Brain Freeze, Melt, Unthawed

I feel all used up.

My fourth Carbo treatment, while not exploding all of my inward organs this time, has still done its job.  The faint bleed outs, the sickness, the weakness and the new symptom that I have been trying to avoid more than the plague - "chemo neuropathy" - seems to be trying to nestle into some nooks and crannies even though it has been made to feel most unwelcome.   

Although I have had some "tinges" and "tingles" up to this point, and some imbalance, it definitely worsened this week.  I am clumsy at times and have difficulty walking a straight line without bumping into a wall.  (Or it's more like leaning into a wall as those inebriated are prone to point out.)  It's like tipsy-drunk-walking without getting the pleasure of tasting the wine.

My toes on my right foot curl under and are painful every time I try to walk any distance.  My feet and ankles are sore and painful.  My shin bones tingle, but my doctor suspects that is maybe related more to my 'exercise regimen' - namely shin splints type of issues.   Yep, I spelled that right and you should be like, stupidly surprised. 

Which of course, brings you to the question of the day:  how pathetic is your body situation when you get shin splints for walking one to one and a half miles a day???   How pathetic is that I ask???

Actually, there hasn't been a whole lot of exercise the past week - weakness has trumped over all. 

I looked it up online - which I swore I would not do throughout all of this - but I looked it up on line because you know I forget what 'they' have told me for weeks and weeks about this - and I stumble (pardon the pun) onto this and suddenly remember why I do not look things up online.  The suggestions went something like this:

• Protect areas where sensation is decreased (example; do not walk around without foot wear). Wear thick socks and soft soled shoes.
• Extreme temperature changes may worsen symptoms.  
• Wear warm clothing in cold weather.  Protect feet and hands from extreme cold.  
• Use care when washing dishes or taking a bath or shower do not let the water get too hot.
• Use potholders when cooking.
• Use gloves when washing dishes, gardening.
• Inspect skin for cuts, abrasions, burns daily, especially arms, legs, toes and fingers. 

Use care when washing dishes?????  Extreme temperature changes may worsen symptoms????  We're in menopause here folks - 'extreme' is my middle name. 

Most kindergarteners could recite this list of 'cautions'. 

I'm needing a little bit more information here internet people. (I can still drum my fingers well, in case you wonder....) 

Of most concern to me, is my brain.  I think some days I actually feel it disintegrating - which on those days makes absolute sense to me - what better organ than the brain to tell you it is rapidly rusting and breaking down, just needing an allover R2D2 makeover?

I remember reading a series of books written by a woman who was dyslexic.  I was incredulous that she could write such fascinating stories, but could not read them back to herself properly for proofing and such.

I understand that a little bit more now.  I can write, but not read so much.  I can "audio" - listen - but not watch as easily.  My thought processing has changed and that rattles me to my core.

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So I am watching a movie yesterday because I am forcing myself to #1) read a book because it is now somehow a Mount Everest difficult achievement and I view it as 'brain exercise'; and #2) watch a movie, because it is equally somewhat difficult but maybe more comparable to crossing the Rockies with the Donner party.  There doesn't seem to be a lot of good dining material in the movie arena which might explain my great disdain for them even when healthy. 

Actually, I cheated and watched parts of two movies.  What the heck, if you count the one that was on when I woke up, that makes three.

These brain exercises have one common downfall - they make me think more than I am pondering already.  (You might guess correctly that I have not opted to watch the "Three Stooges" or "Dumb and Dumber" again; nor do I seem prone to the Elm Street or Chain Saw sagas as of now.)  

But all three of the movies all kind of had a common theme - 'what if you don't get a second chance at this thing called life'?  and I know I should avoid those types of movies and books and audios, but give it a try - it seems to be all that movie makers and book writers care about - "what have you done?", quickly followed by "what if you don't get to do it over again?"

And then the last heavy blows -- "how much are you going to regret it?" usually neatly stitched together and summed up by "how much does everyone else around you regret it?"

And with that, it seems you have a movie.  I should go to Hollywood with my little chemo-fog-brain-formula and get paid for crying out loud. 

What if you really only pass this way by once?   What if today, this day, this moment, makes a difference for eternity and you don't get a "do-over"?

What if I am the wealthy Elle magazine editor that wrote a book only using one blinking eye after being paralyzed by a stroke?  He never got to hold his somewhat neglected children again.  He never got to tell any of the three women in his life how he valued them.  

What if I am wealthy Robert Redford being forced to march through a forest to "The Clearing" and I realize that all my hard work in life meant I didn't spend my family time wisely and now it won't, can't happen because there is a bullet in the gun..... (it did seem that "wealth" gave the main characters more regrets to ponder - at least on this day in my movie-rama living room) 

Life can change in a moment and the mundane suddenly seems positively riveting.  At least I am glad to have smiled and played and give a big hug every time I changed a diaper. 

Delightfully mundane. 

So something is bumping around in what is left of my R2D2 brain, and I again, look on the internet, because you know, it would take me years to find this in a book long ago put away - but at one point in my life I had this memorized and I think it was due to my mother's prompting and somehow a teacher at Nankin Elementary seems involved as well:

I Shall Not Pass This Way Again


Through this toilsome world, alas,
Once and only once I pass, 
If a good deed I may do, 
If a kindness I may show 
To a suffering fellow man,
Let me do it while I can,
No delay for it is plain
I shall not pass this way again.  
                     Author Unknown

This was added, which I had not known or memorized previously and then forgotten: 

"The above poem was adapted from a quote from Stephen Grellet (born Etienne de Grellet du Mabillier) (1773-1855), a Quaker Missionary from France to the United States. The original quote is: 

 "I expect to pass through this world but once. Any good, therefore, that I can do or any kindness I can show to any fellow creature, let me do it now. Let me not defer or neglect it for I shall not pass this way again.""

 

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And how to get this freakin' big square off of this page is beyond me.  So just enjoy it.....