I’ve slowly improved the last week, and both Thursday and Friday I stayed mostly off the couch. After yet another day on the couch on Wednesday I was pretty fed up with the state of affairs and – not surprisingly – found out and decided that I need to have slightly more ambitious goals every day. It is so easy to be lulled into dark and miserable thoughts and staying there is much less complicated than focusing on getting better, because getting better requires too much work. But as I said, I got fed up, gave myself a good kick and decided to be somewhat more determined about daily goals. It definitely feels good to have come up for some fresher air.

I’ve not been doing anything that requires much energy since sitting in a chair for hours is exhausting enough. Yesterday I had a small victory since I could take a shower and wash my hair without getting exhausted and needing to lay down after. Besides from taking showers a big task the last couple of days has been to continue our super difficult 2000 piece puzzle we started before my surgery. I’m so glad we started doing puzzles. Just by coincidence I decided to buy a 1000 piece puzzle as a Christmas present for James. It is so nice to sit quietly and serene together, or alone, and work on finding pieces that fit. James even found it more addicting than his computer games – go figure.

I can sit for hours scanning the table for pieces and can be completely stuck for a while without solving anything. More than once I have discovered that when getting up, walking around the table and getting a view of the pieces from a different angle I suddenly find completely new pieces that I wasn’t even looking for. I need to remember this and bring the lesson into life’s constant large or small problem solving endeavors.

The rash on my incision has improved a lot lately. It is not red anymore and only occasionally itches and rarely burns. It is still everywhere else on my body, but easing up. I have stopped using the hydrocortisone cream and only use aloe gel to calm the reaction down and rub some moisture to the areas that have become dry. I hope I can stop taking the antihistamine in a couple of days.

I still have neuropathy in my feet. I wish I could say it was getting better, but alas. Fortunately it is not painful. It is just very odd. Numb and tingling to touch. I’m still not sure if it is there to stay or if it will go away. If it doesn’t get worse I can live with it without problems, it just takes some getting used to. I’d prefer that it got back to normal though. I need to discuss it with the doctors when I see them again.

The pain around the incision is also getting better. It still hurts a bit when i stretch and I have to focus on walking straight up. It hurts to straighten up, but I can’t get into the habit of walking bent forward. It can hurt when I walk too fast or take too long steps. It’s also hard to find a comfortable position to sleep in, but propping up with pillows helps. It was a large incision so it needs time to heal – even though my impatient self thinks it’s time for it to stop hurting.

It feels like I’m on the right track now to have some good weeks before the upcoming chemo. One of the things I have to focus on is to not worry about the future. I am a worrier so it’s hard to change my mindset and I might need some help to get there. The first step is to live for the moment and be present here and now and not think too much about what might come next – but think about the future just enough to have some clear goals for the day.