Another Long Break

Another long break between posts! Certainly did not intend for this to happen again, but in spite of being a computer scientist, I seem to have a limited number of keystrokes in me, and I was most recently concentrating them towards an upcoming paper deadline. I've made progress, but also had a couple of setbacks. At this point, I'm going to back off and make sure I do a good job rather than a hasty one, especially since my work push induced a nice chemo crash the last half of last week where I slept most of Wednesday, half of Thursday, and a good bit of Friday as well. There are going to be other paper deadlines that I can send a better paper to than I would be able to send to this one.

I'm in the midst of cycle 13, another one with the combination of irinotecan and temozolomide. Last time I checked in, I was beginning the third week of cycle 12, clear of the neutropenia period. I began that week with hair, as you can see here. It had started to regrow at the end of cycle 11, but fell out starting the afternoon of the day after I left the hospital.

Another event of note that happened during that week was that I had a height adjustment made to my prosthesis. Back in September, when Ashley and I went to the zoo and did our height comparison, I commented that I was slouching a bit in the picture I posted, but I subsequently noticed that I was standing shorter than usual because my right leg felt a little longer than my left one. At my most recent followup with my prosthetist, he noticed that the disparity was affecting my walk, and made an adjustment that fixed it. The effects became really apparent this past Sunday when I made a trip to the Macy's downtown to return a couple of items I'd bought from them online. The stairs I had to take to get into and out of subway stations were suddenly a lot easier to navigate. It's not like the height adjustment was all that much. Maybe it was half an inch at most. But then I thought of the opening scene from the Big Bang Theory, where Sheldon Cooper talked about the effects of a stair being off by as little as 2 millimeters, and it suddenly all made sense!

So far, taking things easier has helped me greatly this week. My energy has been better, and unlike the long naps I took last week, one I took this afternoon actually made me feel less tired! Here's hoping that keeps up. I wouldn't mind a nice bust of energy next week, not just for work, but also so that can fully enjoy a visit from Ashley at its conclusion!