Glass half full

Today was a good day for me. Tomorrow, well, we'll see.

Everyone's experience with chemo is different. Here is a little window into mine so far. I have good days, mediocre days and days that suck. Every week what is good is less than the week before and what is bad is also work. But today was good day so I'll talk about mostly about that.

Even though this was a good day, I still have neuropathy in my feet. I have almost no hair. I have less coordination than I normally do (I should have worn an apron when I baked) and I have to read the recipes a few times to remember them.

I had some energy. Work went well, I got a few little things cleared off my list and got progress into a bit of a bigger project. Normally the boys have swimming on Tuesday so I don't get home until after 6 then its a rushed dinner and bedtime. I also have great friends, who ran my boys ragged at the beach after they were already run ragged at soccer camp. So they came home just before bedtime. So today, while I had the energy, I took a load of stuff to the thrift store for donation, took out the garbage and recycling, deep cleaned the bathroom (yuck), washed down a kitchen cupboard as part of my organizing, and did a load of laundry. After getting the kids to bed I baked scones and made a whipped spread for a potluck tomorrow. I managed to keep up with the cooking clean-up while the scones were baking. But I hit the wall just towards the end of the whipped spread. I managed to get it all in the fridge and the mixing bowl and beaters in the sink but then I was totally done.

It sounds like a lot and to me it is, but it was spread over almost 4 hours. Pre chemo that would have been done in under 2 hours and I would have still had energy to spare. So a good day is not like a good day pre chemo. And each week, a full energy meter is less than it was the week before.

I seem to have 2 or 3 good days a week, with Sunday and Tuesday the best normally. Monday would be good but, well, that is chemo day so there is a certain amount of stress plus a dose of benadryl that knocks me on my ass. Then there are a couple of mediocre days where I just get by. Then there are those days, the sucky ones. I'm not going into detail about those now because in my happy glass half full state, I can't give them credit. I'll try to do a post this week on a sucky day.

For now, even though I hit the wall, I had a good day. My glass remains half full, even if it is a smaller glass than it was last week, it is still half full!