I’m Not Dead Yet (I.N.D.Y.)

I learned something last night: I’m not ready to move off of the morphine yet.  I have been winnowing my way off of pain medications for a while now.  I have, for all intents and purposes, not had any of the oxycodone for almost a week now.  Last night I thought, “I’m doing so well, perhaps I don’t need the morphine!”  I was wrong.  Oy, was I wrong.  It’s not that the pain came back at full strength, but I had a very hard time getting comfortable.  It was so bad, actually, that I did take an oxycodone just to help get me through the night.  I’m back on the morphine and I’ll keep up with it at least through the Thanksgiving Day holiday (and you can bet I’ll also have some oxy  with me for after the parade).

I also learned something at work today.  Now for those of you who don’t know (or don’t remember), I work in a 10 story building and my cube is on the 10th floor.  It’s a great view from up there — of course, I have to come out of my cube to enjoy the view, but such is the way of things.  But I digress.  I pride myself on the fact that, prior to my surgery, I have walked up and down all 10 flights of stairs almost exclusively since moving into the building last January.  I used to brag that I could count on one (and then two) hands the number of times in the 8+ months of being in the building that I had actually taken the elevator.

Upon my return from surgery, it took a while, but I had actually gotten back to where I could walk up and down the whole 10 flights.  And then I started chemo.  I began to notice that I was having more and more trouble walking up the stairs, particularly the week after my chemo.  Indeed, as recently as this week (remember I had chemo last Wednesday), I was disappointed in myself that I was only able to walk up to the 6th floor on Monday and the 7th floor today.  I was able to remind myself today, though, that one of the side effects of my chemo is that my white and red blood cells are depleted.  If my red blood cells are depleted, less and less oxygen is getting to my muscles, and that might have a detrimental effect on my ability to walk the stairs. I don’t know if I am rationalizing things, but I felt better being able to explain why I was so out of breath after only walking up 7 flights.

Tomorrow, my family and I will be traveling up to New Jersey to stay with my brother Sid and his family.  Don’t forget to look for me during the parade.  Unfortunately, I cannot promise I will be doing some action that will distinguish me from the other pirate clowns (but, if I can figure something out, I’ll do what I can).

It’s a couple of days early, but I want you all to know how very Thankful I have such a great group of supporters.  I continue to have, on average, more than 200 visits to this website each day.  Now, I know that some of you are checking multiple times per day, but that number says to me that I have a lot of people checking up on me, and that makes me feel great.  Thank you to each and every one of you, both from the U.S. and abroad, who support me by reading my blog from time to time.

Thank you!

Merle

Tags: Family, Main, Treatment, Work // 1 Comment »