Plugging along

I am now three weeks and two days post-chemo, and enjoying it! Although I still get tired very easily, I feel a bit stronger each day. Actually, DH and I also resumed our common workouts of lifting free weights -- and that has probably helped my recovery. I've lost a good bit of muscle tone since my cancer diagnosis in March, and I'm feeling the effects. My posture is worse, I often have pain in my shoulders, and my lower back. So it was about time that we resumed those workouts, as I've had these pains before but was able to 'cure' them with workouts that strengthened the muscles involved. I am excited to be back on the workout wagon -- and my boob man has even given his ok to me doing pushups, so I essentially have no restrictions left. 

Talking about my boob man, I had been scheduled for a top-off in August, but had to cancel due to my unexpected weeklong stay in solitary confinement at the hospital. Now I finally had the energy to reschedule that appointment and went for my final top-off to 475 ml last week. Now my foob looks like a frankenfoob, as it is bigger than its natural counterpart. Apparently they do this so that the finished foob has a nicer, more natural drape. Unfortunately it also means that I will have to live with some lopsidedness once again. 

How long I need to live with this depends on what I decide on the still-pending radiation issue. On Monday I have an appointment with the radiation oncologist for one last discussion on the issue. I must say I am currently leaning against radiation -- although that opinion varies depending on my level of cancer paranoia. It just seems that the side effects (and I'm not even talking about the burns and fatigue, but the increased likelihood of getting cancer in the other breast, or sarcoma, or any of a variety of other cancers that have been associated with radiation therapy) are too well-established and the benefit too uncertain. But I'll talk it through again on Monday with the woman who wants to fry me after I've been sliced, diced, and poisoned.

Although it has been difficult, I have managed to keep up with my work schedule these past weeks. My energy has improved enough that I no longer need to sleep all afternoon after work, but only require a one or two hour nap. Several days I have even managed to make it without a nap at all, as the phone kept ringing off the hook (oh yeah, did I mention we've been having both phone and internet problems, and had to deal with customer service at those companies - took a while, but it's finally fixed now, yay!). 

One other bit of good news is that I had another doppler ultrasound scan of my UEDVT. Thankfully, the thrombosis has cleared up entirely, which means that I no longer need to give myself those painful daily Lovenox injections. Hurray!!!

Anyway, as you can see I've been plugging along. It's just that I'm too tired at night to write blog entries. Plus, I am trying not to get too alert in the evenings as I'm still not sleeping well due to frequent nightly hot flashes that keep waking me up, or keep me from going to sleep. Another reason why my blog entries have become so sparse.