after the holiday

Time to get back to, how's life going... Holiday is over, this post restarts the "I have cancer" theme. Though there may be holiday references if they seem interesting :-)

First: I am well. Fit (enough) and healthy (as far as I can tell). Next week will be two more scans, PET and MRI, they will tell me how well I really am. Meanwhile, I'm feeling fine.

Starting at the top: my hair is growing back, slowly. There should be a photo, possibly at the end of this post. The usual back of my head photo. Hair is grey but growing. Still very thin to one side, that's where my head was treated with x-rays. Still very thin on top, probably. It's not visible on the photo but I've been losing hair round the crown for many years.

Inside the top: I do feel the first faint twinges of pre-scan worry. Well, post-scan worry: the scans come with unpleasant IVs but are otherwise no worries. It's the thought of the post-scan -- the results -- which causes stress. I can feel it coming on :-)

Taste buds seem to have settled down. For a while -- during and after chemo -- a lot of food tasted funny. Now I'm back to my normal diet (eat what I like) and it all tastes, well, normal.

Digestion, ditto: very little upsets my digestion.

A bit further down and -- yes, it's more poo-analysis :-)  It's good but not as good as it was. I would poo daily with occasional missed days. Now I poo daily and sometimes twice a day. So, slightly more often.

What comes through is softer. On the Bristol Stool scale I was usually "type 3", A normal sausage shape with cracks on the surface. Now I poo type 4, still normal, a smooth soft sausage. With occasional type 5, lacking fibre. So, different but mostly "normal". Good :-)

Down to my feet... No, not poo on my feet, this is the next part of, how I am: The nerves on my feet, particularly the soles, are still, odd. Hard to describe but definitely not as they should be.

I would no longer say that my soles "tingle". Sometimes it's more than a tingle, it's a very definite -- but very mild -- pain. Or over-sensitivity. But not spread evenly. When I put on shoes it feels as though I am standing on rough ground, as though some bits of ground are poking into different bits of the soles of my feet. Of course sometimes I really am standing (or running) on rough ground.

Are my soles numb? I'm not sure... numb on the surface yet sensitive further down, perhaps. This is more obvious on my hands (see later).

When I start walking (or running) I barely notice the funny feeling. When I stop -- there's a noticeable feeling which is, now, closer to tingling. Till it fades.

For a while, my balance was dodgy. Specifically: if I closed my eyes I felt as though I could fall over. I blame it on loss of proprioception, which I blame on the soles of my feet. The feeling of my soles on the ground was... different, my mind would not trust it. Without being able to trust the feeling in my feet, my mind could not be sure of which way was up. So -- with my eyes closed -- I felt uncertain of my balance.

And now I notice that I feel fine -- well balanced (in body, not necessarily in mind :-) -- even with my eyes closed. The soles of my feet feel about the same. Perhaps my mind is learning the new feelings of reality. Or... the cause is something else entirely.

Also, my feet would itch. Madly. When I went to bed or -- in some other way -- suddenly warmed my feet. The tops of the toes on one foot would itch! For a few minutes. No, not chilblains, I had the excellent GP look at my feet, nothing visibly wrong. (Except a touch of possible athletes' foot.)

So I blame itchy foot on damaged nerve endings in the feet. Same cause, different symptoms.

Now that itching has, mostly, stopped... Only to shift to a small area of my scrotum. Again, intense itching for a few minutes after getting into a warm bed. Not that I'm complaining, it's a good excuse to have a good and enjoyable scratch at my ball.

Finally, my hands: Much the same as my feet, a change of sensitivity. No tingling but extra, below the surface, sensitivity. If I use my fingertips to open a bottle -- it can hurt. At the same time, the surface has lost sensitivity. The pages of books feel very smooth, though Deb tells me they are not.

And that, I think, is all. A few very minor complaints, barely worth the effort of complaining. I must have said it before: the symptoms of my cancer are trivial, it's the treatment -- especially chemo -- that knocks me around.

Life goes on, life is good. And next week I get scanned... and I find out if I am as well as I feel :-)
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Foot (or head) note: Okay, I posted this post. The photo is at the top. And I see that the x-ray balding to the side is merged with the old-age balding at the top. Just as well I can't see that part of my head, it might worry me :-)

====    Dr Nick Lethbridge  /  Consulting Dexitroboper
             Agamedes Consulting / Problems? Solved.
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"I would like to think it's possible to construct a society where our orders don't involve slaughtering our own people." ...Gen. Khiruev via Yoon Ha Lee

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dying for you to read my blog: notdotdeaddotyet.blogspot.com.au :-)
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