Recovery Mode

One of my oldest and best friends came to visit with her husband. Now I need to recover. No alcohol. No walking around. No standing. No doing anything. And only salad for the next month.

Also I need to rest. They left under an hour ago. I am lying in bed with my feet up. Waiting for a pain pill to kick in so I can begin to move again.

And I forgot I have a doctor appointment tomorrow morning. Damn.

However I spent the last five days having fun and not being any kind of patient. It was worth it.

I Overdid Things

Who me? Yes. But I had a lot of fun. We have house guests and yesterday we went to the Boston Harbor Islands and out to dinner. I had planned not to do too much but I guess I don't follow even my own directions too well.

We drove to Boston and parked in the really close but expensive parking garage. We got on the boat and I sat. Then we went to Georges Island where I sat and did not walk around. Then we got back on the boat and I sat. Then we went out to dinner and came home. I was exhausted. Everything hurt.

Today I will pay the price. I will do a lot of nothing. Well one of our house guests is going to show me how to use my new 4 harness loom (it looks very complicated). Another friend is coming over for dinner and to knit. I will do a lot of sitting and maybe even lie down for a few hours. Tomorrow after brunch I will also plan on lying down.

But it was a great time.

I'm not missing

I am taking a few days away with my husband. We haven't gotten away together for a few days together since we moved - and that was stressful (because the cat got lost and lawyers and bankers and realtors were idiots) and I had a horrible cold.

This is more fun. We are down by the ocean having fun. I'll share some pictures later. And we have a house/cat sitter while we are gone - so burglars don't get any ideas. The one concern I am allowing myself this weekend is that will the cats get out - something our cat sitter says she won't allow? One of them sits and meows non-stop until he can go out.

We are having fun. I am staying off line for the most part because I want to do things - like have fun, talk to my husband, etc. Also, I am pretending I am a healthy person again. I may pay the price for this later but sometimes I need to stretch my boundaries.

Taking the fun out

"Several studies have linked alcohol consumption to a higher risk of many cancers, including breast, mouth, throat, larynx, esophagus, liver, and colon and rectum. The risk rises with the amount of alcohol consumed."

Alcohol is evil and causes cancer. Great. Thanks. Anything else I need to worry about? Besides walking under ladders, playing in traffic, and walking by yourself in bad neighborhoods.

The latest blog post from Dana Farber's Insight (which is actually a pretty good blog) talks about alcohol consumption and cancer. The American Cancer Society recommends 1 drink a day for women and two for men. An oncologist recommends an occasional drink, if any.

My thought process from being the cancer patient is 'Excuse me I have cancer and my life currently sucks, I might want to drink more often than occasionally.' Whatever happened to the medical advice of hot lemonade and whiskey for a sore throat?

When I was 19 and told I had thyroid cancer, I was told by my doctor that my treatment was done and I should take care of myself, eat healthy, and get plenty of sleep. Thanks. I could have figured that out myself. But I did put a few years of thought into it and decided that I was going to live my life on my terms and not be 'boring'.

I was young and wanted to be a normal person and not 'that girl with cancer' for the rest of my life. So I did things my way. Yes I might drink alcohol. I might have partaken of other substances at different times in my life as well.

I don't want my health issues to rule my life. I want to be normal as much as possible. I want to do the things I want. I may not be able to climb a mountain now or ski down one but I can still go to the beach and out for fried clams. (Eeek! Fried food! Cholesterol alert!) Life requires little indulgences to be fun.

The way I see it, it is my body and my life. If I am not harming anyone else and want to have wine with dinner, I can't see a problem in it. However if you see me on a street corner drinking out of a bottle in a paper bag, feel free to interfere.

Keeping your sense of humor through it all

One of the key traits to help cope with your ailments is keeping your sense of humor through it all. If you lose your sense of humor, it will become so much harder.

I was reminded of this by this comedian who was treated at Dana Farber and then had a special show for his caregivers at the hospital.
I constantly crack jokes with the medical personnel I deal with. I have to. Otherwise, it would be too depressing. If I cannot see the humor in the number of punctures I get from regular blood tests, I might start oozing blood out all the needle holes.

• I need a frequent parker discount at the hospital's parking lot.
• All the johnnies are designed by Dr. Seymour Buttz. (Sound it out and you will get it.)
• Personally I wished they had ramps at hospitals so I could go on wheelchair rides like Curious George did.

Okay, my sense of humor is not fully developed this morning. Its Monday morning. I have chemo brain and fibro fog.

But I hope you get my point. Never lose your sense of humor. Life would be boring with out it. And cancer would suck even more.

What a long strange trip...

So I was out of town for a long weekend which is why I didn't blog. Other than being really tired from driving about 750 miles in the last four days - half today and half on Friday - and being exposed to my brother's evil cold, I am fine.

I spent 20 minutes on hold on my drive out on Friday with the hospital trying to cancel an unnecessary doctor appointment so my frustration level with the medical world is fine as well.

I did get to spend some quality time with my nieces and nephews which was a lot of fun. We also had an early celebration for my brother's birthday. And it snowed both days. How lovely. The grip of winter is all around us.

I am exhausted which means I will go to bed early and get lots of rest so I can return to the world tomorrow. And I might even write a real blog post as well.

Unless I get my brother's evil cold, in which case I will send him a lump of coal for his birthday, and end up staying in bed for a few days.