The Great Cancer Adventure - 10/26/2017

October 26, 2017

Except for the time The Champ and I climbed Mt. Kilimanjaro, where altitude diminished my appetite, no one has ever told me I should eat more. Until now. Now, thanks to cancer treatment, I am officially on a High Protein/High Calorie diet, after having lost ten pounds in only a couple of weeks. I’m able to swallow with relative ease, as these things go, but I’m hardly ever actually hungry. After having been introduced to “Boost” which really does taste like a milk shake, more or less, my appetite has returned, at least to some extent.

As of yesterday, I have received four of the six chemo treatments and as of this morning, 17 of the 28 scheduled radiation treatments. My oncologist says I am doing well, which is of course good news, but again he’s referring to tolerating treatment and not the actual outcome of it. This is indeed a grind, as we have been warned it would be, and I am so glad, for while today I have more energy than in a while, this does wear you out. I typically take an afternoon nap, if possible, even if only for a few minutes at my desk here at work (I am “officially” on break then) and typically go to bed around 7/8 p.m. and frankly, sometimes, even before then.

Both Betty and I think it’s important for couples to go to bed together, but that’s way too early for her (under other circumstances it would be too early for me, too!), so she tucks me in and then joins me a little later. I’m still up at 5:00 a.m., though, to begin my day and have kept up with my daily activities, including light workouts at the gym three days a week, but all lower limb and all low and slow.

After this course of treatment is done (11/10), I’ll have some more tests in mid-January, and then, because this one is difficult to treat, the fun, in whatever form it presents itself, will likely begin again.

(In comparing notes, The Champ tells me she considered those evenings by herself as training for widowhood. We don’t hold back.)

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• The Great Cancer Adventure