This week I'm at my best, it's a couple of weeks after my last chemo treatment and I've had time to recover. Sheesh! those drugs knock me around! But next week -- another week of chemo -- I'll be refining my regime of anti-side-effects treatments... I'm sure it'll be a good week :-)
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I watched a TED talk that explained how cancer can be cured by eating the right foods. It's a miracle! I'm going to shift to a diet which includes lots of licorice, lemons, pumpkin, tuna, garlic, tomato... Oh, wait, I already eat a lot of that.
But look how much better the chance of a cancer cure if I eat all of those! (And tofu and kale, of course. It's always tofu and kale...) Funny, though. It seems that you don't really need to eat that food. Just grind it into a paste and rub it on. Oh well, just another aspect of the miracle, I guess.
There's a slide showing the improved chance of a miracle cure for cancer. Look at all the different types of cancer which will be cured! With a few cancer types at the bottom of the slide where the improvement was so low that it could be ignored... Oh, yes, there's my brain cancer. In the list of cancers which will not be helped. Bother.
Still, that talk was years ago, in 2010. Science has moved on since then. The speaker is now part of a team... selling drugs with fancy names. If I want to *eat* my way to health, there are other sites. And there -- on a nice, colourful website -- are all those foods that I already eat... (Plus, of course, kale and tofu.)
I'm cured! Except, of course, that I still refuse to eat kale or tofu.
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Looks as though I'll have to stick to my current drug regime. "My" drug's name keeps popping up on the sites describing accepted but less miraculous cures for cancer. It's still the drug of choice for treating brain cancer.
Of course that does leave the problem of side-effects. I read a few sites on treatment of "nausea" associated with chemo for cancer. Best option seems to be cannabinoids. Cannabis reduces pain (according to the US National Cancer Institute website. And it may even kill some cancer cells... in a petri dish.
Perhaps I'll try cannabis. It has an added advantage: if it's not working I'll be too stoned to notice :-)
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Back in reality: it's been a busy week.
On Monday I ran around the lake. And again on Wednesday. Not counting warm-up and cool-down walks, "around the lake" is a six km jog. I'm still very slow but I made it :-) Mind you, I was pretty well exhausted on the other days of the week.
I did manage to fit in some social outings: lunch, coffee, coffee. This is my "peak week", as recovered as I will get after the week of chemo. (One week of chemo, three weeks to recover. Rinse & repeat.)
Social outings... One friend mentioned someone with cancer who just does not want to see anyone. That cancer involves pain, I can understand wanting to just curl up and avoid the world. My cancer has no pain; how do I feel about meeting people for coffee or lunch? Much the same...
I feel no great urge to get out and meet people. I would rather sit at home and ... well ... do the things that I do at home. On the other hand: once I get out -- I'm glad I went out. I enjoy the meeting, I don't enjoy the anticipation. Why is that?
I have no cancer-related pain. I'm not trying to hide pain while I chat. (Deb will tell you, if I'm in pain then you'll know all about it.)
I do have drug side-effects which involve sudden (or regular) visits to the toilet. That does not go well with casual conversation... So I avoid meeting people in my drug-taking week. And in the week after because I can still be unsettled.
Even in my good weeks my stomach can feel unsettled. That's just nerves, I'm worried that my stomach will cause trouble so I imagine that my stomach is unsettled. I had the same feelings -- when I was supposedly healthy -- before each fun run. As soon as the run started, I was okay. And now, as soon as I meet whoever it is, my stomach settles down.
There's also the effects of depression. One of the symptoms of depression (as I know from browsing websites) is not wanting to meet people. Yes, it can be depressing having terminal cancer. Not as depressing -- in my own experience -- as being unemployed and wondering what to do for the many remaining years of an expected long life.
This is easy depression: there's nothing I can do to change the situation so I can ignore it. (Is that "mindfulness"?) I can feel an internal worry. At the same time I can enjoy the present. (Or I read a book -- and take my mind off the present.)
For two weeks I accept that my digestive system makes me unfit for social engagements. Then for two weeks I am fit but unwilling... So I follow the process and meet people. I don't really enjoy the anticipation but I know that I will enjoy the meeting. And I do.
Then I sleep for a few hours...
Dr Nick Lethbridge / Consulting Dexitroboper
... Agamedes Consulting / Problems ? Solved
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"You're only young once but you can stay immature forever" … per Ginger Meggs
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Great to catch up. Cheers col
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