12-6-2010

Still have a bad cold but I think maybe it is beginning to turn since the Levaquin was started. I slept again on Sunday on and off all day. I suppose that I should be thankful that my throat was better enough to have a sore throat and know I have one. Still on Prednisone and it helps with the swelling inside but seems to not stay for long. Still, I awake sometimes from my throat closing off. It's a weird feeling yet one that I have grown use to over time. Funny what one can get use to. Blood work last week shows that my Thyroid is not functioning but my T3 & T4 levels still aren't off enough to start the medication Dr Beth says.

While I hate to admit it, the chemo brain or fog, whichever tern it is, is still bad. Maybe a little better because I realize just how bad lately. I've learned to just slow down and when I forget what I am doing somewhere to stall and hope it comes back to me. I have forgotten so much. Ever since the heart attack my short term memory has been off but now long and short term are compromised. It doesn't seem though to be any getting better. It gets embarrassing sometimes, most times.

Maybe it's the medication but twice now I have awoke to some pretty horrific dreams, and some weird dreams too. Daddy is in most of them and we are acting crazy like we use to yet I know in the dream he is gone. Tonight we played making faces at each other and smiling through a crowd. He was my only comfort from the crowd I had gotten myself into. In the dream I catch myself playing this silly game of leaning back and forth, making a face and smiling at each other like we did when we were out in a crowd and got separated, then I realized that I was the only one who could see him and had better stop before people thought I was nuts. Or the one where we talk at mom's and he tells me how to build a thing to stack my firewood on, and we're talking exact detail. We argued as he always overbuilt everything and I always cut corners, not a heated argument though. I spent some time and seeing how he only had a little time left to stay I told him I was going home so he and mom could have some alone time. I built it like he said to build it in the dream. The thing is holding more firewood that my design could have ever held, looks pretty good, and will probably out last me. I won't go over the third one in which there was no comfort. I have only been able to remember three so far. Strange, because I usually never dream or at least don't remember dreaming.

So here I set at 6am and will try and go back to bed. Another day.

12-07-2010

Bad cold today. It has swelled my throat inside and outside, it is also sore, headache. The neuropathy hs been a booger. I'm sucking fumes today. My blood work came back abnormal for the thyroid gland. Beth says to wait but Denise moves forward.

11-28-2010

I was messing around and went to the Biography Channel and found myself on a preview of the coming Beyond & Back. The link is here. http://www.biography.com/video.do?name=isurvivedbeyondandback

Denise still thinks I have pneumonia. I spent today mostly laying around, think yesterday was a bit much. Hopefully will be back on my game tomorrow. I done the Nette pot with Baby Shampoo and the mixture that you normally use like Dr Rathfoot said to do. Man I was doing so good there for a while, got a lot of stuff done. Tomorrow though is another day and things can change overnight, so I'll be positive and say that I can finish the leaves here, in mom's yard, and Marks'.

11-23-2010

Well I finally achieved the goal of losing my voice, lol. Today me and Mark went on the hill, Mark was sawing me out a post from a Cedar Tree blown and broken. With the last few days my coordination is somewhat lacking as people seem to be noticing the gashes in my arms and knuckles. I swear my skin is like paper anymore and my blood thin as water. It just seemed smart to get Mark to run a chainsaw. Red Devil, dad's last animal left alive was just dead, still warm to the touch. I went home and got the tractor to bury her and about 1/2 way through the digging the storm came. By the time I got home even my underwear was soaked, probably TMI there, lol. That was one cold, wet rain. So here I am tonight, voiceless... I think Denise enjoys the quiet, lol.

For that last week or two it seems like I'm getting back to the extreme fatigue. It is almost like Narcalism. Then it again it may be just like it, I have never read about it. Either way though, I get a few warnings then I'm gone but never for too long usually. I don't feel bad these day but not good either. Swallowing has decreased somewhat over the last month or so too.

This video I found today while I was drying out is for those in the family that went ahead. this is the first Thanksgiving without dad.

11-22-2010

Another day. One should think I'm use to it by now... but I'm not. I have been having even more memory and hearing problems. They say it is the chemo. I paid Mark to saw my trees, looks like I do enough damage with the hammer, lol. The neuropathy is as it was, no better no worse.

I pushed myself 2 or 3 days in a round, 1 in particular. It is funny how today I just couldn't get nothing right and the few times I did, I forgot what I done with it, lol. There is this severe fatigue that comes over me that has came back. It always gives me a warning of about 3-5 times... then I am out. Truth be told after the second one I have little memory of this between it and the final one.

Today I was worn out and when Denise woke me up for my pills I crashed. I woke up the 2nd time and I was sick as a dawg. I ran to Hardees for a biscuit and after a long while went back ok. All but my throat still rare from the acid reflux.

11-17-2010

Well, good lessen today. No More Hot Dogs with Chili. My throat was feeling a bit better, breathing was getting a bit better, and then boom ...a stroke of pure stupidity came over me and I ate not one but two hot dogs. Tonight my throat has been hurting a bit more than usual but not as much as it did.

Today the neuropathy is better than it has been. Maybe thinking missing a dose a couple of times each day may have attributed to it. I still think though that the pressure that builds before a rain along with dampness has some effect on it.

The Chemo Fog, Chemo Brain, whatever one calls it seems worse these last few days. Not that being 50 helps any, lol. I have been somewhat worried though. Not that I'm the brightest bulb on the tree but I've really pulled some doozies. I had two nights of very little sleep but last night slept like a baby and about 6 hours too. No nightmares or dreams, just sleep.

I have a few friends that I talk to on the web and lately added another friend, Dea. She will be on the same show the same night that we will. Seems a very nice lady. She wrote a book about her experience and mailed me a copy. I hope to start it this weekend. Then I talk with Cathy, a good friend that researches the same stuff that I do, also a nice person. Then Sally, whom I have talked to for years and consider one of my best friends on earth. She has CTCL too. I can't help but laugh sometimes at Denise. If Sally hasn't wrote before she goes to bed that is the first thing she does, check the email. I think this is Sally's second Thanksgiving without Aubra, he also had CTCL. It is our first one without dad here. Last year at this time I was looking so forward to eating, it hit right between Chemos. I didn't figure on keeping it down, couldn't taste it physically... but I remembered the taste.

Denise often asks why I don't get mad very often. The kids I drive up the wall with never let the sun go down on you mad. I had been told that by Annie and Papa, think we all were. Life is too short without wasting time on being mad. Spoken words cannot be unspoken for even if the offended person forgives they will ring out in your mind and life guarantees nobody the next breath. What God gives us is each other for only that breath with no guarantee that we will have time to undo that which we regret later. No guarantee there will be another happy moment and moments are just that moments. We choose how we will spend them.

11-11-2010

Ok, it's actually now officially 11-12-10 and I'm still up. Eating none the less. Prednisone or bad habits? I goofed off today, no leaves, no bush hogging, just pure trouble. Me and Bill went after a 65 ragtop (stressing that word) Corvair. We went to a lot of trouble to hide it, but then she asked, and my big mouth opened. I would not make a good politician, lol.

Not as tight in my breathing tonight, but still hard to do. Possibly the laughing while spewing Mt Dew coming out of my nose may have helped. Sorry about that Bill, if that had been me who had the accident I'd have laughed anyway. The look on his face when the bungee cord snapped, just too much.

The CTCL is raging lately. My foot looks and feel like it has been dipped in acid and more plaques coming out on the body on the legs and arms. I need to go back to taking the herbs and maybe do some NBUVB treatments, something I'd rather not do with my neck. Maybe a shield? Beats Interferon though.

Tomorrow maybe blow leaves off the roof, provided the neuropathy backs off. I tried that about two days ago, didn't work too well. I'm assuming the only way to know one's limits is by finding them. God knows I've done enough of that in my life, lol.