I have finished 5 days of treatment now and at the moment I feel much better than I anticipated that I would at this stage of the journey. My abdomen is a bit sensitive, but that was to be expected as it is supposed to be like a sunburn. Originally when I went through treatment I had chemotherapy and radiation at the same time. To make things a bit easier I had steroids to help out. I took it early on during the week and by the end of the week when it wore out I would be exhausted by the weekend. This time, as the week progressed my fatigue decreased. I am not sure if it is because I put effort into suppressing it day by day. I can do more each day and the fatigue is much more manageable. Today will be a test as we will be traveling to Timmins at the end of the day and I will be able to see how tired I am. Tomorrow I will need to manage my energy properly as we will be at the arena for 6 hours, with only 1 hour between games I will not have the luxury of coming back from the arena to rest. I need to replenish my energy properly while I am out. What I learned from last week though is that sitting in bleachers where I am forced to activate my core results in increased fatigue and soreness. My abdomen is healing, but the pace of healing is delayed when I push myself and the soreness will persist for a couple of days. Resting for a bit clears the fogginess a bit, but my ability to think quickly and be creative decreases as the day progresses.
My weight has been steadily increasing as I have been able to take in more food. I think by the end of the weekend I will hit 140lbs. It may be possible that I hit 145lbs by Christmas. If I do not hit it by Christmas I would like to be able to achieve it by the end of radiation. Normally during radiation people see a decrease in weight, but if I can manage to increase my weight then I will be going against the odds.
The house is in shambles again as December has arrived, which means that it is time to put up the Christmas tree. Normally Mel likes to put it up when Ohio State plays Michigan at the end of November, but we were away that weekend and will be away this weekend as well. She had wanted to put it up last night, but we got busy with a lot of things and she was unable to get it setup. As we need to leave today, there was a lot of prep work that had to be done in order for us to leave on time. We made it to the hotel and I am not as tired as I thought I would be. I was foolish though and tried to pump up the tires in our vehicle as they were low. In doing that I managed to declate 2 of the tires to quite a low range. The tires should be at 35psi and I deflated them to 23. Go me! Mel came out and helped out. It was not super cold today and as it was supposed to be cold tomorrow it seemed like a good idea to do it now. To my dismay however, pro tip. You need to make sure everything is hooked up properly, otherwise the tires get deflated. Who would have thought that. I was flabbergasted. We are eating some food now and will relax until tomorrow and see how it is then. I am going to avoid doing things as I am tired. Not crazy fatigued, but tired from the long day.
Q