Yesterday I had my gastroscopy to verify that everything went well with the surgery last year and to make sure that the cancer has not returned. The first time I did it I was not sedated and was able to drive back home that same day. This time I opted to be sedated so I do not remember much of what happened. I do remember him giving me more sedation so I would be more comfortable and then after that I do not remember much, just being in the recovery room. I think I am glad that I do not remember it much. The first time through it was not pleasant and I do not have a memory of it this time. The good news is that this does not happen much, but I think it may happen once a year just to be on the safe side. There was some paperwork but I do not remember what was written on it. So far my tests have all come back fine so that is a good sign. I have realized that the impact of fasting or not adhering to my eating schedule has a huge impact on me. I was exhausted yesterday and spent most of the time sleeping. I was awake and had difficulty with my vision for a bit, and realized that I needed to eat. That was a bit more difficult than I anticipated as I did not have a lot of energy. I ate things quickly for some sugar rush and it helped. Melanie was home and catered to me which was nice. There were a couple of times that I needed her but she was on a phone call so I tried to avoid bothering her. She had told me I should have called, but she has done enough over the last year as it is. Coming home she was laughing at me as she thought this is how I would be if I was hung over or drunk. In the recovery room I was so weak and light headed that I asked for a volunteer to take me out. I do not think that I would have been able to make that walk by myself. I just had thoughts of my fainting in the fall and did not even want to attempt to make it on my own. I am glad that I did not as I am pretty confident that I would have ended up resting or lying on the floor at some point. Something that I have noticed is that when there is bad news from the procedure they call right away and if they do not call you right away then things are going well and there is no rush to say anything.
Occasionally I go back and visit the Cancer forums that I used to read up on last year. There was an article on it earlier this year about how after cancer things never return to “normal” or fine…there were comments about how people around them thought that things go back to normal after cancer treatment. It has been a year now and things are not back to normal yet. For the most part people do not necessarily expect for me to be back to normal as I am still adjusting to things. I still do not have the energy to do physical activities for an extended period of time. It is very easy for me to be fatigued if I sustain things too long. It has been an adjustment, but I have had a lot of support and understanding from people around me. We were teaching Xavier to mow the lawn this weekend and he struggled with it a bit as he is not used to moving the lawn mower or starting it. We managed to do the front lawn, and I had to take a break and our neighbor finished our backyard for us. I have a lot of offers for help from people as they do not expect me to be able to do all of the things that I have done in the past. I am slowly getting better with all of this, but I would say that things are not back to normal yet. There are times when Melanie would like things to be back to the way things are before and when she sees that I do things it seems that I am getting better. She also knows not to push me too much and that I need rest and breaks. Physical lifting is what impacts me far more than endurance related tasks. I will slowly build it up I think. I am gaining weight now, about a pound or so every couple of weeks. Fatigue is what hits me hard though when I push it too much and the recovery is slow. I also can not do a lot right after I am done eating. I need to take time and then go do it. This is all quite the adjustments but everyday things get a bit better. I am not sure how some people recover from this super quickly. If I did not have work and could just focus on health then I think that would help. There is a lot of food that could assist but I still have an aversion to it. The one good thing that has come out of this though is that I do like eating bananas now.