Seventh Chemo

Hey everyone

It's Tuesday the 29th of April, one day before I go in for my next session so I thought I'd give you all an update on the previous session as well as events going on around the Cuthill household.

First off, it's less than two weeks before Baby G arrives. He has been making his presence known by plenty of rapid-fire kicking in Karla's belly - I think the boy will take after his Dad and be a soccer player!!  Karla goes in for weekly checkups at this point and everything is good.  We did have a bit of a scare last week when she went in for an ultrasound and they sent her for additional tests - we suddenly realized how unprepared we were if the baby came early.  So a bag is now packed and ready to take to the hospital, the co-sleeper is set up beside the bed, and all baby clothes are washed and sorted. I'm ready as I'll ever be (which means I'm hopelessly unprepared).  But I felt the same way with Isla and she turned out OK, right?

We have also done some house hunting in recent weeks and have attended a number of open houses in the south west area of Greater Boston. While we like Reading, where we currently live, you can just get so much more house for your money further south, and without scrimping on good schools. Nothing has jumped out yet, but we have a pretty good idea what we need (and want) in a home.

Karla and I attended another conference at the Dana-Farber clinic. This one was more medical in nature, and despite feeling a bit under the weather on the day of the event, I am glad I attended this event. It was much more hands on than the previous conference, giving very specific direction on things like diet, services available at the clinic including health and fitness, and explaining what current trends were out there in the medical community. There was also an inspiring talk from a man named Jim who has been fighting Stage IV colon cancer like myself for two years now. While he is not completely cured, he has had very positive results from both surgery and chemo, and looked really healthy. While his talk brought the obvious tears as he talked about discussing his cancer for the first time with his children, I did not take negative thoughts from the speech and instead found it inspiring to see someone a few years ahead of me in the "process" and handling it well.

As for my chemotherapy, this was a tougher two weeks. Each session has been a bit better than the last until this session.  I caught a cold and it really hit me hard last week. The fatigue side effects were "enhanced" by the cold, making me more tired and lethargic than normal. I could fit in 6-8 hours of work each day, but then essentially had to go to bed and sleep after that. It was quite frustrating as I felt I was ready to move forward with getting fit again. I seem to have come out of the cold and am feeling quite good today, but tomorrow's session will knock me back down again. What I have done is scheduled a health and fitness appointment with the clinic next Monday.  Hopefully, I will get some idea of how to proceed without overly stressing my body.

One other quick story. I had taken off my wedding ring a few months ago, as my weight loss from surgery and initial chemo had impacted the size of my ring finger. Rather than lose a second wedding ring, I put the ring away.  A few weeks ago, I thought I had recovered enough to wear the ring again but unfortunately it came flying off while I was washing my hair.  I can't risk losing another so the ring will go away again.  I guess I have to build up muscle strength in my fingers too (or maybe I was just a bit fat before). For those of you who attended my wedding, you may remember that I lost my first wedding ring snorkeling in the waters off the hotel beach the DAY AFTER I got married. Not my most shining moment!

Thanks for reading.

Andrew