Slow Motion Recovery

On Monday, my doctor’s office and I agreed I needed to get off the heavy duty stuff and also get on medication to fix the diarrhea—the heck with worries about constipation! Since Monday I have been taking the generic equivalent of Imodium. That shift also meant I could go off the bland diet, so since I felt a bit better by Monday afternoon, I decided to join Phil and Shana for a Father’s Day celebration dinner on Monday evening at Ponti’s—a nice restaurant on the Ship Canal. Fortunately, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with my appetite, so I have been eating well.

On Tuesday we shipped Shana back to North Carolina—reluctantly for me, because she’s been such a trooper this last week, providing logical explanations for the various symptoms I seem to acquire daily and keeping me company as I went through my various procedures. She’s been a great source of support during this week.

I believe I am slowly improving, though the rate of improvement seems glacial. I think my body read the “side effects” list and has decided to try each one of them on to sit how it fits. So I’m in frequent communication with the doctor’s office about “where Kae is today” and whether the latest symptom is anything to be concerned about. One result of this episode is that I’ve become good friends with my oncologist’s nurse—not a bad thing. She too is a reassuring and practical sort, so I like working with her. It feels VERY good to be off the medicine that makes you woozy-headed. Hard to feel normal at all when taking things like that.

We’re headed to the boat again today to take advantage of reasonably decent weather for painting. I’ll admit when Phil first proposed it I had a negative psychological reaction, with an image of the long trek from the boat to that porta potty, and my many trips there last week, coming to mind. I think I can handle it—the idea is to get back on the horse once you’ve fallen off, right? Most of me is in workable condition, though a bit slow moving, so might as well be wielding a paint brush, and making progress so that we can actually take the boat out.

I’ll post more after we return.