CATCH UP
A lot of water has passed under the bridge sinc my last blog. Again.What's to report?
When I started writing this I had just finished Middlemarch and had three days to read the (then current) book club book - A Life of My Own by Claire Tomalin. It took me much too long to read Middlemarch because I hadn't been doing so much lying on the sofa. I should have been doing a bit more... see below. But since then, I've read a further book club book: Saplings, one of Noel Streatfeild's novels for adults. Also a Sci-fi / fantasy excursion into N K Gemisin's Broken Earth trilogy, a lot of a social and cultural history called The Allotment and now for some light relief, the first of Trollope's Palliser series. All that just to show how long it's been.
There was a good allotment harvest of tomatoes (no blight, no blight, no blight, nooooooo blight), sweetcorn, cucumbers, beans. Pumpkins weren't bad but courgettes and summer squash were a bit thin on the ground. A huge haul of green tomatoes was taken in and two or three batches of green tomato chutney appeared after hours of boiling, stirring and acidifying the house. More thanks due to all my helpers.
I did a six-week HOPE (helping overcome problems effectively) course (developed by Coventry University and hosted and presented by the Macmillan Centre). Probably in recognition of the strange desert of hope that awaits in the post-chemo phase, you are only invited onto it after your main treatment has finished. Very worthwhile - lots of opportunities to meet people (women in our case) in similar situations, moan about one's own situation and sympathise with theirs, learn new coping techniques and revisit others. I think the most useful thing for me was the fatigue session. I really recognised their description of 'boom and bust' - many people post-surgery/treatment want or expect normality to come back in some form - I'm certainly one of them. Whether it's on the hourly scale, the daily, weekly or monthly scale they (I) try to do the things we used to do, at the rate we used to do them . It just isn't possible - there's still Fatigue which deserves a capital F because it has its own character, aches and pains, wake-you-up-at-night itchy scar, and the great unknown of what will happen next. (Also lack of fitness - might cover the ramifications of this next time.) It seems to be inevitable therefore that everyone overdoes it despite all the friends and relations telling you not to. That's the boom, and just as inevitably, bust follows. So I briefly did a fatigue diary - briefly because once I thought about it, it was so obvious that I was doing daily boom and bust, that I just needed to do the next thing - Pace Myself. I'm getting better at this but it doesn't just happen; it has to be planned . In theory my feet go up for elevenses and lunch or post-lunch and I don't do more than one exercise activity per day. Reality sometimes deviates but there is usually a price. I haven't been doing a lot of evenings out.
Christopher and I have managed two few-days-away breaks in Devon and I had another with a friend - all were lovely, and I tried hard not to be frustrated by limitations on how much I could do. There was a hornet in the bedroom one night but the jar and cardboard method got it outside - that's the third time! We think they come in on firewood from their hibernation site then wake up from the warmth indoors. There were three butterfles too but they are less alarming. The marvellous Arnolds in Bovey Tracey took in two broken garden forks and returned them with replacement handles in two days. EVEN WITH THE INTERWEB YOU CANNOT GET THIS DONE IN LONDON!
We have finally booked flights to use the BA tickets held over from the missed St Petersburg June trip. Have found that BA is not the great power it once was - no winter flights to Crete, Corfu or Sicily. Madeira got it and now we hope that the walking isn't too hilly (for me), precipitous (for Christopher) or unavoidably long (me again). Contour-hugging levada walks may give us some nice days out, but if not we'll look to winter sea swimming, trips to sites with interesting rocks and knee and back exercises on the beach. For all is not well, physically - more next time.
Right now - I'm all cannula'd up with nothing to be done - my daughter and I have been in Chemo Daycare all day but my blood pressure's too high to have the Avastin scheduled for today. Blood pressure tablets beckon - bummer...
When I started writing this I had just finished Middlemarch and had three days to read the (then current) book club book - A Life of My Own by Claire Tomalin. It took me much too long to read Middlemarch because I hadn't been doing so much lying on the sofa. I should have been doing a bit more... see below. But since then, I've read a further book club book: Saplings, one of Noel Streatfeild's novels for adults. Also a Sci-fi / fantasy excursion into N K Gemisin's Broken Earth trilogy, a lot of a social and cultural history called The Allotment and now for some light relief, the first of Trollope's Palliser series. All that just to show how long it's been.
There was a good allotment harvest of tomatoes (no blight, no blight, no blight, nooooooo blight), sweetcorn, cucumbers, beans. Pumpkins weren't bad but courgettes and summer squash were a bit thin on the ground. A huge haul of green tomatoes was taken in and two or three batches of green tomato chutney appeared after hours of boiling, stirring and acidifying the house. More thanks due to all my helpers.
I did a six-week HOPE (helping overcome problems effectively) course (developed by Coventry University and hosted and presented by the Macmillan Centre). Probably in recognition of the strange desert of hope that awaits in the post-chemo phase, you are only invited onto it after your main treatment has finished. Very worthwhile - lots of opportunities to meet people (women in our case) in similar situations, moan about one's own situation and sympathise with theirs, learn new coping techniques and revisit others. I think the most useful thing for me was the fatigue session. I really recognised their description of 'boom and bust' - many people post-surgery/treatment want or expect normality to come back in some form - I'm certainly one of them. Whether it's on the hourly scale, the daily, weekly or monthly scale they (I) try to do the things we used to do, at the rate we used to do them . It just isn't possible - there's still Fatigue which deserves a capital F because it has its own character, aches and pains, wake-you-up-at-night itchy scar, and the great unknown of what will happen next. (Also lack of fitness - might cover the ramifications of this next time.) It seems to be inevitable therefore that everyone overdoes it despite all the friends and relations telling you not to. That's the boom, and just as inevitably, bust follows. So I briefly did a fatigue diary - briefly because once I thought about it, it was so obvious that I was doing daily boom and bust, that I just needed to do the next thing - Pace Myself. I'm getting better at this but it doesn't just happen; it has to be planned . In theory my feet go up for elevenses and lunch or post-lunch and I don't do more than one exercise activity per day. Reality sometimes deviates but there is usually a price. I haven't been doing a lot of evenings out.
Christopher and I have managed two few-days-away breaks in Devon and I had another with a friend - all were lovely, and I tried hard not to be frustrated by limitations on how much I could do. There was a hornet in the bedroom one night but the jar and cardboard method got it outside - that's the third time! We think they come in on firewood from their hibernation site then wake up from the warmth indoors. There were three butterfles too but they are less alarming. The marvellous Arnolds in Bovey Tracey took in two broken garden forks and returned them with replacement handles in two days. EVEN WITH THE INTERWEB YOU CANNOT GET THIS DONE IN LONDON!
We have finally booked flights to use the BA tickets held over from the missed St Petersburg June trip. Have found that BA is not the great power it once was - no winter flights to Crete, Corfu or Sicily. Madeira got it and now we hope that the walking isn't too hilly (for me), precipitous (for Christopher) or unavoidably long (me again). Contour-hugging levada walks may give us some nice days out, but if not we'll look to winter sea swimming, trips to sites with interesting rocks and knee and back exercises on the beach. For all is not well, physically - more next time.
Right now - I'm all cannula'd up with nothing to be done - my daughter and I have been in Chemo Daycare all day but my blood pressure's too high to have the Avastin scheduled for today. Blood pressure tablets beckon - bummer...
'I don't do more than one exercise activity per day' sounds like you still haven't quite got used to pacing yourself! Sending lots of love and relaxation vibes xx
ReplyDeleteThanks for the update, good to hear from you. Vicky and I found the levadas very easy walking and accessible. Though unless there is a strong mist (there was and we got no views at all), the views may be quite dramatic and disconcerting (for Chris).
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