Don't Believe Everything I Say

I was going to say that one of the most frustrating things about being on chemotherapy long-term is the chemo brain. But then I got to thinking- -  at my age,  it’s really better to be able to blame memory lapses and such on chemo brain than it is to have people shake their heads sadly and say, “Poor thing, she’s really getting old and forgetful, isn’t she?”  

But actually, I’ve had strange things going on in my brain for years- just ask Mr. G or the kids. When I was a child, I could look at a picture of a giraffe and call it a kangaroo.  And vice versa. The same thing with a hippopotamus and a rhinoceros and a sequoia tree and a sycamore.  In adulthood this  took the form of  mixing up the kids' names. Often, when I went to call one of the five, I’d sometimes have to do the whole roll call before I got the right one.  But that’s another problem entirely, and I’ve heard other mothers say they’ve  done the same thing. Other than those few examples,  I had no problem identifying objects or animals or trees or people. Until recently.  And this is why I have to tell you: if you hear me say I use a walker everyday, don’t believe me.

When I started chemo, I was told to stay out of the sun, and quite frankly, I  reached the point where I couldn’t take Alabama’s summer heat and humidity. I knew exercise was important and signed up for a yoga class and began doing yoga exercises at home. Then I  read a lot of articles on the benefits of walking. So I thought, if we get a treadmill I can walk every day no matter what the weather is doing. We bought a manual treadmill.  But once it was set up in the house I developed a mind block and couldn’t think of what it was called. I began calling it a walker.  Now   there’s a big difference between using a walker and using a  treadmill, not that there is anything wrong with  using a walker- they can be wonderful aids to mobility,  particularly for people recovering from surgery or suffering from fatigue or weakness that makes walking difficult.  And there are times when I am definitely fatigued and when  my hip still remembers that it was hurt in a car wreck years ago and  protests loudly.  But so far, I haven’t needed a walker. So if you hear me say I used the walker today please don’t think I’m a poor little elderly creature who needs to sit down and have her pillows plumped for her. Just think of me as some scatterbrained eccentric who envisions herself stalking  rhinos through the sycamores while  trotting along in relative comfort on her treadmill.😉

Odd Shoes and Serenades

Today I went  in for  shot number two of three in this week’s Neupogen series.  Tomorrow is the third shot, then six days with no shots, no treatments, before going in for the sixth chemo session next Wednesday. I have come to look forward to those days when we don’t have to plan our activities around trips to the doctor’s office or infusion center or adjust to the limitations of wearing a portable  infusion pump.

We were almost late for the appointment today, thanks to a poor little hummingbird who couldn’t seem to   figure out how to get out from under the gazebo cover.  For about half an hour he or she fluttered about in a frenzy,  its little wings beating like mad as it kept opening and closing its beak. It would fly all around close to the roof of the gazebo, hitting the cloth top but never swooping low enough to  go through  one of the side openings in the  netting.  We tried to gently coax him to fly lower   with mops and brooms, to no avail, and there were no other hummers around to  help guide him out.  I was afraid he would exhaust himself, drop down to the floor and be pounced upon by  one of the neighborhood cats. We finally decided another hummingbird was bound to show up sooner or later, so we hurriedly gathered up what we needed and headed for the car.  The traffic, which was unusually heavy for the time of day, was slowed down even more by a  heavy rain that had begun to fall. 

We arrived just a minute before my appointment time instead of the fifteen minutes early  that the clinic  prefers. After signing in, I sat down  waiting to be called, looked  down at my feet and realized I was wearing one brown sandal and one black clog and that my socks were on inside out. This is my  usual footwear at home, but I  change before going out in public.  Or at least, I do most of the time. I have a sore  big toe on my  right foot; wearing socks inside out keeps the  seam from hitting the sore spot.  The sandal  keeps pressure off the toe.  But when I wear  both sandals, they throw my bum hip out of kilter.  The  Slogger  clogs  are just the right height  to  keep the hip  aligned so that it doesn’t hurt and   those are the shoes I normally wear when   my toe isn’t sore and swollen. Before leaving the house I  usually make sure that I’m wearing socks that don’t show whether they’re inside out or not, and I swap the sandal for the other  Slogger shoe.  The hummingbird adventure   made me forget- or perhaps it was chemo brain striking again! Maybe I  can start a new fashion trend where  comfort  trumps  style.

When we arrived home, we were happy to see that the hummingbird had found its way out and that  other hummingbirds were buzzing around the gazebo waiting their turn at the feeder.  It’s dark now,  the rain  has stopped, although we  occasionally hear thunder off in the distance. The hummingbirds have gone to roost and the frogs have moved onto the deck near the water garden, filling the air with sounds of their romantic serenades. I wonder if we’ll see  more frog spawn in the  water garden tomorrow.

Spawn from  one of  Froggie's  earlier romantic evenings.

One of our serenading frogs