Weak

Today I celebrate the first time that I didn’t do chemo at week three in over 3 months.  What a weird feeling.  However, I was totally smug about this fact yesterday, bragging to anyone who would listen about how “weird” it would feel to not be driving to Lewiston tomorrow to go to the cancer center and be poisoned.  Ya, remember a few blogs back how I mentioned that anytime I get smug fate comes along and crashes me back to earth.  Guess where I went today??   I had asked my new oncology surgeon if she could recommend a lymphatic specialist since my right arm and hand are swelling (I have cankles for wrists, so would those be crists? and snausages for fingers), so yesterday within an hour of tooting my horn I get a call and they can get me in today.  When I asked for directions to the physical therapy building, they rattle off an address that sounds awful familiar.  Seems they are in the same building as the cancer center (where I got chemo – oops, almost wrote get).  So today, I drove back to Lewiston, went back to the cancer center, but at least got to turn right rather than left in the lobby to head over to PT.  An hour later, exercises explained, new compression sleeve on and I’m hoping for the crist/snausages to shrink back to normal size.

So obviously three weeks out and I still am battling side effects from this whole wild ride, and new ones keep cropping up (the lymphedema just came along since my last chemo – yay me).  Most days I’m doing okay, but others, it is just overwhelming.  I miss my old life where all I worried about was losing some excess weight.  And before my diagnosis I was actually winning that fight.  I had a ways to go but I was in a good routine.  Eating right, exercising on a regular basis, consuming water.  So now that chemo is behind me I’m trying to return to those “good ol days” before surgery happens in exactly 2 weeks (eek!).  So my goal for the past week and a half and the next 2 weeks is to get some strength back by walking everyday.  I can not tell you how humbling/depressing/aggravating it is to realize how terribly out of shape I have become in just 3 short months.  Prior to the diagnosis I would walk several times a week for 30+ minutes at about a 16.20/mile pace.  This is walking in very hill country.  It was pushing me and I was working up to 45 minutes in length and down to a 15 min/mile.  Yesterday I was finally able to get up to 30 minutes, but the pace was a miserable 20 min/mile and I was EXHAUSTED.  My legs were weak, my breathing was labored, sweat pouring off of my little bald head.  How did this happen? Walking has always been the one thing I’ve felt like I could just do without thinking and for an extended period of time.  Granted I might not win any land speed records, but I could walk.  But now weakness overtakes me and I’m struggling to stay motivated knowing that even if I get back to being able to walk an 18 minute mile (we can only hope), I will go back to ground zero with surgery and be right back where I am today – struggling first to make it to the mailbox and back (a nine minute walk), then trying to work up to 30 minutes, only to be at a 20 minute pace (hopefully).  But I need/want my strength – so everyday, I’m out on the road, walking and trying to find the least hilly portions (there are none!).  Here’s to getting some strength back only so I can lose it all in 2 weeks.

The countdown has begun.  I will probably post my next blog after surgery, but you may see one beforehand if I start to get the jitters! I’ll drag you all along on this ride called life.