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By any measure, my healing and recovery and just plain old stamina through these cancer treatments has been great. Above average. Stunning even. These past two weeks since the surgery have been quiet, monitoring my body and kind of keeping still to let it heal, not pull an invisible stitch, concentrating on simple functions like digestion, walking, and sleep. I’m grateful for no major setbacks, no fevers or bleeding or anything the doctors can’t explain.
When my mother was here, she had me on a good regimen. She is very schedule-oriented and pays a lot of attention to her own delicate system through diet and nutrition. She figured out what I needed, “healing proteins,” not whole grains and no raw veggies or fruits but yes to avocados and egg salad… We took our daily walks, working up to 1.5 miles, one loop around Klinefelter Park and home. We added a cold pack, three times a day. She had me on a pain medication schedule, too, programmed into my phone alarm. It was really comforting to do these things. We managed my food-to-pain-medication ratio with crackers at night.
By the time my sister arrived, ten days from surgery, I was pushing it a little bit– I felt like I needed more food because I was more and more nauseous, especially in the morning. Within a day, I drastically cut down the pain meds. Now I only take a couple Tylenol at night before bed, maybe a couple in the afternoon if the pain is sneaking up on me. But I’m still eating very cautiously. Walks, yes. Sleeping, yes definitely, even more than the first week.
And this Tuesday I meet with the oncologist again. And we talk about the results of the surgery, the pathology report, and plan the next step.
I wish there wasn’t a next step.
For some reason, the treatment has started to feel like waves to me. The first wave, chemo. The second wave, surgery. And now I’m standing in the water with my feet in the sand waiting as the next wave rises behind me. Chemo. The talk is of six more treatments. Not Taxol, to avoid the allergy and any more neuropathy. My expectation is that there will still be the bad week then two “good” weeks, the Carboplatin and something else. Something gentler?
I can taste most foods (annoyingly, chocolate still doesn’t taste good) but can’t eat them because of the nausea. Seems unfair. Hopefully I’ll be recovered enough from the surgery when the next wave breaks to have my Sunday pizza. My hair will have just enough treatments to fall out again.
People just keep saying things like: “It could take months…” “It could be weeks…” after surgery before things feel “normal.” One friend said after her surgery she only felt normal when she could turn on her side at night. Yes, I have my pillow wall to restrain me.
My father dug up the rest of the potatoes. I can eat potatoes and have really been enjoying them mashed and roasted and boiled. My sister is cleaning up the garden and harvested the butternut and crookneck squash. I’m going to put some squash in my next rice/quinoa medley.
I’m gonna keep wading out here and getting ready for that next wave.
I think you’re doing very well following the surgery. Way back (27 years ago) when I had the surgery, I didn’t have chemo or radiation until after the surgery and as I read your comments about nausea, loss of taste, etc., that all comes back to me. You are describing just how I felt in the early months of 1989. I’m amazed and happy for you that the neuropathy is no longer a problem. I used to think that once one has neuropathy, s/he has it forever – as do I. I was told when it was diagnosed in 1995 that I wouldn’t be in a wheelchair for for at least ten years. Now it is more than twenty years and I’m still on my two feet but it gets more and more difficult to walk. I am just happy for you that you can do all the things you tell us you are doing. You’re in my prayers.
And you’re in my prayer, too. I am amazed at you, Susan, and hope you are amazed at your self, your body, and our good God. I was at a lecture by Walter Brueggemann this week–wonderful, as always–whose pretext I didn’t understand until I got there. Our university here in Cincinnati has acquired one of the Book of Psalms of the St. John’s Bible, and to celebrate its acquisition the head librarian was there in the chapel, with gloves on, turning the pages for people to see. And peeking out underneath the huge volume was your little book. I felt so happy to see “you” there and pointed you out to my friend. The librarian immediately stopped turning the pages and pulled “you” out and said what a remarkable and helpful book, and started talking about your insights into the illumination of the psalm she was at that point presenting for our view. You are out there in the world in surprising and enduring ways and places, Susan! Best to you during this time of healing and preparing for the next wave.
You are doing amazing, Susan! Hang in there!!
Oh, I still have neuropathy, and it is worse now that it’s colder and the floors are cold. I’m taking a prescription three times a day to help it out– they say it can take a year for it to subside if it’s going to subside at all. It is not painful, just numbness, so I’m hoping that’s a good sign. I definitely can walk and could walk after the surgery, so that was great! I think we turn our focus to whatever is the most urgent, and after the surgery it was my insides and incision, so who was thinking about the feet?!