Starting a New Month and Ending my Disappointment

You may or may not know that I've been down in the dumps for the last few months. I think I'm coming out of my disappointment of not reaching remission at the beginning of November. Things had been going so well. Then I had the bike accident which my Oncologist used as an excuse for the higher numbers in my blood work results where before those numbers had been stable. Two months later the numbers were up again and he thought it was because of my mouth sore which lasted for a month and the cold I had during the last half of December. Now he's having my blood work done every month and I feel like I'm back at square one.

I've actually quit doing anything that had me feel worse about myself. One of them was Mah Jongg. I was only playing once a week and that makes it harder to be a good Mah Jongg player plus it was taxing my stamina. I was playing golf in the morning and would rush home and shower and throw a sandwich in my mouth to make it to Mah Jongg on time. I have to admit it was stressful and I'm trying to eliminate harmful stress. Also my Oncologist asked me to get more Yoga classes in my week. Adding more activities is stressful not restful. We only have two noon time Yoga classes and two 8 a.m. Pi/Yo classes. I can't get to any of them. But now that I'm changing my schedule I will try.

I'm back to rebuilding a schedule that I can live with. I'm hosting Bunco on Thursday and that's always good for lots of laughs and catching up with friends. I have Bunco twice a month, one at the beginning of month and one later in the month. I'm trying to do 3 or 4 exercise classes a week: Kickboxing, Buns & Abs, Cardio Pump and Triple Threat. They're all very challenging and will try some Yoga when I can work it in.

Don's cousin and his wife are staying in a rental house in our development. It's nice to be able to spend some time with them. They're here for 2 months and enjoying the good weather. We did have a 4 or 5 day rain like no native Arizonian has ever experienced. When I came home from a card making evening it was pouring rain in buckets and our garbage can which is normally buried under ground was sitting up on the driveway from all the flood water underneath it. It was a week before we were able to have it fixed.

I am feeling better and enjoyed hosting an evening with our wonderful neighbors. It was great fun. I especially enjoyed the cooking and baking. We've also had some fun evenings out at friends' homes. February is starting and there will be more fun things to enjoy.

I've put it off long enough

So December was a questionable month for me. It was promising in the beginning but then I had a side effect from the Tarceva, a mouth sore. Normally they come and stay for 10 days and don't interfere with life as I know it--just an irritation. This one kept getting worse and worse so finally I stopped taking the Tarceva in the middle of the month hoping it would heal. It did but for 2 weeks I was unable to eat anything much. Finally a week after January started it was healed.

During December just a few days before I quit the Tarceva I came down with the cold that's been going around. It was more annoying than anything. By the time January started the cold was well on it's way out.

I had an Oncologist appointment at the end of December and it was not one of those uplifting events that I've grown to expect. It took an hour to drive to his office and I sat in the waiting room and examining room for 2 hours. Fortunately my sons gave me an iPod for my birthday and I spent a lot of the time trying to amuse myself with my new toy. What I didn't do was write down a list of all the things I needed to talk to him about. We did discuss my latest blood test. Some of the numbers that have been stable for a long time are up and that's probably not a good thing.

I'll be getting blood work done every month to see if the numbers become stable again. Now that my cold is gone and my side effect is healed it may make a difference. I'll still be seeing my Oncologist in 2 months from my last visit and he'll have 2 blood tests to compare by then. Keep your fingers crossed.