It was pointed out to me recently that I haven't been keeping up with this "blog" so I've been racking my brain to figure out what to say here. The truth is, I am sort of working every day just to make it through (like we all are), and having cancer is both boring and sad. I'm not exactly filled with enthusiasm to share life updates. This is also true of social media, where I frequently go to fill my mind with baby pictures and political commentary, but rarely post a status update or a new photo. There just doesn't seem like there is much to share.
Cancerwise, I've been in some sort of medium grade abdominal pain for a month, which makes it difficult to focus or to maintain a lot of positivity. This increase in pain led my doctors to request an unscheduled CT, which didn't show anything particularly interesting. We followed up the CT with a bunch of blood work, and here there were some elevated numbers, which ain't great. As my doctor put it, "these numbers show that we might not be managing the cancer as well as we hoped." In response to these numbers, we will be changing my treatment starting this Friday, switching out a couple of drugs. New drugs might work better, or they might not. New drugs might give me new side effects - I might actually lose my hair, now, among other physical symptoms - or they might not. We are stuck in the middle of the board playing the cancer guessing game for another round. We do not know if there will be ladders or if there will be chutes.
Noncancerwise, the Spring of deception is here, and I've been trying to take advantage of this short window of decent weather by getting out and walking. Its about all i can do comfortably ( i do not suspect i will ever run again) and it wipes me out, but I've managed to pod-cast and walk 2-4 miles several times in the last few weeks. The other "advantage" of feeling sick a lot is a lot of reading time. I haven't kept a thorough list of the books I've read this year once I made the Life Is Short decision to not read any bullshit, but here are the last few:
- American Fire, Nonfiction, Monica Hesse
- What's Left Unsaid, Fiction, Emily Bleeker
- Cloud Cuckoo Land, Fiction, Anthony Doerr
- This Boy We Made, Nonfiction/Memoir, Taylor Harris (in progress)
This coming week we head to Cancun, where I plan to lay on a brightly colored towel and read for 4 days. I have a long TBR list, but I'd certainly take recs for page turning beach reads!
Other activities include: Milkshakes, drawing with nephews, cat photography, occasionally leaving the house for a meal in a restaurant!
post script: blogger is a really crappy platform for formatting. sorry this page always looks like a 1996 geocities site.
A shout out to our friends and neighbors Rita and Lia who brought Jean a Shamrock Shake right before they went into labor, bringing their beautiful Louis into the world!
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