Passing of the seasons...

So what should I make of surviving another season? I pretty much missed most of this past summer. I spent a lot of it having treatment, feeling ill and not doing much. Given a choice, I'll take winter any day.

But it does make me conscious of the passing of time, of the turning of the wheel. Time, after all, is precious to cancer patients. It's our currency. This procedure will buy you more time. What more do we need to hear?

Except, of course, there's the whole issue of the quality of the time we buy. But let's save that for another day.

All I want to say today is, Happy Autumn. We made it.

P.S Happy Halloween!

Learning the new life...

I've developed some new techniques and habits these last few weeks. I know how to stand to get the most amount of air into my lungs while i break for breath. I know how to get in and out of bed in the ways that will produce the least amount of pain. I've learned that using a heat pad on my aching muscles bring a few seconds of relief. For those few precious seconds, the pain just goes away.

I guess I'm learning how to live this life.

It's a little more complicated than my life was before. I have to think about things before I do them, plan how I'm going to do whatever it is I'm going to do. I guess I miss just being able to sort of stumble through life without thinking too
much about it. Something needed to be moved? I'd just pick it up. Not any more. Moving around the house was something I took for granted. Now i have to stop and think before i attempt the things i want to do.

I hope to go back to that life relatively soon, as soon as my body gets to grips with its new way of coping.

I Can't...

I've never done well with limits or rules. Tell me I can't do something, and that's exactly what I'll want to do. Even when I really don't. It's not the act in question -- it's the rules, the limits, the "can't." So far, I've been pretty lucky with my cancer. The chemo made me very sick -- so sick some days that I couldn't do much of anything. But I've really been able to do anything I wanted, as long as I felt up to it. That's all changed.

We all know what's happened, what the results of the last scan were. At the time i was worried but had the normal attitude of "It's ok, it's another setback; we'll get through" but now things, just little things are making me realise my body isn't always going to cooperate with me and it scares me.

My walking is crap. Ask anyone and yeah i'm slow. I have to be. If i walk too fast i end up stopping because i'm so out of breath. I found my own pace that was comfortable for me. At least i thought it was. It seems now even this slow pace is getting too much for me and that really does worry me.

So I'm having to come to grips with the idea that there are just some things I can't do anymore. Things I always took for granted. I don't like it. I don't like it at all. To be honest, I wasn't planning on doing the insane anytime soon. I just don't like the idea that I couldn't, even if I wanted to. I think the reason this scares me is that it seems like the beginning of what could be a long decline. That list under "can't" will probably only get longer. I don't like it. I don't like it at all.

I think i may need to dig out my list and start doing it...before i "can't"