Not A Good Week Ahead

This coming week is going to be long, stressful, and sleep deprived. I don't know what I was thinking but I think the real answer is I wasn't thinking. This is my week:

• Saturday (today) - craft show where I will have a table all day
• Sunday: Lunch and dinner reservations with two different groups of people. Lunch at noon and an early dinner at 4 PM. 
• Monday: 930 PM MRI for my neck. I should be home by 11. I never stay up that late.
• Tuesday: Deep cleaning at the periodontist with novacaine. How fun! 
• Wednesday: The only good day because there is nothing on my calendar
• Thursday: Lunch plans with a friend. Sleep lab overnight to see if there is anything else wrong with me. This means another night of not enough sleep.
• Friday: Leave the sleep lab at 630 am and go directly to the gym.

What was I thinking? I don't know. I need to allow enough time for plenty of sleep each week. Monday morning I hope to sleep late. I also hope I can sleep in on Wednesday and Thursday since I will be up too late and do not expect enough sleep at the sleep lab.

My goals then for the week: focus on getting enough sleep and rest and pretend nothing will hurt. This is just a lot of poor planning on my part.

The Best Laid Plans

The best laid plans sometimes never take place. I have had a plan to take the best care of me as possible. This includes regular trips to the beach because that is the best place for any kind of healing. I mean the sun, the sea, the waves, (the hot life guards), and fresh air. What else does one need? I mean besides being able to go to the beach with out the preceding bathing suit shopping? (Bathing suit shopping is the only bad thing about going to the beach.

Back to my plan, I was going to go to the beach today. I even tried to talk a friend into going with me. I have a doctor appointment at 8:15 AM (What was I thinking when I made that appointment?) this morning and then I planned to go to the beach. Today will be a perfect beach day because the humidity is gone and there will be a nice breeze.

The problem is I am exhausted. If I didn't have a doctor appointment this morning I would have stayed in bed. I will have to be happy with a nap later today. Or I could suck it up and paint another wall in the living room (but that's not going to happen).

I didn't think I stayed up that late last night. And while I did wake up this morning at 4 and let one cat out and one cat in (my other job), I did go back to bed. Normally I would deal with my not that great night of sleep and go to the beach and then come home and take a nap. But today I think I'll just take a nap.

Strategizing

I think I am finally figuring out how to manage my own health. Call me slow but I am finally getting there. I try to be a good patient. I take my (huge pile of) pills every day and show up for appointments and all that. Sometimes I even try to take a step back and look at the gigantic huge big picture of my overall health.

I am trying to be even more proactive about my health. I know there are on going issues that I need to tackle - lose weight, keep eating healthy, and getting regular exercise. But I am also aware of many other issues that I need to work on. Primarily coping with the side effects of my medications and treatments. That's a big one.

I take methotrexate (MTX) for my rheumatoid. It is also a chemo drug but in lower doses it is used to treat RA and other ailments. One side effect is that it keeps my immune system so low that I keep getting sick. I have had at least two bad colds already this year that caused a week or more absence for work. I am also on two prescriptions for other side effects.

I decided I need to cut MTX out of my life so I talked to my rheumatologist last week about getting off of it. So for the next 8 weeks I am cutting back on it and increasing another prescription which has fewer side effects and shouldn't have as much effect on my immune system. We will see in 8 weeks if I have more RA problems. And if I don't get another bad cold.

I need to strategize (Is that a word? Spell check says not but I'm using it as it makes sense to me.) some more about my health.

I know losing weight would be a big help to me. But I can't exercise more so I guess I need to eat less. I have more upcoming doctor appointments and I have to do some thinking about changes that I might want to make.

The schedule juggle

Let me preface this all by saying I work part time with complete flexibility in my schedule and I can come and go as I please.

All I was trying to do yesterday was to schedule three fifteen minute appointments for a medical massage for my sore hamstring. The goal was one yesterday, one on Thursday, and one next Monday. The result was one yesterday, one tomorrow (Wednesday) and one October 12. To be fair, I will be out of town for a few days which complicates the matter. And the tech who does the massages only works Monday through Thursday.

I couldn't go Thursday because I already have to work and have two appointments in the afternoon. Tomorrow worked but I had to reschedule a different appointment and move it to today so I could fit it in. Next week the only times he had were ones when I wasn't available.

That is just this week. My schedule is not what we call empty and relaxing with a part time work schedule. I am always running around some place. Today is work, farmer's market, Dr appointment, and hair cut. I will leave at 730 am and return around 530.

Then sometimes when I am having a 'bad spell' (doesn't that sound antiquated or something), I just ditch everything and hibernate. That is what I did on Sunday. After our party Saturday, I woke up with bags under my eyes....

My body doesn't tolerate the schedule juggle and ensuing long, full days, any better than my calendar does. And every little change is complicated for both.

So what do you want to do with the rest of your life?

Cancer diagnoses interfere with long term planning on many levels. For a while I wasn't sure I would be around for retiring. My husband and I have relatively vague plans to pay off the house and then retire sooner as opposed to later but probably not for a while yet.

Last night I went out with an old friend from junior high. She got out of college and got a job where her father worked for a year or two. She has been there for more than years and plans on retiring in a few more. Her husband has stage IV colon cancer and she doesn't want to have worked through the last years of his life. They have even met with a financial planner to discuss this.

Her big plans are to take a year off - something she hasn't ever done, even when her child was born - and do nothing. She hopes to eventually maybe volunteer at a food pantry, go back to work part time, or come up with a hobby to keep her busy. They want to downsize their main house and keep their vacation house and split their time between the two. She has plans for the rest of her life.

What do I want to do with the rest of my life? Stop going to the (damn) doctors. Stop being in pain. Feeling better. Retiring quietly to garden and knit with my husband (he won't be knitting) someplace where we can sit on the porch and admire the view. Too bad I don't have any details on this yet. Maybe its time to start planning.

Cancer and long term planning

With a cancer diagnosis, one starts having many little conversations with oneself and reevaluates many things that had previously been taken for granted in life. Some of those are very profound,  'its time to take charge of my life', for example, and others are less so 'its time to go to Europe that I've always talked about'.

But one of those items in life that seems to get reevaluated is 'if I have cancer, how important is retirement saving and planning?'. 'How am I supposed to save for retirement and pay medical bills?' And you cut back on your working hours so you can get to appointments. Money is tight.

But the real question is 'with cancer, will I even be here for retirement?'. Clearly retirement planning takes a hit. The younger you are, the less real it can seem.

Yesterday my husband came home from work (where its all top secret so he can't tell me much) in a cranky mood because he felt it was another long and boring day. (My point to him is they pay you to be there. But I digress) Anyway, one of  us mentioned how many more years of this would there be to put up with as we are getting up there in age.

The thought then occurred to me, we never figured out what the hell we are doing when we retire. To be fair, we got married nine years ago and two years later I was diagnosed with breast cancer and all thoughts of retiring were put aside. So now we have no plan. This isn't to say we aren't saving for retirement, we are. But we never figured out our plan.

What are our goals before we retire? Pay off the house first. Then what? Where do we want to retire? Close to good medical care for me of course. But do we want to keep the house, buy a second retirement place someplace? What do we want to do when we retire? We need hobbies and plans. Sitting around together will quickly lead to a body or a divorce.

We realize we need to start planning and thinking and agreeing on some things. It shouldn't be hard but we need to start.

Maybe now I am in a mental place where retirement seems realer again. I am getting closer to the age. My health certainly isn't going to let me keep working for another 20 years. Another cancer blip might change everything all over again but while we can, I think we need to do some long term planning for ourselves and look forward to some happy, healthy years together.