Darkness comes too early still on this cold February day, and now I face another night of nights I have come to dread. Night time is especially hard. I am exhausted and more often than not take a pain pill to force the sleep issue. Night time now is a routine. Settle in around ten if not before, start in the chair, move to the bed or futon, back to the chair, outside, inside, back to bed. Since chemo this time my sleep interval is often 1.5 to 2 hours instead of 30 minutes to an hour. After draining I quickly fall asleep for a short period then enter a half awake state until the urge to urinate overcomes the desire to stay put and I tread off, then the cycle repeats. Around 2 am each night I have more severe abdominal pains and I know now that these are gas pains. A fiber bar or piece of toast with butter and a splash of jelly gets this under control. Anywhere from 4 am to 7 am I am usually up again for the day. This has been the cycle for the last year with only the stay in the hospital with a catheter and epidural for a break. Ah epidural, what a concept.
It is part of the animal’s strategy to wear me down and weaken me. I refuse.
Eating is always followed by digestive pain now. Tough sh.. so to speak. I am not sure if this is medication reaction or the animal. Hopefully the scan next week will shed some light on it for me. Sometimes it graduates to a full blown belly and back ache and sometimes it passes after a time. Either way understanding what it is has made it possible for me to address it in the proper fashion. As a result when all else fails a 5mg oxycodone does the job of knocking down the pain.
I am going to use Wii Fit until I can get back into the gym for the lymphedema along with Inger’s magic. I could go any time but I am playing the old age card and saying if the temperature is below 20 and the wind above 10 I need an alternative to going to the gym, even if it is only a couple of miles away. If I am going to make it back onto the golf course this year I need to start now in preparation for it given the shape I have fallen into. I splurged for supper and bought a Subway sub and cc cookie. And there you have it. At some point the softener will once again cycle and we shall see if my repair holds. Curiously it was a few weeks after the last repair that the problem reoccurred. I detest that kind of problem, the come and go, not all the time kind. Homeowner hell. The home groans and cracks as the temperature falls tonight. It is 7º F at 7 P and the mercury is falling as the time is advancing.
Wednesday and I am in pretty good shape. Did some work in Indy and got along OK. Another artic gray day though. I joined a chat room, lymphedema for men, so I will likely get to talk with some swell guys. Ms G at work told me about a item she saw on TV explaining how in breast cancer they are leaving the lymph nodes they use to take out to prevent the swelling I told her all about. She connected me with the article. I was impressed. Awareness is part of my program for sure and I felt like I had achieved a small victory.
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