Hello Folks,

I hope you had an enjoyable Easter weekend with time to relax and recharge your batteries……or caught up on your DIY, as is usually the case….

For me, it was a mostly restful weekend, as a follow on from the impact of this cold / flu that has now been with me for two full weeks. It worsened at the earlier part of this week and I found myself pretty much incapacitated for two whole days. Waking up on one of those mornings, every single joint was aching, shoulders to elbows and wrists, hips, knees and ankles, in addition to the usual finger pain; an unusual feeling and distracting. It has been quite a draining illness and has left me with limited energy. The heavy chest has been the main inhibitor and it still hanging on a little. Towards the end of the week, each 24-hour period seen a notable lifting of the effects, but they have not gone yet, just easier to do things, compared to the start of the week. Talking about it, with my hairdresser, he mentioned that the cough element can last up to 10-weeks, with many sufferers out there at the moment. If you are one of them, you have my sympathies………..

Related to health and having to deal with cancer and the impact of chemo, I feel this ‘quieter’ week is a good one to place some emphasis on a notable side effect of the whole regime of disease vs counter-treatment to keep you alive. One of those is the hormone tablets that I take twice a day and the resultant increase in weight.

Dr Raman did highlight this last August, as a potential, but at that time, I was just about starting to come out of the ‘cardboard food’ stage, with food just starting to become tasty again. For the remainder of 2023, I went through the rediscovery of food and all of its wonderful taste ranges. That did lead to an increase in calorie intake. However, having just gone through months where I was literally having to force myself to eat the ‘cardboard’, in order to keep my energy levels up, it was a preferable change. From the start of this year, I have been more in the realms of normal, pre-cancer calorie intake. However, my body shape and midriff does not look like it did. That niggles in the back of my head, constantly, as I think we all like to consider our health, shape and general fitness.

The whole ‘food battle’ is a key part of the overall war against cancer and I am sure there are many of you out there, in a situation like mine, that will know exactly what I am referring to. That ‘battle’ begins with the pre-chemo normality and what you like to eat daily / weekly. Once the poison gets pumped into your blood stream, the impact on the appetite is almost instant. I personally went through various stages, needing very spicy or strong tasting food, to not being able to eat anything even mildly spicy, moving on through the lengthy ‘cardboard food battle’ - the toughest phase of the whole war to date. The survival stage of having to pretty much eat the same thing daily, as it was the only thing I could eat, albeit in diminished amounts. The outcome of that dreadful phase is that I cannot really contemplate eating that food grouping as a choice now (basic meat and potatoes). Post chemo, you can feel the taste buds recovering and you ‘rediscover’ food all over again. There have been a number of things that just do not taste the same any longer and, as a result, we do not buy them. The appetite is back, but that appetite has changed. Being able to eat and have choice in foods, may seem a basic thing that most of you do not give thought to.

Being in the cancer war, that dominant aspect takes up a lot more thought processing than it should; a lasting legacy indeed. The knock-on effect is on the body itself, how you physically look in shape and size. Compared to pre-chemo, I have gained around 1 stone / 14 pounds / 6.35 kilos - depending on your ‘currency’. May not seem much, but I am a small Leprechaun, so that weight gain makes a difference. I am very self-conscious about it and am noticing the impact on what I can wear and the fact that the bulge is larger than it was one year ago. A not so nice aspect of this fight, but one I can, literally, live with, as there could have been many alternatives since I was first made aware of the disease. I am also very aware that there will come the time when my appetite with diminish, as the impact of the cancer will dominate. I will undoubtedly lose a lot of weight in the final stage of this overall fight. However, that is not today, today is what I have detailed above, another physical and mental battle in the overall joy of having cancer. I hope the above, personal insight, may be helpful to other sufferers.  

Not much else to report, as the week was dominated by the impact of the cold / flu. I managed to get a hair appointment for Saturday afternoon and it is evident that I am almost back to the normal 4-5 weeks of having to get my hair cut; a nice place to be, following on from the whole hair loss phase at the height of the chemo infusions. The texture remains changed, although it has softened a little - slightly less Worzel Gummidge (for those of you not raised in the UK, in the 1970s, that reference will mean nothing!). However, there is a distinct wave effect going on, which was one of the potential changes highlighted pre-chemo. We followed the haircut with a short shopping trip, just to enjoy some of the sun and being out, following a week of not being able to move much. Sunday seen us have some time with Alanna, Dan and the grandkids. A nice end to the week, with the emphasis on board games at the table, deliberately less physical, but still quality time with them.

The one thing that I can usually do, when debilitated, is still write. I managed to focus on some longer term project updates. Key, required, tasks, but something that would not normally get looked at, due to the pressing work on the projects nearing completion. The map placement on V6 was completed this week, whilst I await the outstanding proof reading. I also began to lay down new text elements for the Fritz Witt book project.

That’s everything for this week and thanks for the ongoing interest, appreciated.

Regards

Peter