Not Dead Yet !: routine improvement

Thursday, October 19, 2017

routine improvement

Part of my morning routine is to step on the bathroom scales. I've done it for years, always at about the same stage of the morning. The time varies but it's always just woken up, nothing yet to eat, about to go downstairs. My weight also varies but usually within a couple of kilos. That's good enough for me.

My early response to cancer diagnosis -- and treatment -- was to gain five kg. I blame the appetite-enhancing steroid drugs :-) Now -- for the last week -- I seem to have stabilised.

Okay, I'm five kg above where I was for the last few years. Five to ten above my "ideal" weight. (My self-set ideal. I've not reached it in the ten years that it has been a target :-) The main point is: I seem to have stabilised.

It's all part of getting back to "normal".

My brain cancer (aka GBM) has very few symptoms. As far as I can tell, I am fit -- but get tired easily. Weeks of doing very little have made me less fit. There is no pain. No sign that the tumour has left a permanent tendency to collapse suddenly. There is no reason why I cannot regain some fitness.

I don't aim to run more marathons! Well, my approach to fitness has never included "stretch" goals, I prefer step-by-step improvement. My current aim is to get back to low-level running, perhaps a short organised trail run in the next few months. Leave the next marathon for a year... or two... into my three-year-plus planning schedule :-)

For today, I am happy that I seem to have stopped gaining weight. I shall -- slowly -- try to lose a few kilos. (It may never happen, I won't worry too much.)

And yesterday I went on a five km training run -- at a pace which would have been slow-but-acceptable back in July. Before "all this" began...

Okay, I could feel that I was pushing. Though I could also have run another 5km at the same pace. It was not fast but I never am. Just a slow but steady 5km jog, with plenty in reserve.

That run makes me feel less of being a bloke dying of cancer. More like a bloke living... with cancer. Slowed down by drugs & treatment & by my body fighting back. But not slowed down *in anticipation* of whatever will finally kill me.

Radiation & chemotherapy will keep me alive. Will also maintain my quality of life. Tumours will come back, brain scans will show that. Depending on future tumour sites my quality of life will drop, my life will end. For now -- weeks? months? -- I'm feeling fine-but-tired.

My life is busy. Cancer treatment does interrupt & change, suddenly. In between the interruptions, I'm trending back to normal... And I'm pleased :-)