My 10th and last chemo was Thursday April 14. As I write this it is four and a half weeks
since then, the longest I have been without chemo since October. How do I feel? Tired.
I have been surprised that the tiredness has lingered longer than I
expected. Usually during the course of chemo I felt charged up during the third
week, able and willing to walk, work out, rock climb, meet people. But now I am not so charged up. I only began to work out on Monday the 9th,
have not returned to rock climbing, tried biking only to decide I need to wait
on that experience. I also find—and this
is troubling—that I am just as happy to not meet people.
I find I have a drained feeling, not always, but often
enough. I will wait to do little errands
if I decided I have done enough for today, even though the errand might only
take 15 minutes. I don’t know what to make of this attitude. I had it right after chemo but then the chemo
itself was the obvious cause. Of course in the background sometimes is a little
voice whispering “Well, we are shutting down around here. It won’t be long
now.” I don’t like that. I don’t want to fall prey to that attitude. I can’t
sit around waiting to die.
I can’t sit around period. I have to find ways to combat
this sluggishness. Reading helps. I have
read all the Fredrik Backman books—I can highly recommend them. I also read The
Three Musketeers, a novel I have never read (it has sort of a grisly ending),
and am now working on 1493, which deals with the world changing events that
followed Columbus’ landing in the new world in 1492. The course I am most
committed to is conversational German where I have worked through over several
years all 5 30-lesson units of the Pimsleur courses. I am slowly getting better
because I have heard enough now that some of the words really do stick with me.
The question that arises, though, is what SHOULD I be doing?
Chemo for prostate cancer is not curative, it is palliative. Unless some kind of miracle occurs, I have
maybe two years to live, if that. Mary and I have decided that we should
travel. I wonder whether I should write more, about my life, my thoughts and
values, my experiences as a teacher. Probably I should. But getting to the point where I do that is a
major commitment. Completed writing occurs because you start and stick to it
regularly. An hour a day, five hours a day, whatever, just regularly. I should
probably cull my large photo collection rather than leave that to someone else.
On the other hand most of those tasks require me to sit at my computer a lot,
and I am not sure I want to do that. I have many photos of my family on the
wall behind my computer so I see them all the time and love looking at them,
but what if we moved into the cities?
Could we travel more? Travel
requires strenuous effort, lots of walking. Right now I don’t feel like doing
that and am not sure I could do that. Ugh.
I hope to return to this topic of what to do in upcoming
posts. How active should I be? I have to say that sitting and watching the
astounding bird activity in our yard is a very pleasant way to spend time. Maybe more of that? Maybe stop worrying and do
what is in front of me? If I can’t or
don’t feel like getting around, should I just listen to myself and focus on
what is here and now?
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