Thank goodness for that March Madness

68 teams. Several days of almost uninterrupted TV viewing pleasure. I am not entirely sure why my physical condition has degraded to a point that I spend a good portion of my time in a predominately horizontal position on a very soft bed that we have set up in our TV room. But thanks to March Madness my dependence on HGTV to pass time has been greatly lessened. It's amazing that with digital cable and almost 2 billion channels to choose from it can be a challenge to find something interesting to watch.

Back to my physical condition. I am forcing myself to get up and walk more, to move the legs. It causes me great concern when I have difficulty walking up our stairs due to muscle fatigue. I want to say that the evidence of the rash on more forehead, a side effect of the chemo received, means that the chemicals are still pulsating through my veins and having an effect. While I welcome the symptoms if they are attacking the cancer that has invaded my bone marrow. I just don't don't know if that is the case. I need to be very careful not to slide down this physical degradation slope any further. I need to be careful not to give up. My worsening physical condition may come from the cancer winning, but I need to fight. I need to find the spark in me again that says even though I get knocked down I will get back up. The weaker I get the harder that becomes. I must try harder.

Update

I'm sorry but my deteriorating condition as of late has made it more and more difficult for me to post blogs. So for those of  you who are looking for a source of info on my status please check out my brother's blog at http://heartofalonelyhunter.blogspot.com/.  I think he does a good job summarizing my current condition. You will also get info about my father's status which is also taking its toll on our family.

I am also posting small updates on my Facebook page as I see fit.

Thanks again for all the prayers and please keep them coming. This is a very difficult time for me right now and I can use all the help I can get.

Cancer Sucks

It has been a little over a year since my noma diagnosis and I thought I would take a moment to reflect on the year gone by. I was walking down the aisle of a Kroger grocery store the other day and it struck me how much my life has changed and also how quickly it seems to change. This mental trip started as I was noticing all the food stuffs that I would normally have bought to prepare our household meals that we no longer purchase because of my diet changes. However, at the same time it seemed like just yesterday that we did buy that stuff. It was a very weird feeling. It made me think about all the other things that have changed over this past year. Most of them seemed to revolve around my physical state and the toll the cancer has taken on my body. Overall my body has taken a big hit and I have to accept a new overall philosophy change from "I can do it" to "I can't do it."

This change in view has been demonstrated to me in many different ways lately. The first example comes about in my most recent visits to MD Anderson. MD Anderson is a large institution and spending the day there going to multiple appointments results in much walking around. At the entrance to the hospital they have rows and rows of wheelchairs. Up until this point I have been able to make my way around on my own steam. Albeit some days quicker than others. However, this last visit I had to make use of the wheelchair and have my brother and mom provide the means of power for my transportation around the hospital. While it was nice to be ushered around, it is still a bit of a pill to swallow admitting that you aren't able to get around on your own.

Another example comes about in my cabinet profession. My last project before I was to take a leave of absence demonstrated the progression of this disease and its toll it is taking on me. This project has been drawn out longer than most for various reasons and when I started it I was more than up for the challenge of completing the project, right up to the installation of the cabinets. However, as time wore on and the project drew out longer and longer, the deteriorating status of my health made it clear that I was not going to be able to complete the project on my own. In fact, I had to ask for help from the general contractor and they ended up installing the cabinets themselves. I went from working on the job as normal to struggling to deliver the cabinets to needed to ask for somebody else to complete the job because I was physically unable to do it. The designer on the project kept expressing her concern about me being able to complete the job as time wore on and I keep assuring her that I would be fine. Guess her prophetic qualities turned out to be a little more accurate than mine.

Cancer sucks.