How The Post Cancer Brain Works

I have lots of aches and pain. This is a proven fact. You can ask any of my doctors. And I am also a klutz. And I have the battle scars to prove it.

Last week, I tripped over my father's wheelchair in the waiting room of the chemotherapy department. How embarrassing. In front of maybe 40 people waiting for their appointments. They all noticed.

This is what happened. We arrived at the hospital and my father grabbed a wheelchair. He has a bad leg so he pushes a wheelchair around instead of using a cane or walker. It's easier for him. He checked in for his appointment and we sat down to wait for him to be called. He parked the wheelchair sideways in front of the chair between us.

Then we both noticed a new quilt hanging on the wall. It's a lovely picture of lighthouse. My father suggested I take a picture of it for my cousin who quilts (as someone else was already photographing it). I got up from my seat, looking at the quilt on the wall. The next thing I knew, I was on my hands and knees in the middle of the floor.

Everyone around me gasped as they witnessed my extreme klutziness. I stood up and said I was fine. I didn't think I had damaged anything.

Then a nurse stopped by and asked if I was okay. I said I was. A second nurse stopped by and asked me to walk with her for a minute and wanted to make sure I was fine. She asked if I hit my head. I said no, just my fat butt. Finally, when my father was getting his port flushed, I think my father made a joke about me tripping over wheelchairs. His chemo nurse asked if I was the one causing all the trouble in the waiting room. I said my fat butt landed on the wheelchair but I was fine. My 'padding' saved me from any injury. Precisely I have a bruise on the back of my left thigh to show my landing point.

Why am I telling you this story? (Patience please.)

Fast forward a week: I have had a horrible cold (not as a result of my flying leap over a wheelchair). I have been spending a lot of time in bed as a result of that cold. It now seems to be getting better but I am still in hiding in case I have germs. The problem is that I seem to be having new problems with my right hip as it wraps around towards my spine. I really do not think I landed on it.

But I have had some pretty significant pain from it if I am sitting or standing for any length of time. And if I have pain that gets past my pain patch, its bad. I have been managing it by staying in bed. Yesterday I had to ice my new pain for a good 20 minutes to get it back to a reasonable level after weaving for a while - sitting in a chair.

I have decided to call my doctor because it is getting worse, not better. My cold is much better. But the pain is worse.

Finally, I am at the point of how the post cancer brain works: Is it a bruise I don't remember getting in my flying leap over the wheelchair? Or is it a BAD thing, like cancer cooties? The logic side of my brain says 'its a bruise'. The cancer side of my brain says 'its cancer and I am going to die'.

Anyone else do this?

I Am A Klutz

Today I was at an event where I might have fallen a tiny bit. I must say I am not completely unfamiliar with the room because I was in that same room in 1989 or so at a friend's wedding. So I must have memorized the entire room layout then (although I know alcohol was involved at the wedding).But things might have gotten a little hazy since.

But my question is who carpets an entire room with the same carpet on everything except the dance floor? By the carpets rest of the room I mean stairs that go across the full length of the room and the DJ/band riser at the end of the space. In a dark blue carpet which shows no contours in any light. With no reflective tape or anything.

So I walked across the room, missing the riser. Then I walked back across the room to return and discovered the riser for the third time today. I might have caught a little air in this event. I did not do major damage to my body. I did land on my right knee and right thumb. I have a tiny scrape on my knee.

When I did take this tiny tumble, a couple of people asked me if I was okay. I said I needed a minute and tried not to cry in front of a crowd of strangers. But then I sat there. Then I finally stood up. And was really about to cry (stiff upper lip be damned).

But I made it home. I got in bed with a heating pad for my back and an ice pack for my knee. Three hours of bad TV later, I am feeling better and my husband is about to serve a nice home made dinner.

But I am still a klutz and will pay for this tomorrow.

PS by posting about stupid stuff, I can avoid some of the other issues in my life for a while

I Forgot To Keep Quiet

Everytime you go to the doctor they ask if you have fallen recently. Do you know why they ask you this? Its not because they want to check if you have skinned your knees or ask if you want an ice pack. They want to know if you are at risk of injuring yourself by falling. Or really are you a fall risk.... Which is very bad.

But you say its only a little yellow bracelet. But no it's not. It means they label you as a fall risk until you can balance on your toes on a paddleboard, a million hours of PT, or something. Its hard to get rid of that label on your medical chart.

Yesterday afternoon, I ran into a particularly slippery section of grass in our yard and fell. I didn't land on my bad knee (the one slated for arthroscopic surgery because it keeps locking up) but on my slightly less bad knee (the one with a torn ACL that can't be operated on). No I am not further damaged other than some sore muscles and jolted body parts.

I had a nicely timed appointment with my knee surgery this morning. I showed up and STUPIDLY told the nurse that I fell on my knee yesterday afternoon. I only did that because I knew they would notice it was swollen.... But I clearly wasn't thinking. I forgot to keep quiet.

The main topic of conversation with the doctor was scheduling arthroscopic knee surgery. I will need crutches for a week or so. I won't be a fall risk (note sarcasm) while on crutches. I will then be teetering around, but not a fall risk.

Bump

Sunday morning is special around here. We used to get the paper daily but now just don't have time to read it. So the Sunday paper is special. I get to spread it out and read as much as I want. We also tend to make a nice breakfast to eat together.

But this Sunday was a bit different. I was still in my pajamas and barefoot and headed back to our room to get something. As I stepped into our room and stepped on a piece of tulle from one of my craft projects. That was a bit slippery and my feet went one way and I went the other.

The resulting damage was from the fact that I landed on my hip, elbow, knee, and shoulder.... I took the ice packs my husband got me and went back to bed to read the paper. I took it easy for a few hours. Later we went out to dinner with my family until my back started complaining and I decided I really didn't feel that well.

Of course I didn't want to go to the doctor about a fall because they would add it to my record as a fall. If you are a fall risk in the hospital, they give you bright orange or yellow wrist bands and make you stay in bed until someone can walk you ten feet to the bathroom. I hate going to the hospital because of a fall. I don't want that label.

After thinking about it, I decided that I also probably hit my head, either on the floor or the door. Monday morning, I decided I needed to take it easy and skipped the gym. I did go to physical therapy for my neck. I told the therapist about my fall and he asked me if I lost consciousness or not. I said no and he told me if I didn't feel well again today I should go to the doctor.

So I went to the hospital and saw a nurse practitioner. She sent me for a CT scan to make sure there was no bleeding on my brain. (Of course being a cancer person, my real fear was that there was a bad thingie up there.)

I am fine and there is no lasting damage. But even though it technically it isn't a concussion, I should treat it as one. This means no gym. No PT. Just rest and take care of myself. All from a little fall and bump on my head.

Did I say it was a bad week?

Last week I had an exceptionally bad week in several different ways. It was just your basic cluster of everything coming together to remind me of how life with my health can take its twists and turns. Here is a brief outline:

• Monday at work, where I am also the IT person, we had a complete hard drive failure on our data computer to the point that we had to get new hardware and start over from scratch. It just meant a longer and stressful day for me.
• Tuesday at work, I had to deal with the outside hardware people to fix the computer. And the alarm guy was there bleeding the sprinkler system or something that entailed of spraying water outside the building on a 15 degree day (I had to move my car) away from the spray. Later it snowed on top of the spray that turned to ice and I fell on my knee because I couldn't see the ice under the snow which jolted my body and made my knee and my back hurt for days.
• Wednesday my back and knee were very sore from my fall and cancelled my hair appointment and skipped the gym because I felt that bad but I made it through my full 6 hour work day.
• Thursday I felt okay and went to the gym. Then about 2pm I couldn't keep my eyes open and took a nap. I woke up and felt horrible couldn't talk, cancelled all my appointments except my pain doctor for Friday.
• Friday I felt a little better but stayed home except for my one appointment where I had a series of trigger point injections on my back (they still needles into the sore spots). 

So in one week I fell, had a 24 hour cold, exceptional work stress, lots of aches and pains, and had to spend a day off my feet because of my health. Did I say it was a bad week?

Its sort of a normal week for me. My health takes a dominant role in what I do. But I try.

This week is slightly better but I didn't sleep well last night so I couldn't wake up this morning. The cat insisted on sitting on my shoulder with his paws digging into my sore spots and woke me up at 230. I think I got back to sleep around 4 but had some very weird dreams.... I have to go into a conference in town this morning on the subway. I almost bailed but I really want to go to it. I may need a nap after but I hope to go to the gym.

Nothing like being 'healthy' to make me sit on my butt and watch bad TV to recover from normal life.

PS I do not count my fall on the snow covered ice as related to my ailments. It could have happened to anyone.

But I was just trying to act like a healthy person

Yesterday, I was doing my normal things - laundry, cooking, went for a walk, a little gardening, etc. I try not to let my health interfere with my daily activities. I usually just ignore the aches and pains and keep on going. If I did let them interfere I would be sitting in the corner, doing nothing with my life. But often by the end of the day, my back is killing me and my ankle is telling me I did too much again.

I was doing laundry and cooking - my parents were coming for dinner and I like to create - so I was on my feet a good portion of the day. But I did sit down and take some breaks to help my back rest. I was almost done with laundry and had three full laundry hampers lined up, waiting for my husband to bring them upstairs. I could have moved them but I attempted to step over them. Attempt is the key word here.

A normal healthy person with a healthy body could have done this quite easily. I didn't step over them. I sort of stepped over them, and turned my ankle and sat down on the clean laundry - a nice soft landing. The result is a jolted, painful back and an achy, strained, sore ankle. But I have pain meds.

Today I am going to do what I did yesterday - ignore the pains and keep going. I'll go for my walk in a little bit and then some more cooking and keep moving. What else can I do?

Even the cat is stressed

Yesterday morning I took the cat to the vet and he had his ultrasound, which is fine - no nasty surprises. But he was really mad because they shaved his stomach (and he had to skip breakfast). I asked the vet about his pulling the fur off his legs and she said its probably stress. He did something similar before when I was going through chemo. He doesn't deal with stress any better than we do.

Yesterday I also went to have my arm checked. I have lymphedema in it. This is a long term side effect of breast cancer surgery. There is no cure (gee thanks cancer, the gift that keeps on giving, in more and more ways) and treatment is limited to compression, massage, and exercises. So right now it is mild. The hope is I do more exercises (five more exercises, sets of twelve, three times, twice daily) and manual massage and get a (damn ugly) compression sleeve and wear it daily for a few weeks that it might be managed that way. The next step is DAILY therapy for four weeks to see if that can control it. The goal is to keep my arm from blowing up like a balloon. Did I say there is no cure?

Lymphedema is a result of the removal of lymph nodes. Basically your lymph system is a plumbing system in your body moving around fluid. When they took out 20+ lymph nodes they messed up the plumbing system and the fluid does not drain properly from my arm now and backs up. It can be aggravated by any little thing such as cuts in your arm, trauma, etc. Since surgery I have been told no needle sticks or blood pressure in my arm and to be very careful about heat, cold, sunburn, cuts, manicures, stress on my arm in any way (carrying things), etc. I have been careful (this is one of the reasons I can't shovel snow or rake leaves or carry things). But in the past few weeks my arm has been feeling weird and I tried measuring it and thought it was off and Walter measured it and agreed that it was off so I went for an appointment. And unfortunately we were right.

I did fall a couple of weeks ago (during my week from hell) and strained and scraped my wrist which could be what started all this. The nurse/physical therapist I saw yesterday said that if I continue to fall, I probably shouldn't wait until May to see if my ankle heals but to go ahead and have the surgery so I don't continue to fall. Gee isn't my future full of all sorts of 'fun' adventures? She also said I should step up my ankle exercises.

Walter is stressed. Who wouldn't be? CT scan and then the balloon procedure. We are working on getting through this week.

Now I have to go do three back exercises - 2 sets of 15 each, five arm exercises - 3 sets of 12 each, and six ankle exercises - 3 sets of 20 each and take the rest of my pills so I can go to work. AAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGG!!!!!!! And if you see me or talk to me, I am really not ready to talk about this one yet.

Belated World Cancer Day

Yesterday was World Cancer Day. It was also probably also save the penguins day and eat broccoli day. I'm just slow sometimes. I do know today is national wear red day to raise awareness for heart disease. I'll wear a red sweater if I have one that's clean... I'm not a big fan of these awareness things because I am not sure how much they really do. But I did find the article I saw yesterday that 40% of cancers worldwide are preventable through behaviors. Reduce sun exposure, drink less alcohol and stop tobacco use are the three key steps. So why me? I never was a sun person, I don't drink tons, and I never smoked a lot. They don't know what causes all cancers. They are saying this to focus on the causes they know.

Today I am launching the reduce my stress level campaign. Allow me to summarize my week: friend died, another friend's husband has stage IV cancer, awful work situation, fell and jolted back and wrist and knee, etc, facing possible ankle surgery, husband not healing well and facing additional procedure in a few weeks, father fell and broke his leg, and its only Friday so I am not prepared for much more. I resolved the stressful job situation by leaving it as I have tried for several weeks to resolve it with no success. I don't need to have the level of stress in my life so I chose not to work there any more.

My stress level is off the charts with everything I have going on and I am looking to reduce it as much as possible. There is no reason other's problems need to be mine. Except when others medical issues loom.

My husband just asked me to promise not to fall again today. I will try. By the way, the doctor wasn't surprised with my ankle that I did fall a few times recently. So off I go for a day of work today. I will try not to fall and hope I can destress a bit.

Yak tracks are very cool

These are yak tracks. http://www.rei.com/product/760280 For $20 you can walk on ice and snow and not fall on your butt. Totally worth it.