The Strangeness Of Cancer

Cancer is very weird.  It messes with your head.  And one of the things that it messes with is the feeling of guilt.  I may have wrote a bit about this before, but sometimes I feel guilty (for lack of a better word) about how I am dealing with this all.

I had a bit tougher time this cycle with the #chemotherapy, but it is starting to pass. 

 I know I was a bit "out of it" for a couple of days.  I know it is frustrating as I am going through those moments.  I know there are times I feel like crying and just want to sleep to make the feeling stop.  It is not that I am sad, that I think I am dying, that I think about how bad the treatment is.  No, it is some kind of "chemo brain" alteration that I can maybe push through.  Just easier to sleep an hour or so and I wake up fine.

I know that I am mildly nauseous and need to pop some pills a couple of times during the initial fews days.  And I know I am tired, sometimes sleeping 16 hours almost non-stop if I do not feel too much like "fighting" the tired days.

I missed two days of training this week, though I did manage an hour on the treadmill while on the chemo pump.  The day after I was hooked up.  Yesterday was a bad day - I did not feel great.  I was trying to do a 40 minute run.  I could not do it, I made about .9 miles in 10 minutes.  I tried walking a bit.  Then tried running again.  Too cold I guess and my lungs were not working.  Finally went on treadmill.  Got my 40 minutes in. Really slow.

And today, after a 15 hour nap, got a 5K in on the treadmill.  I am going out to dinner with my family shortly.  Sure I feel tired, but I can do it.

Yet I see people in the same situation who cannot do these things.  And I feel guilty that I am physically able to still do this.  Or are focusing too much on the down side. I saw a post on a cancer board today with someone who was doing that and is generally in the same situation - chemo for life.   Perhaps I am naive.  I know, as of now, that I will be on chemo for the rest of my life.  I know, as of now, that the chemo is not working 100% yet with some tumors growing (though there are positive signs, hoping for a good scan down the road).  And that even if the chemo works, eventually it stops working.  If I thought of all that, all the time, it would make this all almost impossible to deal with.  

I do think of those things once in awhile.  And in the middle of the worst part of the chemo treatment of the first few days, including this weird twilight where you feel like you are awake and asleep at the same time (this new stuff gives me serious chemo brain the first few days :) )  it can bring you down.

But I sit here a couple of hours now as I feel the last vestiges of the more negative aspects of the last treatment slip away and smiling as I finally have a bit of an appetite for the first time in awhile and looking forward for dinner.

I am starting to feel like I am going to start sounding like a cliche, but trying to keep a good attitude and breaking the negative thoughts really helps.  Plus some exercise of course :)

Metrics Of Training Are Good For Cancer.

#triathlontraining measurements and metrics are important for training and improvement.

For me it has become a big assistance to see “how I am feeling”. There are always going to be good days and bad days when training. But with #cancer and #chemotherapy getting a bad start to a session or a few bad sessions in a row can trigger a “uh oh, this is cancer rearing up.” And the couple of days had a couple times where SOB cropped up (shortness of breath people 😂). Was on bike trainer today. .

Took a look at routes I used before on the trainer and saw one I did for an hour in August. Wanted to see how it would go. Wound up with my third highest Power for 60 minutes since I started and only two Watts short from August. Pretty much same MPH and distance.

Four Years Ago Today One Last Time - Anyway You Slice It

This will probably be the last four years ago today post for the year.  And probably will  not mark anniversaries of this nature too many more times.  No, not because I plan of shuffling off this mortal coil at any time in the near future.  But because I think I have hit all the big dates at least once during this last year or so since my first blog post.  A bit more on the mortal coil in a moment.  

But four years ago today was the first surgery.  A lot of my abdomen went MIA that day.  The above is part of what was relocated to places outside my body😀The cancer seemed to have grown quickly in a couple of weeks.  And pathology later showed it was in the lymph nodes.  About half.  Not a good thing and in retrospect it did not turn out that well with me being where I am right now.

I probably posted this before, but people with my cancer have a five year survival rate of about 10%.  Yup, that means that 90% of people are gone within 5 years.  And the events of the last year did not give me the warm fuzzy feeling of getting into that 10% section.  But the stats are skewed.  There is a difference of a few years when looking back - and perhaps changes in the last few years make the rates better.  The rates also include all patients.  Including people who may be older than more, with other health conditions and various other factors, such as not being able to tolerate chemotherapy as well or being able to have surgery. 

So I try to think of that more.  There are days where triathlon training is a bit harder.  But knowing that triathlon training is keeping me going makes training a bit easier.  Getting faster is a cool concept.  Staying alive as long as possible is a better one.  Plus I do like the medals and t-shirts a lot 😀Which I why there is a race next month.  Back to Las Olas!!! My first triathlon - three months aftrt I started training after my cancer came back.  

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‪#triathlontraining with #chemotherapy needle in chest pumping chemo. Need to go SLOW so to not overheat when chemo pumping in. 4.5 miles on treadmill in 2 hours. @tmksespn on @yesnetwork made time pass quickly. Plus had @sloan_kettering commercial to remind me about #cancer and where I am treated 😂‬

A post shared by iTri4ACure (@itri4acure) on Feb 5, 2019 at 4:19pm PST