Radio silence......!

I simply cannot believe it's been a week since my last post. Why does time go by faster the older and slower we get? It makes no sense at all. When I was a kid, time went by with snail-like dullness. Birthdays and Christmases took an eternity to come. School days never seemed to end. And summer holidays....well, sometimes you'd think they would never, ever come. As I get older, I seem to be losing hours from my allotted quota of 24/7. Everything happens in the Fast Forward mode. I've got to find the Pause button.

Anyway, so there's another week vanished in a flash. To be honest, the first couple of days after the chemo were a bit foggy, probably all those darned pills. But all in all, it really wasn't all that bad. I think most people (me included) have the idea, tucked away in those dark corners where we store the unpalatable facts of life..... those things we hope that we, personally, will never have to deal with.... that chemotherapy is in the same league as illegal torture, or at the least akin to invasive dental work with no anesthesia. It was a pleasant surprise to learn otherwise.

The only problem I had was that I lost 3 lbs in a week. I know. That's an obnoxious admission. But my appetite simply took a hike and finding something that tickled my taste buds was a challenge. I finally settled on a steady diet of chicken soup, oatmeal and hot tea with sugar and lemon.

The wonderful Mary, who runs the breast cancer center, had warned me about the food thing. "Make sure you don't just eat one thing, or you'll never eat it again", she said, citing mashed potatoes, which seems to be a favorite for chemo patients. "Don't worry," I assured her, "If there's one thing I don't like it's mashed spuds." But I could see where she was going with this, and I tried really hard not to eat the chicken soup at every meal.

The other main instruction was to drink gallons of water. Toxins from the chemo can build up in the kidneys, so it's important to keep one's plumbing in good working order. I drank and drank. It reminded me of hydrating before a regatta. The more you drink the day before a race, the better your endurance. I quite liked this..... I started to feel that I was in training. Training to win against this invisible and uninvited marauder in my body. I'm pretty sure I'm going to win a medal!