opposite result from my previous raspberry/lime sorbet attempt a while back that was way too sour. A peach/nectarine crisp (because I need to get more shortening before making another pie crust, and I didn't really have the time to deal with another pie right now anyway) -- which is very tasty, although a bit runnier than I would have liked (I probably should've drained the juice from slicing the peaches, but I didn't want to toss such a sweet and yummy part). We've decided to just shift the target and think of it as a peach/nectarine pudding instead. Plenty of stone fruit and berries just for eating. As well as berries for scones. And on top of homemade granola. Did I mention I've started making my own granola? OMG it's so much better than store bought. Thanks to Jeff Loiter for the recipe. And as topping for waffles, although I think I like good old maple syrup (Grade B, that is) better. Oh yeah, waffles -- after a few tries, I think we've perfected (or Lorien has, at least), the recipe (yeasted waffles) and technique with our new waffle maker, an anniversary present from Lorien's parents. We've also beeen putting the anniversary present from my parents to good use -- it was a new food processor to replace our old one that died, and I think we've already used it perhaps 4 times in the first week. It's good to be caring about food again, and cooking and baking.
Neal and Genevieve are in SF for a few weeks, and they stopped by to visit on Sunday with their son Teddy, who's 9 months older than Dylan. We went to the Steam Trains in Tilden. Which Dylan loved -- he was way more interested than he was the other time we went, which was about 5 months ago. I guess that's a long time developmentally for him. It's interesting to see how much older Teddy seems (like talking in sentences!), even though it's less than a year difference. Teddy was somewhat less excited by the trains -- the noise from the steam whistle was a bit much for him. The two of them were quite a racket together once we got back to our house.
I've also had the time/energy to finally start working somewhat through my backlog of processing of pictures. I'm still not entirely up to date (and haven't yet done anything from our trip to Monterey; and I still need sometime to go through and process pics of our hike on Mt. Tam from before I even got diagnosed), but there are finally a bunch of new pictures up on flickr. Sorry, I need to get to bed soon, no time for inline pics here right now, but see http://www.flickr.com/photos/dingdingwikki/sets/ if you want to see some pics. Which is in general where you'll find most of my pics anyway -- add me as a contact!
After 2 weeks, the rash has faded significantly, and is mostly no longer bothering me. It's still not completely gone, and still sometimes feels a tiny bit itchy, but it's well on it's way to going away. I suppose it might take a while to completely go away, just like it took a lot longer than usual for my cold to fully dissipate.
Oh yeah, another bit of news about my crazy body -- I'm starting to get hair again! Well, first, an observation about what's gone. A while back I expressed surprise that most of my hair other than what was on my head still seemed intact, whereas I had expected it to all kind of fall away with some kind of exponential decay. I was kind of right in my initial prediction, but it just all happened at a slower rate than I had expected. And slow enough that it was harder to notice. A lot of my hair is gone. That includes a lot of what had lingered on the top of my head. And a lot of all sorts of random body hair, like eyebrows, eyelashes, nose hairs, etc. But I'm definitely starting to get new growth on the top of my head. It's extremely light and fine and peach fuzzy, but there's something there. And my beard hair is still kind of peach fuzzy, but I'm pretty sure it's coming in faster than before, and more densely too. I'm not really keeping close track of it, but my gut feel is that I'm having to shave more often than the recent past, although still not as often as before chemo.
That's about it for now. Chemo #7 is delayed by a day due to July 4. So I get a bonus day of week 3 this time. Which is kind of nice, although the flip side of that is that the weekend of week 2 comes one day earlier in the cycle than normal. Which perhaps won't make that much of a difference. Unless it does. I'm trying to make plans and try to squeeze in fun things when I'm feeling well, but it's getting a bit harder to plan things in advance, esp. given the way the first half of the cycles have been progressing. We just found out that Lorien's mother is going to be in town during the entire week 3 of my next cycle, so maybe we'll be able to take advantage of free babysitting and do something nice together. Lorien vetoed my initial thought of skipping town for a week and heading down to Baja to go scuba diving. ;)
Friday, June 29, 2012
Feeling better
It's not quite the peaches and cream that some other week 3's have been (but boy are the peaches and nectarines and plums and pluots and strawberries and raspberries and blackberries and blueberries all amazing in the market right now), but I have been gradually feeling a bit better every day this week. And I'm feeling well enough now that I'm starting to think about doing some fun stuff. And about good eating again.
On the topic of good eats, the latest batch of chocolate ice cream is nearly gone, so I'm starting to think about what's next. Likely some berry sorbet. While I'm probably more fond in general of raspberries or blackberries for that, the strawberries we bought at the farmers market this afternoon were the best strawberries we've had all year, so that may win out. The pint is already gone. I hope that farm is back at the Saturday market so that we can get more. A few other interesting observations with respect to berries and cream: 1) We tried raspberry sauce with the chocolate ice cream. Interesting, but not as good as the strawberry sauce. We haven't yet tried a blackberry sauce, but we might. 2) Although the chocolate ice cream is great with strawberry sauce, we actually found that the strawberries just by themselves straight up with the chocolate ice cream are somewhat disappointing. Which was a very surprising discovery.
I'm also back in the mood for pie. Tonight I made a raspberry/blackberry pie (with a handful of blueberries thrown in to fill things out a bit) that I'm delivering tomorrow to someone at work, sort of in exchange for him giving me his unused Kindle (they had given them out to every one as a holiday bonus last year). After initially being somewhat skeptical, I've grown somewhat fond of my Kindle, and it's not the easiest thing to share between two people if you both want to be reading something, and Lorien decided she wanted one too. I'm trying to decide what the next pie will be. I want to get a number of more berry pies in (esp. once the olallieberries arrive), but I'm thinking of perhaps a peach/ginger pie next.
I finally went to the dermatologist today. Probably I should've done it a week ago, when the rash was really bad. By now it's actually pretty significantly subsided, although I've been getting a bit uneasy about the fact that it's still spreading somewhat to some new places. Despite what I said earlier, I think that it's not from poison oak. I don't think it's from any internal allergic reaction given the pattern, but really I don't have a clue what it's from. Neither does the dermatologist. Nevertheless, he gave me a somewhat stronger (prescription) ointment to use. So hopefully it'll all be gone in the not too distant future. It's still a bit itchy, but way less than before.
Lorien and Dylan both came back from Toronto with colds, which kind of sucks. But the good news is that both of them were much improved today, so hopefully the family will be all good and healthy for a reasonable portion of my week 3, and we can take advantage of the time before cycle 7 starts.
Okay, it's late, I ought to get to bed. Just wanted to let people know that things aren't as gloomy any more as they were as of my previous post.
On the topic of good eats, the latest batch of chocolate ice cream is nearly gone, so I'm starting to think about what's next. Likely some berry sorbet. While I'm probably more fond in general of raspberries or blackberries for that, the strawberries we bought at the farmers market this afternoon were the best strawberries we've had all year, so that may win out. The pint is already gone. I hope that farm is back at the Saturday market so that we can get more. A few other interesting observations with respect to berries and cream: 1) We tried raspberry sauce with the chocolate ice cream. Interesting, but not as good as the strawberry sauce. We haven't yet tried a blackberry sauce, but we might. 2) Although the chocolate ice cream is great with strawberry sauce, we actually found that the strawberries just by themselves straight up with the chocolate ice cream are somewhat disappointing. Which was a very surprising discovery.
I'm also back in the mood for pie. Tonight I made a raspberry/blackberry pie (with a handful of blueberries thrown in to fill things out a bit) that I'm delivering tomorrow to someone at work, sort of in exchange for him giving me his unused Kindle (they had given them out to every one as a holiday bonus last year). After initially being somewhat skeptical, I've grown somewhat fond of my Kindle, and it's not the easiest thing to share between two people if you both want to be reading something, and Lorien decided she wanted one too. I'm trying to decide what the next pie will be. I want to get a number of more berry pies in (esp. once the olallieberries arrive), but I'm thinking of perhaps a peach/ginger pie next.
I finally went to the dermatologist today. Probably I should've done it a week ago, when the rash was really bad. By now it's actually pretty significantly subsided, although I've been getting a bit uneasy about the fact that it's still spreading somewhat to some new places. Despite what I said earlier, I think that it's not from poison oak. I don't think it's from any internal allergic reaction given the pattern, but really I don't have a clue what it's from. Neither does the dermatologist. Nevertheless, he gave me a somewhat stronger (prescription) ointment to use. So hopefully it'll all be gone in the not too distant future. It's still a bit itchy, but way less than before.
Lorien and Dylan both came back from Toronto with colds, which kind of sucks. But the good news is that both of them were much improved today, so hopefully the family will be all good and healthy for a reasonable portion of my week 3, and we can take advantage of the time before cycle 7 starts.
Okay, it's late, I ought to get to bed. Just wanted to let people know that things aren't as gloomy any more as they were as of my previous post.
Sunday, June 24, 2012
Things are getting harder
Wow, I see it's been an entire cycle since I've blogged for real. I guess what happened was that at the end of the previous cycle I was feeling good and having fun and doing stuff and generally being too busy to blog. But then at the beginning of the next cycle, I was feeling like crap, and didn't feel up to blogging.
I'll later try to fill in some of the fun stuff from the end of cycle 5, but the main item worth noting from my current perspective is that the beginnings of the cycles are getting harder. Cycle 5 was notably worse in the beginning than cycle 4, and cycle 6 was harder still. I suppose that some of the side effects are cumulative. Which has me not particularly looking forward to the beginnings of cycles 7 and 8. Some of it has been stomach cramps, but my biggest issue has been an overall lack of energy, sometimes bordering on total exhaustion.
Part of the tiredness may be directly related to chemo, but part of it is I think just overall sleep deprivation. I had settled previously into a pattern where I was using some sleep meds at the beginning of the cycle, but keeping things under control and getting off of them by the end of the cycle. For various reasons, that didn't happen in cycle 5. So by the time cycle 6 rolled around and I got past the Prednisone span where they are really needed, I had been on some sleep meds for nearly a month straight. Which I don't think is good for me -- I think my body needs some break from them. Which I'm trying to get now, but a side effect is that I'm not sleeping well.
Lorien and Dylan are in Toronto visiting the grandparents (and going to Lorien's cousin Rebekkah's bat mitzvah), and I had grand plans for the week. I had hoped to take advantage of the free time afforded by not having any child care responsibilities to both do all sorts of fun stuff with friends, as well as get done a whole bunch of tasks that I've been putting off. But I ended up spending the vast majority of the week just sitting (or lying) about doing nothing. That's not entirely true -- I did manage to see some friends and do some somewhat fun things over the past few days, but I was kind of tired and spacey for most of it. And most of the tasks on my to do list are still not done, although I was able to tick a few of them off today in an unexpected burst of energy. Which was later followed by exhaustion, which is somewhat what I'm feeling right now. So I hope this isn't too rambling of a post.
The other complicating and annoying factor is that for the past week now I've had a rash on my legs. It looks like it might be poison oak, but I really can't figure out how I would have gotten it. I'm pondering trying to get an appointment with a dermatologist -- I'm not particularly satisfied with the speed (or lack thereof) with which it's resolving itself, and perhaps there's some prescription remedy that might be more helpful than the over the counter products I'm currently using.
So that's where things stand right now. Sorry if this sounds kind of grumpy. I'd probably sound less grumpy if I wasn't so tired, but I really wanted to get something written before going to bed. I was worried that if I put it off yet another day, it wouldn't happen tomorrow either, and then Lorien and Dylan are back, and then things will be getting busy and hectic again, perhaps leading to more delay.
It's not all bad, though. Just before writing this I had some yummy chocolate ice cream and strawberry sauce (both homemade), which was quite satisfying. I'm hoping that my energy level rises by week 3 and I can make some more yummy treats. Both stone fruits and berries are now amazing and plentiful at the market. Pie and/or sorbet may be in the future.
And the tail end of last cycle was great. More about that later when I have the time. For now just ponder words like armagnac, blueberry pie, and Monterey.
I'll later try to fill in some of the fun stuff from the end of cycle 5, but the main item worth noting from my current perspective is that the beginnings of the cycles are getting harder. Cycle 5 was notably worse in the beginning than cycle 4, and cycle 6 was harder still. I suppose that some of the side effects are cumulative. Which has me not particularly looking forward to the beginnings of cycles 7 and 8. Some of it has been stomach cramps, but my biggest issue has been an overall lack of energy, sometimes bordering on total exhaustion.
Part of the tiredness may be directly related to chemo, but part of it is I think just overall sleep deprivation. I had settled previously into a pattern where I was using some sleep meds at the beginning of the cycle, but keeping things under control and getting off of them by the end of the cycle. For various reasons, that didn't happen in cycle 5. So by the time cycle 6 rolled around and I got past the Prednisone span where they are really needed, I had been on some sleep meds for nearly a month straight. Which I don't think is good for me -- I think my body needs some break from them. Which I'm trying to get now, but a side effect is that I'm not sleeping well.
Lorien and Dylan are in Toronto visiting the grandparents (and going to Lorien's cousin Rebekkah's bat mitzvah), and I had grand plans for the week. I had hoped to take advantage of the free time afforded by not having any child care responsibilities to both do all sorts of fun stuff with friends, as well as get done a whole bunch of tasks that I've been putting off. But I ended up spending the vast majority of the week just sitting (or lying) about doing nothing. That's not entirely true -- I did manage to see some friends and do some somewhat fun things over the past few days, but I was kind of tired and spacey for most of it. And most of the tasks on my to do list are still not done, although I was able to tick a few of them off today in an unexpected burst of energy. Which was later followed by exhaustion, which is somewhat what I'm feeling right now. So I hope this isn't too rambling of a post.
The other complicating and annoying factor is that for the past week now I've had a rash on my legs. It looks like it might be poison oak, but I really can't figure out how I would have gotten it. I'm pondering trying to get an appointment with a dermatologist -- I'm not particularly satisfied with the speed (or lack thereof) with which it's resolving itself, and perhaps there's some prescription remedy that might be more helpful than the over the counter products I'm currently using.
So that's where things stand right now. Sorry if this sounds kind of grumpy. I'd probably sound less grumpy if I wasn't so tired, but I really wanted to get something written before going to bed. I was worried that if I put it off yet another day, it wouldn't happen tomorrow either, and then Lorien and Dylan are back, and then things will be getting busy and hectic again, perhaps leading to more delay.
It's not all bad, though. Just before writing this I had some yummy chocolate ice cream and strawberry sauce (both homemade), which was quite satisfying. I'm hoping that my energy level rises by week 3 and I can make some more yummy treats. Both stone fruits and berries are now amazing and plentiful at the market. Pie and/or sorbet may be in the future.
And the tail end of last cycle was great. More about that later when I have the time. For now just ponder words like armagnac, blueberry pie, and Monterey.
Thursday, June 14, 2012
I'm fine
I didn't quite realize it had been this long since a post. I'm trying not to get to bed too late, and not to use the computer too much right before bed (although I'm often failing on both accounts), so once again today will be a day where I had planned to blog but didn't follow through. But I didn't want any of my regular readership to think that no news was bad news. I'm fine and will try to let y'all know what's been up soon (but realistically it probably won't happen tomorrow).
Tuesday, May 29, 2012
The second half begins
I think lately (or at least last round) I'm feeling so good by the end of week 3, that I get a bit forgetful of the fact that I'm not always feeling quite that good.
The end of last round's week 3 was indeed a great time. As was true the one previous time that I was there, cocktails at Bourbon and Branch were truly stellar. Even if perhaps 3 strong cocktails is pushing the limit of moderate alcohol consumption. I've got to go back there again sometime, this time not waiting several years in the interim. And/or find a good cocktail bar in the East Bay, which would be a bit easier to do as a date night with Lorien. Anyone have any suggestions?
Our early anniversary lunch celebration the next day at Chez Panisse was also quite delightful. And included a full bottle of wine.
Also on the food/drink front, we won a gift certificate to Rumbo Al Sur, as part of the raffle at the Edible Schoolyard fundraiser (where the adorable Dylan picture was taken). We'll have to schedule that as part of some future week 3 festivities.
I also spent some time doing some more shopping. With all the weight I lost, I've been having crazy trouble trying to find a pair of jeans that fit me well. I stopped by the Levis store in SF before Bourbon and Branch fairly convinced on getting a certain pair there. But it didn't really fit me that well, and the sales guy was persistent that I should try something else. What he suggested is way skinnier than what I really had in mind, but I have to admit, it did fit me well. So I bought a pair.
And I tentatively bought a new pair of bike shoes, although there's still one more shop I want to look at, but with my chemo and then Prednisone induced swelling, I still need to wait a tiny bit before I can return to shoe shopping.
So week 3 was really pretty grand, I don't think I deserve to complain too much. Nevertheless, week 1 has been quite a contrast. It's not that it's been really *that* bad, but bad enough that it has mostly felt far from good. And somewhat surprising, since in the past week 1 hadn't been all that bad, and on average better than week 2. A lot of it has been an overall lack of energy, and just a general feeling of blah. I had been planning on going to yoga last Friday, but there was just no way that I was up for it. We had also planned on hanging out in our backyard picnicking for our anniversary on Monday. While we spent a tiny amount of time outside, neither the weather (somewhat cool and windy) nor Dylan (somewhat cranky) nor my energy (I needed to take a nap in the afternoon) cooperated all that well. Which made me all the more thankful that we had gone out to celebrate during the previous week.
Fortunately, I did manage to have a bit of energy on Sunday night, and went into the city and biked out towards the Golden Gate Bridge with some friends for the fireworks celebrating the 75th year of the bridge. They were pretty good fireworks -- besides launching them from a barge, they had a number of effects actually coordinated with the bridge, launched from both the span itself, and the two towers.
But most of this week I've just been trying to take it easy. I got the opportunity to sleep in a bit this morning, which I think helped a lot. Sadly, I didn't put that extra energy towards anything very fun. I literally spent hours today going through months of health insurance related paperwork plus being on the phone with the old health insurance company. Not that everything is actually resolved, but at least I've got a handle on the things that I think are wrong (I think maybe there are 5 total) and have made some progress. Ugh. Every time I have to deal with Health Net, it feels so soul destroying. I'm so glad they're not my insurance company any more (so far things are much smoother with Blue Shield), but I've still got to deal with the leftover mess from my previous time with them.
Tomorrow starts week 2 of cycle 5. Tentative plan is for yoga after my weekly appointment, both if the appointment doesn't run too late, and if I have the energy for it. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that maybe week 2 will be a little more pleasant than week 1 was. But even if it's not, it's probable that week 3 will be, so I'll just ride it through.
The end of last round's week 3 was indeed a great time. As was true the one previous time that I was there, cocktails at Bourbon and Branch were truly stellar. Even if perhaps 3 strong cocktails is pushing the limit of moderate alcohol consumption. I've got to go back there again sometime, this time not waiting several years in the interim. And/or find a good cocktail bar in the East Bay, which would be a bit easier to do as a date night with Lorien. Anyone have any suggestions?
Our early anniversary lunch celebration the next day at Chez Panisse was also quite delightful. And included a full bottle of wine.
Also on the food/drink front, we won a gift certificate to Rumbo Al Sur, as part of the raffle at the Edible Schoolyard fundraiser (where the adorable Dylan picture was taken). We'll have to schedule that as part of some future week 3 festivities.
I also spent some time doing some more shopping. With all the weight I lost, I've been having crazy trouble trying to find a pair of jeans that fit me well. I stopped by the Levis store in SF before Bourbon and Branch fairly convinced on getting a certain pair there. But it didn't really fit me that well, and the sales guy was persistent that I should try something else. What he suggested is way skinnier than what I really had in mind, but I have to admit, it did fit me well. So I bought a pair.
And I tentatively bought a new pair of bike shoes, although there's still one more shop I want to look at, but with my chemo and then Prednisone induced swelling, I still need to wait a tiny bit before I can return to shoe shopping.
So week 3 was really pretty grand, I don't think I deserve to complain too much. Nevertheless, week 1 has been quite a contrast. It's not that it's been really *that* bad, but bad enough that it has mostly felt far from good. And somewhat surprising, since in the past week 1 hadn't been all that bad, and on average better than week 2. A lot of it has been an overall lack of energy, and just a general feeling of blah. I had been planning on going to yoga last Friday, but there was just no way that I was up for it. We had also planned on hanging out in our backyard picnicking for our anniversary on Monday. While we spent a tiny amount of time outside, neither the weather (somewhat cool and windy) nor Dylan (somewhat cranky) nor my energy (I needed to take a nap in the afternoon) cooperated all that well. Which made me all the more thankful that we had gone out to celebrate during the previous week.
Fortunately, I did manage to have a bit of energy on Sunday night, and went into the city and biked out towards the Golden Gate Bridge with some friends for the fireworks celebrating the 75th year of the bridge. They were pretty good fireworks -- besides launching them from a barge, they had a number of effects actually coordinated with the bridge, launched from both the span itself, and the two towers.
But most of this week I've just been trying to take it easy. I got the opportunity to sleep in a bit this morning, which I think helped a lot. Sadly, I didn't put that extra energy towards anything very fun. I literally spent hours today going through months of health insurance related paperwork plus being on the phone with the old health insurance company. Not that everything is actually resolved, but at least I've got a handle on the things that I think are wrong (I think maybe there are 5 total) and have made some progress. Ugh. Every time I have to deal with Health Net, it feels so soul destroying. I'm so glad they're not my insurance company any more (so far things are much smoother with Blue Shield), but I've still got to deal with the leftover mess from my previous time with them.
Tomorrow starts week 2 of cycle 5. Tentative plan is for yoga after my weekly appointment, both if the appointment doesn't run too late, and if I have the energy for it. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that maybe week 2 will be a little more pleasant than week 1 was. But even if it's not, it's probable that week 3 will be, so I'll just ride it through.
Sunday, May 20, 2012
Post scan celebrations
Is this blog evolving into dual tracks for both cancer and food? Is that weird? Will I need some title like Cooking and Cancer? Tasty Treats and Tumors? Munchies and Malignancies? (Okay, those are all kind of bad...) Do I need to start including things besides desserts for it to be a food blog? Like describing the lovely dinner we had to celebrate the good news of the scan, which featured a frisee salad topped with a poached egg (my first experimentation with poaching an egg); some warmed chevre with chives on baguette slices; and a crisp white wine. The salad recipe came from our latest cookbook, The Art of Simple Food, by Alice Waters. I'm not sure given where we live and what kind of food we're into how we've gone so long without an Alice Waters cookbook. We're quite fond of it already, and have started to follow Dylan's lead by referring to it with just a single word, "Alice". As we also are doing for "Julia" (Mastering the Art of French Cooking, by Julia Child); and "Joy" (The Joy of Cooking). We bought the book at the plant sale at the Edible Schoolyard, rather than through Amazon. Which meant we spent nearly twice as much (list price), but it was a fundraiser, so at least the money is going to a good cause, and not a somewhat evil company. And our copy is autographed. And while we were there we managed to capture this absolutely adorable picture of Dylan.
But I digress. I was pondering food blogs. I suppose if I really wanted to write a food blog I'd need to type in recipes. That sounds hard.
Back to the primary topic, I continue to feel well, and am thoroughly enjoying this week 3. I've been shopping for some new cycling gear -- right now I'm looking for a helmet and shoes. Shopping for shoes is always a bit of a pain for me because my feet are so narrow (B width), so most shoes don't come anywhere close to fitting me. Right now it's especially tricky because I can only try on new shoes during the later part of my cycle. During week 1 I'm too full of excess water weight, and I can't really trust how new shoes feel. So if I don't make a decision in a few days, I'll have to wait a little while.
I was complaining about my lingering cold for quite some time. I supposed I never really announced that I had decided eventually that it was gone. Or at least gone enough -- there are still some occasionally cold like symptoms, but I think I had those even before I got the cold.
And the hoarseness of my voice has substantially decreased. But I still need to take it a little bit easy on my throat.
Back to the topic of celebrations and week 3 enjoyments, there's another couple that we periodically do babysitting swaps with. So last night Lorien and I had a bit of a date night, going out to a few bars for fancy cocktails. By bike. It was fun. It had been a long time since I had gone biking at night. Time to recharge a lot of the batteries for my lights.
Today featured not one, but two barbeques. Both birthday parties. Although there was a substantial age difference (42 years) between the celebrants of both parties. The second party featured eclipse viewing. Some pictures are below.
 | ||
| The eclipse around peak, projected via telescope. We were a few hours drive from the region of totality; had I realized the relative closeness a few days earlier than I did, perhaps I would have made plans to be there. But this was still pretty good. | |
 |
| Reflections of the crescent sun near the peak of the eclipse |
Tomorrow night features more cocktails -- I'm meeting my friend Heather at Bourbon and Branch in SF. And Tuesday Lorien and I are celebrating our anniversary a bit early with a lunch at Chez Panisse. We decided it was better to celebrate during week 3 than on our actual anniversary date (May 28), which falls during week 1. The actual day wouldn't have been very practical for a restaurant outing anyway, as it's on Memorial Day this year. Maybe we'll have a picnic that day.
Then on Wednesday my clock starts over again, with chemo round 5.
Friday, May 18, 2012
Looking good
I know there are people waiting on the PET scan results, so I wanted to get a quick blog posting out and not wait until tonite.
Overall things are looking good, pretty much as expected and hoped for. The maximal dimensions of the tumor have shrunk from the previous scan (almost 3 months ago), from 17.1 x 10.4 x 14.4 cm to 7.3 x 4.2 x 6.2 cm. That's a greater than 50% reduction in each dimension. If the tumor was an ellipsoid with those dimensions, that would be a huge reduction in volume -- 93%. But keep in mind that the tumor is NOT an ellipsoid -- these are maximum measurements, so the actual volume is likely significantly lower, as is the actual volume reduction. If I had the skills to analyze the raw data sufficiently so that I could make a 3D printout of the tumor (which I had hoped for, although I've since abandoned that plan), I could give a better number. But I can't, and it's not really that important anyway.
The other good quantitative news for any statistics geeks out there relates to the SUV. No, not the ginormous gas guzzling vehicles that are prone to rollover, this is an indirect measure of tumor activity, with a lower number being better. Follow the Wikipedia link if you want a starting point for more details. Anyway, the max SUV has dropped from 15.6 to 3.9, and quoting from the report, "associated activity has significantly improved ... now with only a minority of the mass demonstrating activity."
So basically this is all good news. There's still a tumor, but to have expected otherwise would have been unrealistic. It is smaller and less active, so the chemotherapy is working and doing what it's supposed to do. The plan is still therefore the same. Four more rounds of chemo (round 5 starts on Wednesday of next week), then another scan to check on things, and then likely (but still not definitely) some radiation.
I rewarded myself by buying yet another hat on the way home from my weekly checkup, a real classy black and white fedora that I spotted the other day at the hat shop (Goorin) that I previously hadn't heard of that Skippy (Fox, not Sherred) suggested. I'll post a pic of that, as well as one showing off my new glasses (which I absolutely love) when I get a chance. But I don't want lack of a picture to hold up this posting.
I suppose I should conclude with an update on the sweets report. Even though I halved the recipe for the hot fudge sauce, we are nearing the end of the banana ice cream, and still have plenty of the sauce left. Which means that now I need to make another ice cream to go with the sauce. But then will I be forced to make more sauce to go with any remaining ice cream, and so on, in a vicious circle? I suppose there are worse predicaments one can find oneself in. The current leading contender for the next flavour attempt is strawberry ice cream. I suppose we could even compare strawberry ice cream with chocolate sauce to chocolate ice cream with strawberry sauce. Yum.
Overall things are looking good, pretty much as expected and hoped for. The maximal dimensions of the tumor have shrunk from the previous scan (almost 3 months ago), from 17.1 x 10.4 x 14.4 cm to 7.3 x 4.2 x 6.2 cm. That's a greater than 50% reduction in each dimension. If the tumor was an ellipsoid with those dimensions, that would be a huge reduction in volume -- 93%. But keep in mind that the tumor is NOT an ellipsoid -- these are maximum measurements, so the actual volume is likely significantly lower, as is the actual volume reduction. If I had the skills to analyze the raw data sufficiently so that I could make a 3D printout of the tumor (which I had hoped for, although I've since abandoned that plan), I could give a better number. But I can't, and it's not really that important anyway.
The other good quantitative news for any statistics geeks out there relates to the SUV. No, not the ginormous gas guzzling vehicles that are prone to rollover, this is an indirect measure of tumor activity, with a lower number being better. Follow the Wikipedia link if you want a starting point for more details. Anyway, the max SUV has dropped from 15.6 to 3.9, and quoting from the report, "associated activity has significantly improved ... now with only a minority of the mass demonstrating activity."
So basically this is all good news. There's still a tumor, but to have expected otherwise would have been unrealistic. It is smaller and less active, so the chemotherapy is working and doing what it's supposed to do. The plan is still therefore the same. Four more rounds of chemo (round 5 starts on Wednesday of next week), then another scan to check on things, and then likely (but still not definitely) some radiation.
I rewarded myself by buying yet another hat on the way home from my weekly checkup, a real classy black and white fedora that I spotted the other day at the hat shop (Goorin) that I previously hadn't heard of that Skippy (Fox, not Sherred) suggested. I'll post a pic of that, as well as one showing off my new glasses (which I absolutely love) when I get a chance. But I don't want lack of a picture to hold up this posting.
I suppose I should conclude with an update on the sweets report. Even though I halved the recipe for the hot fudge sauce, we are nearing the end of the banana ice cream, and still have plenty of the sauce left. Which means that now I need to make another ice cream to go with the sauce. But then will I be forced to make more sauce to go with any remaining ice cream, and so on, in a vicious circle? I suppose there are worse predicaments one can find oneself in. The current leading contender for the next flavour attempt is strawberry ice cream. I suppose we could even compare strawberry ice cream with chocolate sauce to chocolate ice cream with strawberry sauce. Yum.
Wednesday, May 16, 2012
OMG Hot Fudge Sauce
Okay, I have to follow up the previous post with one quick thing before bed.
Just like the chocolate ice cream was okay on its own, but amazing with freshly made strawberry sauce, the same holds true for the banana-granola ice cream and freshly made hot fudge sauce. Wow. And it was so easy to make.
Is it a sign that my local readership has dropped off that we're not getting any help eating ice cream? Seriously, if you're nearby and reading this, stop by some night for dessert.
Just like the chocolate ice cream was okay on its own, but amazing with freshly made strawberry sauce, the same holds true for the banana-granola ice cream and freshly made hot fudge sauce. Wow. And it was so easy to make.
Is it a sign that my local readership has dropped off that we're not getting any help eating ice cream? Seriously, if you're nearby and reading this, stop by some night for dessert.
PET scan tomorrow
I'll try to keep this somewhat brief because it's getting late, I have to get up early tomorrow morning, and I still want to make some chocolate sauce to go with our latest round of ice cream for a late night snack before bed.
The early rise is for a PET scan. I had one of these before starting chemo, as part of the initial diagnosis. This is evaluating things at the sort of halfway point. Sort of for a few reasons -- first because it's after 4 of 8 planned rounds of chemo, but the plan could change (more or less rounds); second because chemo might not be all there is, there might be radiation following.
At first I was kind of excited and looking forward to this. Then I was a bit scared about what the results might be. But now I'm kind of thinking that it probably won't be a big deal either way. There are two extreme results -- that either I have made no progress, or the tumor is completely gone -- but I am extremely doubtful that either of those will be the case. Almost certainly not the first, given how much better I feel. So likely the tumor will be smaller, although the expected reduction is probably in some range, and maybe the reduction is as expected, or maybe less so, or maybe more. But I bet even if it's less or more that at this point it probably won't change the plan that drastically, and that I'll be told not to read too much into things either good or bad. So we'll just have to see. Regardless, it is kind of nice to be reaching this milestone, and I am curious to see how it goes.
Overall things continue to go very well, about as good as can be expected. The side effects from this round of chemo have been very minimal, even during week 2. And today I felt strong enough to go to a real yoga class. My workplace has free yoga once a week at a studio across the street. I had been getting a few personal lessons at my house with the same instructor that were fairly on the mellow side. Today I just went to the normal class. It was a little intense at times, but nothing that I couldn't handle, and I felt great afterwards. Having cleared this milestone, I think I'd like to start doing it a bit more regularly. And maybe start going to classes at the yoga center that I had been going to pretty regularly for quite some time a few years back. I initially stopped a bit before Dylan was born -- first because I felt too busy for it, and then I didn't return to it because I was sick.
Ok, time for some dessert. I can't eat for 8 hours before the scan, so I want to load up a bit on calories in advance.
The early rise is for a PET scan. I had one of these before starting chemo, as part of the initial diagnosis. This is evaluating things at the sort of halfway point. Sort of for a few reasons -- first because it's after 4 of 8 planned rounds of chemo, but the plan could change (more or less rounds); second because chemo might not be all there is, there might be radiation following.
At first I was kind of excited and looking forward to this. Then I was a bit scared about what the results might be. But now I'm kind of thinking that it probably won't be a big deal either way. There are two extreme results -- that either I have made no progress, or the tumor is completely gone -- but I am extremely doubtful that either of those will be the case. Almost certainly not the first, given how much better I feel. So likely the tumor will be smaller, although the expected reduction is probably in some range, and maybe the reduction is as expected, or maybe less so, or maybe more. But I bet even if it's less or more that at this point it probably won't change the plan that drastically, and that I'll be told not to read too much into things either good or bad. So we'll just have to see. Regardless, it is kind of nice to be reaching this milestone, and I am curious to see how it goes.
Overall things continue to go very well, about as good as can be expected. The side effects from this round of chemo have been very minimal, even during week 2. And today I felt strong enough to go to a real yoga class. My workplace has free yoga once a week at a studio across the street. I had been getting a few personal lessons at my house with the same instructor that were fairly on the mellow side. Today I just went to the normal class. It was a little intense at times, but nothing that I couldn't handle, and I felt great afterwards. Having cleared this milestone, I think I'd like to start doing it a bit more regularly. And maybe start going to classes at the yoga center that I had been going to pretty regularly for quite some time a few years back. I initially stopped a bit before Dylan was born -- first because I felt too busy for it, and then I didn't return to it because I was sick.
Ok, time for some dessert. I can't eat for 8 hours before the scan, so I want to load up a bit on calories in advance.
Friday, May 11, 2012
Voice, bikes, ice cream, et. al.
I didn't realize it had been a whole week since posting. While I will in general try to blog a little more frequently than once a week, please don't assume that no news is bad news.
The rest of week 1 was kind of all over the place with respect to energy. Like on Saturday I was way, way lethargic, and then on Sunday I had a ton of energy, and then on Monday I was somewhere in between.
On Tuesday I had another private yoga session, which we kept pretty mellow. I really should make the time to do more yoga, I think my body really needs it. Although I'm not quite sure if I'm yet up for a normal yoga class, even a fairly beginning one.
Wednesday was my ENT appointment. The summary is that there's nothing to worry about currently, but also nothing to do. The somewhat longer answer is that my left vocal chord is being sluggish, and my right one is compensating so when they close together, it's not in the middle like it normally is. It's all more likely a consequence of the tumor than a side effect of chemo. It might even be present now but now before because of how it's reacting to the tumor shrinking. She told me to come back when I was done treatment and she'd have another look, or if it got significantly worse. The good news is that I think my voice, although not perfect, has actually improved somewhat. But it's hard to say, because like so many other things, it's not really just a question of on a trajectory of getting worse or better. It varies substantially from day to day, and within a day.
Thursday was Bike To Work Day. It was also a day that Lorien flew to Orange County for a meeting. Since I viewed my main job for the day as taking care of Dylan, and since I was up way early anyway for that, I biked him around in the morning to a number of the Energizer Stations. It was the first time I've pulled him in the trailer in a significant amount of time. With his growing weight, and the weight of the trailer, it's probably coming close to towing 50 pounds. It wasn't that hard in the flats, but we did go up slightly into the foothills in search of a station that was actually giving out the promised local coupon books as part of the free schwag. We never did actually find a physical book -- the best we did was a canvas bag with a code for the smartphone app version. Dylan did get plenty of admirers -- he does look pretty damn cute in his bike helmet (sorry, I didn't actually get any pics on BTWD).
I also met up with a number of folks from work who I convinced to bike to lunch in Berkeley. It was good to see some people from the office. It had been a while.
My Wednesday appointment caused my weekly checkup that's normally on Wednesday to get pushed to today (Friday). To a first order, it was fairly uneventful, in that my blood work continues to go well. The annoying part of the day was that what was essentially mostly an approximately 5 minute doctor appointment turned into about 2.5 hours, for various reasons. Oh well, I guess I just need to accept that that kind of crap is going to happen sometimes.
Next week I have a PET scan scheduled. Organizing various logistics of this is part of the reason today's appointment took so long. I had one of these before treatment, and I'll have one after chemo as well. This is the midway scan, to see how I'm doing. I'm kind of excited and nervous and scared all at the same time.
So far week 2 has been going smoother than expected. Last round I felt kind of crappy from late Wednesday through Saturday. It's Friday night now, and while I haven't felt completely well for week 2 so far, the chemo side effects have been fairly minimal, and I've been eating relatively normally.
My weight continues to follow it's up and down trajectory, in a way that I'm starting to be able to predict fairly well. It shoots way up right after chemo, b/c of all of the fluids they pump into me. Then it stays up through most of week 1, likely a side effect of the Prednisone. Then it drops a significant amount over the next few days. So it gets comfortably into the low 140s at its peak, but once I'm solidly into week 2, my morning weight is closer to 135#. Which is still a nice solid 10 pound gain over where I bottomed out, and a level that has me looking reasonably thin, but not emaciated. Still way below where I started before I got sick, which was close to 150#. I guess the bottom line is that I can continue to enjoy my homemade ice cream without worry. :)
On that note, I mentioned a few blog posts back that I made a basic chocolate. It was pretty good, but a bit too rich I think by itself. However, we discovered that it paired absolutely amazingly with strawberry sauce, esp. given how good the strawberries have been lately. There's still a tiny bit left. The next batch (mixed up tonite, in the fridge now, will freeze it tomorrow morning) is banana ice cream with granola. (Thank you Jeff Loiter for your granola recipe -- I finally made it and it's both quite tasty as well as surprisingly easy to make.) I'm getting enough into this whole homemade ice cream thing that we're pondering buying another of the rectangular pyrex containers that we use for storing the ice cream so that the lack of a suitable vessel is never the thing holding me back from making a second batch.
So once again, I'll put out a request that if anyone is reading this and local and hungry for sweets, please stop by and help us eat ice cream. Seriously. The faster it gets eaten, the sooner I can experiment with new flavors.
The rest of week 1 was kind of all over the place with respect to energy. Like on Saturday I was way, way lethargic, and then on Sunday I had a ton of energy, and then on Monday I was somewhere in between.
On Tuesday I had another private yoga session, which we kept pretty mellow. I really should make the time to do more yoga, I think my body really needs it. Although I'm not quite sure if I'm yet up for a normal yoga class, even a fairly beginning one.
Wednesday was my ENT appointment. The summary is that there's nothing to worry about currently, but also nothing to do. The somewhat longer answer is that my left vocal chord is being sluggish, and my right one is compensating so when they close together, it's not in the middle like it normally is. It's all more likely a consequence of the tumor than a side effect of chemo. It might even be present now but now before because of how it's reacting to the tumor shrinking. She told me to come back when I was done treatment and she'd have another look, or if it got significantly worse. The good news is that I think my voice, although not perfect, has actually improved somewhat. But it's hard to say, because like so many other things, it's not really just a question of on a trajectory of getting worse or better. It varies substantially from day to day, and within a day.
Thursday was Bike To Work Day. It was also a day that Lorien flew to Orange County for a meeting. Since I viewed my main job for the day as taking care of Dylan, and since I was up way early anyway for that, I biked him around in the morning to a number of the Energizer Stations. It was the first time I've pulled him in the trailer in a significant amount of time. With his growing weight, and the weight of the trailer, it's probably coming close to towing 50 pounds. It wasn't that hard in the flats, but we did go up slightly into the foothills in search of a station that was actually giving out the promised local coupon books as part of the free schwag. We never did actually find a physical book -- the best we did was a canvas bag with a code for the smartphone app version. Dylan did get plenty of admirers -- he does look pretty damn cute in his bike helmet (sorry, I didn't actually get any pics on BTWD).
I also met up with a number of folks from work who I convinced to bike to lunch in Berkeley. It was good to see some people from the office. It had been a while.
My Wednesday appointment caused my weekly checkup that's normally on Wednesday to get pushed to today (Friday). To a first order, it was fairly uneventful, in that my blood work continues to go well. The annoying part of the day was that what was essentially mostly an approximately 5 minute doctor appointment turned into about 2.5 hours, for various reasons. Oh well, I guess I just need to accept that that kind of crap is going to happen sometimes.
Next week I have a PET scan scheduled. Organizing various logistics of this is part of the reason today's appointment took so long. I had one of these before treatment, and I'll have one after chemo as well. This is the midway scan, to see how I'm doing. I'm kind of excited and nervous and scared all at the same time.
So far week 2 has been going smoother than expected. Last round I felt kind of crappy from late Wednesday through Saturday. It's Friday night now, and while I haven't felt completely well for week 2 so far, the chemo side effects have been fairly minimal, and I've been eating relatively normally.
My weight continues to follow it's up and down trajectory, in a way that I'm starting to be able to predict fairly well. It shoots way up right after chemo, b/c of all of the fluids they pump into me. Then it stays up through most of week 1, likely a side effect of the Prednisone. Then it drops a significant amount over the next few days. So it gets comfortably into the low 140s at its peak, but once I'm solidly into week 2, my morning weight is closer to 135#. Which is still a nice solid 10 pound gain over where I bottomed out, and a level that has me looking reasonably thin, but not emaciated. Still way below where I started before I got sick, which was close to 150#. I guess the bottom line is that I can continue to enjoy my homemade ice cream without worry. :)
On that note, I mentioned a few blog posts back that I made a basic chocolate. It was pretty good, but a bit too rich I think by itself. However, we discovered that it paired absolutely amazingly with strawberry sauce, esp. given how good the strawberries have been lately. There's still a tiny bit left. The next batch (mixed up tonite, in the fridge now, will freeze it tomorrow morning) is banana ice cream with granola. (Thank you Jeff Loiter for your granola recipe -- I finally made it and it's both quite tasty as well as surprisingly easy to make.) I'm getting enough into this whole homemade ice cream thing that we're pondering buying another of the rectangular pyrex containers that we use for storing the ice cream so that the lack of a suitable vessel is never the thing holding me back from making a second batch.
So once again, I'll put out a request that if anyone is reading this and local and hungry for sweets, please stop by and help us eat ice cream. Seriously. The faster it gets eaten, the sooner I can experiment with new flavors.
Friday, May 04, 2012
Foggy, rather groggy
Apologies if I've already used that as a title. I'm not sure, and too lazy right now to double check.
Just a quick update, to let everyone know I'm doing okay.
Chemo day for round 4 went okay. The wait was shorter than last time, and it was also scheduled earlier (which is now my regular time), so I was easily home in time for dinner. And I didn't actually mind the wait at all. I read for a bit (still digging the Kindle), then went downstairs to play on the newly discovered piano. I brought plenty of food with me this time (it helped that there wasn't an unplanned meal inserted into the chemo time), including enough freshly baked banana bread and gingersnaps that I was able to share some with the nurses there. And the weather was nice, so I biked this time. My second "roommate" (most of the treatment room is divided into little room like sections that can accommodate two people at a time) -- the one who was still there when I was departing -- was pretty damn impressed that I had biked to chemo. Not that I'm doing this to try to impress other people, but it kind of felt nice anyway; maybe deep inside I do like to show off a bit.
The hoarseness of my voice continues. It was recommended that I go see an ENT to check it out further. Next week.
Week 1 is going okay. I'm kind of groggy and don't have a lot of energy. Which is kind of how the last round went. I'd rather not be this way, but it's not that big of a deal. After all, this is part of why I'm taking time off. So that if I want to have days where I just sit around and do nothing, I can. I'm not really feeling the pseudo-manic feelings from the Prednisone any more. So I decided last night to see if that, and given my grogginess, if maybe I could do without sleep meds. Nope. Grogginess isn't really the same as sleepiness, apparently. I was tired this afternoon and lay down a while to try to take a nap. It was somewhat refreshing to just be in bed for a while lying down, but ultimately there was no way that I was going to get to sleep. So it's possible that part of my grogginess is just after affects from the Ambien. I'm not too worried, though. I was able to successfully wean myself off of any sleep meds by the end of the cycle last time. So if I'm just dependent on them for the beginning of the cycle, I'm okay with that.
So not a lot going on right now that's too exciting. We've got some tentative plans for the weekend, but I guess my general feeling is that I shouldn't definitively commit to too much, unless maybe it's in week 3.
Just a quick update, to let everyone know I'm doing okay.
Chemo day for round 4 went okay. The wait was shorter than last time, and it was also scheduled earlier (which is now my regular time), so I was easily home in time for dinner. And I didn't actually mind the wait at all. I read for a bit (still digging the Kindle), then went downstairs to play on the newly discovered piano. I brought plenty of food with me this time (it helped that there wasn't an unplanned meal inserted into the chemo time), including enough freshly baked banana bread and gingersnaps that I was able to share some with the nurses there. And the weather was nice, so I biked this time. My second "roommate" (most of the treatment room is divided into little room like sections that can accommodate two people at a time) -- the one who was still there when I was departing -- was pretty damn impressed that I had biked to chemo. Not that I'm doing this to try to impress other people, but it kind of felt nice anyway; maybe deep inside I do like to show off a bit.
The hoarseness of my voice continues. It was recommended that I go see an ENT to check it out further. Next week.
Week 1 is going okay. I'm kind of groggy and don't have a lot of energy. Which is kind of how the last round went. I'd rather not be this way, but it's not that big of a deal. After all, this is part of why I'm taking time off. So that if I want to have days where I just sit around and do nothing, I can. I'm not really feeling the pseudo-manic feelings from the Prednisone any more. So I decided last night to see if that, and given my grogginess, if maybe I could do without sleep meds. Nope. Grogginess isn't really the same as sleepiness, apparently. I was tired this afternoon and lay down a while to try to take a nap. It was somewhat refreshing to just be in bed for a while lying down, but ultimately there was no way that I was going to get to sleep. So it's possible that part of my grogginess is just after affects from the Ambien. I'm not too worried, though. I was able to successfully wean myself off of any sleep meds by the end of the cycle last time. So if I'm just dependent on them for the beginning of the cycle, I'm okay with that.
So not a lot going on right now that's too exciting. We've got some tentative plans for the weekend, but I guess my general feeling is that I shouldn't definitively commit to too much, unless maybe it's in week 3.
Tuesday, May 01, 2012
I wish all weeks could be week 3
I feel great.
No, I don't feel perfect, and I continue to have relatively minor physical issues. The biggest current annoyance continues to be the hoarseness of my voice. I'm not sure if it's a consequence of chemo attacking my mucous membranes, or perhaps a side effect of having been coughing for about 8 months straight before I got treatment. And it's not just my voice -- I find that I'm overly sensitive to a number of things. Smoke from seasoning the cast iron skillet too much bothers me; I can't hover too close to the dishwasher when it's on because of the fumes from the bleach in the detergent; and I'm constantly pondering what the source is of all sorts of cooking smells that I detect as I'm biking around town.
But those relatively minor concerns aside, I feel better physically than I have in a long time. In many ways better than at any time since before I started to get sick last summer. I know by now not to get too optimistic -- there will certainly be more down periods coming up. But right now I'm at the tail end of week 3 of round 3, and I've had a really good week.
We did indeed go on the family bike ride as planned. It stayed reasonably warm and there was a bunch of wind. I flew my stunt kite (a birthday gift from Lorien's parents from a couple of years back), and we bought Dylan a smaller toddler-friendly kite. He was content to sit on Mommy or Daddy's lap while one of us flew it. I think he might have been a little scared to try to hold on to line hby himself.
The next day (yesterday), at the peak of the warm weather, we went on a hike in Tilden in search of wildflowers. Rather than taking Dylan in the Kelty (a backpack carrier), we tried out the Chariot (our bike trailer but in a jogging stroller configuration). I was able to handle the hike, including taking turns pushing Dylan over some pretty rough and hilly terrain. I think next time we'll stick with the Kelty, though.
And today I got on my road bike for the first time since getting sick. The difference between it and my commuting bike is pretty amazing. I love how riding a well tuned road bike with clipless pedals almost feels like an extension of your own body sometimes. I wasn't sure if I was going to feel up for it completely when heading out, but I did one of our standard loops all the way up into the hills. I didn't want to push myself too hard, so I did allow myself use of the granny gear a couple of times, which I ordinarily don't do. (For those of you who aren't cyclists, that's the smallest of the three gears on the front chain ring, giving you the lowest range of gears.) We'll see how I feel tomorrow, but for now I don't feel any particularly ill effects from the ride. On the contrary, it was kind of exhilarating -- certainly the opportunity to ride fast down the hill on Centennial Drive was.
I'm also continuing to eat and drink well. Lorien and I had a wonderful dinner last night -- she made a fish soup with some halibut that our friend Morley had brought back from Alaska a while ago, but I wasn't up for doing anything with at the time because of eating issues (so we froze it). We also polished off a full bottle of a lovely white wine -- I don't think we've been able to accomplish that since I got sick either. And tonite I had a couple of beers -- I think that's also a first since getting sick. And earlier in the week I even had a cocktail, again my first in quite some time (a Sloe Gin Fizz).
And the parade of sweets continues. We just had the first sample of the latest batch of homemade ice cream -- this time just a basic chocolate. And cooling in the kitchen right now is another loaf of banana bread. I'm going to bring some of that, as well as the rest of the ginger snaps, to chemo tomorrow.
Which brings me back to the impending round 4. Which will surely have some low points, probably during week 2. But for right now I'm just content to sit back and enjoy week 3.
No, I don't feel perfect, and I continue to have relatively minor physical issues. The biggest current annoyance continues to be the hoarseness of my voice. I'm not sure if it's a consequence of chemo attacking my mucous membranes, or perhaps a side effect of having been coughing for about 8 months straight before I got treatment. And it's not just my voice -- I find that I'm overly sensitive to a number of things. Smoke from seasoning the cast iron skillet too much bothers me; I can't hover too close to the dishwasher when it's on because of the fumes from the bleach in the detergent; and I'm constantly pondering what the source is of all sorts of cooking smells that I detect as I'm biking around town.
But those relatively minor concerns aside, I feel better physically than I have in a long time. In many ways better than at any time since before I started to get sick last summer. I know by now not to get too optimistic -- there will certainly be more down periods coming up. But right now I'm at the tail end of week 3 of round 3, and I've had a really good week.
We did indeed go on the family bike ride as planned. It stayed reasonably warm and there was a bunch of wind. I flew my stunt kite (a birthday gift from Lorien's parents from a couple of years back), and we bought Dylan a smaller toddler-friendly kite. He was content to sit on Mommy or Daddy's lap while one of us flew it. I think he might have been a little scared to try to hold on to line hby himself.
The next day (yesterday), at the peak of the warm weather, we went on a hike in Tilden in search of wildflowers. Rather than taking Dylan in the Kelty (a backpack carrier), we tried out the Chariot (our bike trailer but in a jogging stroller configuration). I was able to handle the hike, including taking turns pushing Dylan over some pretty rough and hilly terrain. I think next time we'll stick with the Kelty, though.
And today I got on my road bike for the first time since getting sick. The difference between it and my commuting bike is pretty amazing. I love how riding a well tuned road bike with clipless pedals almost feels like an extension of your own body sometimes. I wasn't sure if I was going to feel up for it completely when heading out, but I did one of our standard loops all the way up into the hills. I didn't want to push myself too hard, so I did allow myself use of the granny gear a couple of times, which I ordinarily don't do. (For those of you who aren't cyclists, that's the smallest of the three gears on the front chain ring, giving you the lowest range of gears.) We'll see how I feel tomorrow, but for now I don't feel any particularly ill effects from the ride. On the contrary, it was kind of exhilarating -- certainly the opportunity to ride fast down the hill on Centennial Drive was.
I'm also continuing to eat and drink well. Lorien and I had a wonderful dinner last night -- she made a fish soup with some halibut that our friend Morley had brought back from Alaska a while ago, but I wasn't up for doing anything with at the time because of eating issues (so we froze it). We also polished off a full bottle of a lovely white wine -- I don't think we've been able to accomplish that since I got sick either. And tonite I had a couple of beers -- I think that's also a first since getting sick. And earlier in the week I even had a cocktail, again my first in quite some time (a Sloe Gin Fizz).
And the parade of sweets continues. We just had the first sample of the latest batch of homemade ice cream -- this time just a basic chocolate. And cooling in the kitchen right now is another loaf of banana bread. I'm going to bring some of that, as well as the rest of the ginger snaps, to chemo tomorrow.
Which brings me back to the impending round 4. Which will surely have some low points, probably during week 2. But for right now I'm just content to sit back and enjoy week 3.
 |
| Wildflowers in Tilden Park |
 |
| Wildflowers in Tilden Park |
 |
| Wildflowers in Tilden Park |
 |
| The view from the Lawrence Hall of Science. Sorry for the crappy picture --
it's from a phone, on a hazy day, looking into the late afternoon sun.
|
Dylan's 18-month stats
We now take a break from our regularly scheduled cancer blogging to issue our post-doctor's appointment Dylan update. This will mostly be of interest to those of you whose name is Grandm(om/ama).
As of yesterday, our little guy is now 33 1/4 inches tall (72nd %ile) and 23lbs 3oz (32nd %ile), and is therefore officially a little tall and thin. He is the first one on my side of the family to be above median height, ever (thanks for those genes, Grandmom Dorothy). His head remains in the 91st %ile, but that makes it easier for him to wear a biking helmet for his rides in the Chariot trailer, which we've been doing more often now that Rich is back on his bike.
He continues to be really active, but more recently he's also become quite the little chatterbox. According to our doctor's info sheet, he should have between 15 and 25 words. Rich and I thought this sounded a little low, so this morning, we counted all the words he says, and it's upwards of 80! Of course, not everyone would be able to understand all these words. For example, cado = avocado, and mumbo = cucumber. He was also able to show the doctor all sorts of body parts when she asked.
We've recently been taking Dylan on all sorts of outdoor activities now that the weather is improved, and Rich is at the end of his treatment cycle, but I'll let Rich blog about that. For now, I'll just leave you with these pictures taken since his 18-month birthday, which was on April 13.
As of yesterday, our little guy is now 33 1/4 inches tall (72nd %ile) and 23lbs 3oz (32nd %ile), and is therefore officially a little tall and thin. He is the first one on my side of the family to be above median height, ever (thanks for those genes, Grandmom Dorothy). His head remains in the 91st %ile, but that makes it easier for him to wear a biking helmet for his rides in the Chariot trailer, which we've been doing more often now that Rich is back on his bike.
He continues to be really active, but more recently he's also become quite the little chatterbox. According to our doctor's info sheet, he should have between 15 and 25 words. Rich and I thought this sounded a little low, so this morning, we counted all the words he says, and it's upwards of 80! Of course, not everyone would be able to understand all these words. For example, cado = avocado, and mumbo = cucumber. He was also able to show the doctor all sorts of body parts when she asked.
We've recently been taking Dylan on all sorts of outdoor activities now that the weather is improved, and Rich is at the end of his treatment cycle, but I'll let Rich blog about that. For now, I'll just leave you with these pictures taken since his 18-month birthday, which was on April 13.
 |
| Dylan repurposes Dirk's cat food cans |
 |
| On Mommy's cell phone |
 |
| Hiking up on the Skyline Trail in Tilden Regional Park, yesterday |
 |
| Peeking out from behind the bench at the trail summit |
Saturday, April 28, 2012
Pianos, biking, hair, and other stuff
Yes, this post has a few random things that are only vaguely related. Not that the title is any more random than Guns Fishing & Other Stuff.
I've settled into a bit of a routine with respect to medical appointments, and have scheduled things out to August. For the most part I have something every Wednesday, and then sometimes I also have something on Thursday (every third week, the day after chemo). As I'm walking through the lobby for my most recent appointment (which was fairly uneventful from a medical perspective), I hear what sounds like a piano playing. But then I was kind of confused, and wondering if it was just coming over the PA, since I was having trouble attempting to locate the source by ear. It turns out there's a piano on the lower level of the atrium, at the bottom of the stairs. And the quality of the piano and the layout of the building and the positioning of the piano actually make for some pretty good acoustics. Not to mention that the guy playing it was pretty good. (He was playing something kind of jazzy, but with a bit of a ragtime feel.) So even though I was done my appointment in what was I think record time, I hung out for a few more minutes listening to this guy play. And then when he was done, I gave it a try and played for a little while. It felt good, although I'm out of practice. I really ought to play more. It's a bit complicated by the fact that Dylan generally insists on sitting besides me and playing along if I play on my keyboard at home -- which I suppose I can't complain about too much. The experience was also interesting in that it was the second time in the same day that I got to play on a real piano. We took Dylan in the morning to an open toddler play session that the city of Berkeley has, and there was a piano there as well. While the Berkeley piano is bigger (a small baby grand vs. an upright at the hospital), the hospital piano is much nicer (I think it was a Steinway).
I've been biking quite a bit more, and I think it's starting to make a difference. I'm not exclusively riding my bike (and that wasn't even the case before I got sick), but I have returned to the point where my bike is my default transportation method if I want to go somewhere local that's beyond walking distance. That includes my medical appointments now that I've moved my cancer care from Oakland to Berkeley. I still haven't gotten on my road bike and gone up into the hills for real, but the hilly parts of the flats and the foothills are starting to feel a bit more routine. This week I had an appointment for an eye exam at the UC Berkeley Optometry school, and biking there takes me all the way to the western edge of campus, which is definitely starting to get up in elevation a little bit. The week before I had biked there as well, to look at new glasses. (After a bit of an exhaustive search, I just ordered my first set of new frames in more than a decade yesterday. I'll post pics when they come in.) Anyway, while some of the difference might be due to my cold having continued to diminish asymptotically, it definitely felt like an easier ride a week later. And after browsing through the Cheeseboard cookbook during a period of late night munchies last night, I had the motivation to bike there this morning (which is also somewhat uphill) to get some baked goods for breakfast, and it felt shockingly invigorating, even though I hadn't eaten yet. Maybe sometime soon I'll even have the energy to start towing Dylan again. Lately when we've gone biking as a family, Lorien is the one with Dylan in tow.
After the vast majority of the hair on my head fell out around the time of chemo round 2, I assumed that each successive round would see an exponential decay in the amount of hair remaining. But that's not really what's happened. I seem to have stabilized with a thin layer of hair, somewhat all around my head, but mostly concentrated at the top. Maybe I'm just starting to get a bit more used to it, but it doesn't actually look all that bad. (Sorry, no pic available currently.) After pretty much wearing some hat (I think I have 5 of them that I've been wearing with some regularity) almost all of the time, I've started sometimes to not bother with a hat. Yesterday when I went out to look at some glasses, I didn't actually realize that I wasn't wearing a hat until I tried on a frame and then went over to a mirror to look at myself. At first I was kind of annoyed that I forgot my hat (I did want to see how the frames looked with it), but I ended up sticking with it and not wearing any hat the entire day. Which is probably the first day I've done that since losing my hair.
On the topic of hair, it's been largely limited to my head. I think maybe some of my body hair has thinned somewhat, but it's kind of hard to tell. I don't really have any easy way of comparing before and after. I certainly didn't have any kind of crazy coming out in clumps experience that I did with the hair on my head. And I definitely have not lost things like eyelashes and eyebrows. Although most of my facial hair is gone. But not all of it. So I still have to shave every now and then to keep from getting a scattering of stubble.
It's currently week 3 of round 3, so I'm pretty much at my peak of feeling well. I'm having some trouble sleeping continuously through the night, but I'm falling asleep both initially and getting back to sleep without too much trouble, so it's not all that bad. And Lorien has been doing the vast majority of child care in the mornings, and letting me sleep in, which is doing wonders for how well I feel. Although it is making me feel a bit guilty.
For a while I was blaming it on the cold, but as that has receeded, I've noticed how much my voice is just generally hoarse lately. It's a bit of a stress to talk too much. Which can be a problem sometimes... :) It's especially a little sad in that it's a bit of a strain when I read to Dylan. Dylan has a decent collection of Dr. Seuss books, and he's somewhat recently gone from being mostly limited to short board books to wanting to hear full length real books. Again and again. It's really cute when he refers to them with one word names (e.g. "hat" for Cat in the Hat; "fish" for One Fish, Two Fish; "ham" for Green Eggs and Ham), and he specifically asks for them by name. (He also asks for other books by name, like "poop" for Everyone Poops.) Anyway, I really love the rhyming rhythm of the Dr. Seuss books, and had been looking forward for a long time to him being willing to sit through them in their entirety. So it's a bit disappointing for me. But I end up just sucking it up and dealing with it to some extent -- I don't want to stop reading to Dylan just because I have a little bit of a sore throat.
We're back to some warm weather again after yet another bit of rain. The rain has certainly caught up later in season after an initially extremely dry winter. So tomorrow's tentative plan is a family bike ride down to the Berkeley Marina, including some kite flying if there's sufficient wind. Which is sometimes inversely proportional to the temperature, so we'll have to see how that plan goes.
I've settled into a bit of a routine with respect to medical appointments, and have scheduled things out to August. For the most part I have something every Wednesday, and then sometimes I also have something on Thursday (every third week, the day after chemo). As I'm walking through the lobby for my most recent appointment (which was fairly uneventful from a medical perspective), I hear what sounds like a piano playing. But then I was kind of confused, and wondering if it was just coming over the PA, since I was having trouble attempting to locate the source by ear. It turns out there's a piano on the lower level of the atrium, at the bottom of the stairs. And the quality of the piano and the layout of the building and the positioning of the piano actually make for some pretty good acoustics. Not to mention that the guy playing it was pretty good. (He was playing something kind of jazzy, but with a bit of a ragtime feel.) So even though I was done my appointment in what was I think record time, I hung out for a few more minutes listening to this guy play. And then when he was done, I gave it a try and played for a little while. It felt good, although I'm out of practice. I really ought to play more. It's a bit complicated by the fact that Dylan generally insists on sitting besides me and playing along if I play on my keyboard at home -- which I suppose I can't complain about too much. The experience was also interesting in that it was the second time in the same day that I got to play on a real piano. We took Dylan in the morning to an open toddler play session that the city of Berkeley has, and there was a piano there as well. While the Berkeley piano is bigger (a small baby grand vs. an upright at the hospital), the hospital piano is much nicer (I think it was a Steinway).
I've been biking quite a bit more, and I think it's starting to make a difference. I'm not exclusively riding my bike (and that wasn't even the case before I got sick), but I have returned to the point where my bike is my default transportation method if I want to go somewhere local that's beyond walking distance. That includes my medical appointments now that I've moved my cancer care from Oakland to Berkeley. I still haven't gotten on my road bike and gone up into the hills for real, but the hilly parts of the flats and the foothills are starting to feel a bit more routine. This week I had an appointment for an eye exam at the UC Berkeley Optometry school, and biking there takes me all the way to the western edge of campus, which is definitely starting to get up in elevation a little bit. The week before I had biked there as well, to look at new glasses. (After a bit of an exhaustive search, I just ordered my first set of new frames in more than a decade yesterday. I'll post pics when they come in.) Anyway, while some of the difference might be due to my cold having continued to diminish asymptotically, it definitely felt like an easier ride a week later. And after browsing through the Cheeseboard cookbook during a period of late night munchies last night, I had the motivation to bike there this morning (which is also somewhat uphill) to get some baked goods for breakfast, and it felt shockingly invigorating, even though I hadn't eaten yet. Maybe sometime soon I'll even have the energy to start towing Dylan again. Lately when we've gone biking as a family, Lorien is the one with Dylan in tow.
After the vast majority of the hair on my head fell out around the time of chemo round 2, I assumed that each successive round would see an exponential decay in the amount of hair remaining. But that's not really what's happened. I seem to have stabilized with a thin layer of hair, somewhat all around my head, but mostly concentrated at the top. Maybe I'm just starting to get a bit more used to it, but it doesn't actually look all that bad. (Sorry, no pic available currently.) After pretty much wearing some hat (I think I have 5 of them that I've been wearing with some regularity) almost all of the time, I've started sometimes to not bother with a hat. Yesterday when I went out to look at some glasses, I didn't actually realize that I wasn't wearing a hat until I tried on a frame and then went over to a mirror to look at myself. At first I was kind of annoyed that I forgot my hat (I did want to see how the frames looked with it), but I ended up sticking with it and not wearing any hat the entire day. Which is probably the first day I've done that since losing my hair.
On the topic of hair, it's been largely limited to my head. I think maybe some of my body hair has thinned somewhat, but it's kind of hard to tell. I don't really have any easy way of comparing before and after. I certainly didn't have any kind of crazy coming out in clumps experience that I did with the hair on my head. And I definitely have not lost things like eyelashes and eyebrows. Although most of my facial hair is gone. But not all of it. So I still have to shave every now and then to keep from getting a scattering of stubble.
It's currently week 3 of round 3, so I'm pretty much at my peak of feeling well. I'm having some trouble sleeping continuously through the night, but I'm falling asleep both initially and getting back to sleep without too much trouble, so it's not all that bad. And Lorien has been doing the vast majority of child care in the mornings, and letting me sleep in, which is doing wonders for how well I feel. Although it is making me feel a bit guilty.
For a while I was blaming it on the cold, but as that has receeded, I've noticed how much my voice is just generally hoarse lately. It's a bit of a stress to talk too much. Which can be a problem sometimes... :) It's especially a little sad in that it's a bit of a strain when I read to Dylan. Dylan has a decent collection of Dr. Seuss books, and he's somewhat recently gone from being mostly limited to short board books to wanting to hear full length real books. Again and again. It's really cute when he refers to them with one word names (e.g. "hat" for Cat in the Hat; "fish" for One Fish, Two Fish; "ham" for Green Eggs and Ham), and he specifically asks for them by name. (He also asks for other books by name, like "poop" for Everyone Poops.) Anyway, I really love the rhyming rhythm of the Dr. Seuss books, and had been looking forward for a long time to him being willing to sit through them in their entirety. So it's a bit disappointing for me. But I end up just sucking it up and dealing with it to some extent -- I don't want to stop reading to Dylan just because I have a little bit of a sore throat.
We're back to some warm weather again after yet another bit of rain. The rain has certainly caught up later in season after an initially extremely dry winter. So tomorrow's tentative plan is a family bike ride down to the Berkeley Marina, including some kite flying if there's sufficient wind. Which is sometimes inversely proportional to the temperature, so we'll have to see how that plan goes.
Friday, April 27, 2012
Emotion
Thanks to Brendan for a pointer to today's xkcd:
http://xkcd.com/1048/
The timing may be a bit off for me, and I'm still pretty emotional about politics, but I can get where he's coming from.
If anyone out there isn't familiar with xkcd, I highly recommend it as a great web comic. Be sure to mouse over the strip when you're done -- the popup is often an integral part of the strip. If you're on a device without a mouse (like a phone), read it with http://m.xkcd.com/ instead.
Also, this reminds me, I should catch up on reading xkcd. If only it (and so many other web sites) had the wisdom to implement the "Next Unseen" feature. One of so many things that DEC got right (I'm thinking Notes on VMS) so long ago (~25+ years).
http://xkcd.com/1048/
The timing may be a bit off for me, and I'm still pretty emotional about politics, but I can get where he's coming from.
If anyone out there isn't familiar with xkcd, I highly recommend it as a great web comic. Be sure to mouse over the strip when you're done -- the popup is often an integral part of the strip. If you're on a device without a mouse (like a phone), read it with http://m.xkcd.com/ instead.
Also, this reminds me, I should catch up on reading xkcd. If only it (and so many other web sites) had the wisdom to implement the "Next Unseen" feature. One of so many things that DEC got right (I'm thinking Notes on VMS) so long ago (~25+ years).
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)