Truth

This time, I'm going to get the complaining out of the way and end with the positive stuff, to try and lift my own spirits.

I am miserable.  My guts are not functioning properly.  Dr. Oncologist is baffled by my complete lack of diarrhea.  I am having the opposite problem:  my small intestine is failing to send food down into my colon.  She thinks that it is because of the steroids.  I think its just everything--drugs, radiation, less exercise than usual, recovering from ileus.  Suffice it to say that regardless of the reason, I have had scant scat in my colon alllllll week.  Allllll weeeeeeeekkkkkk.  My belly is bloated and distended, but I've had x-rays both Friday and today, neither of which showed signs of an ileus blockage again (thank goodness!) so I'm just at home, full of bloat and food in my small intestine with apparently nothing to worry about.  Just an incredibly full belly and an empty colon, NBD.  Sigh.   

Over the weekend Dr. Oncologist prescribed a partial colonoscopy prep to get things moving (entire bottle of miralax and two other pills), and that helped a little bit.  I did not give birth to a big satisfying food baby (this is in contrast to last weekend, in the hospital, when I resolved the ileus with an enormous food baby--forgot to mention that at the time), but this weekend's treatment did get things moving for me, and I am grateful for the small relief from that.  Further relief is continuous, to be sure.  I have to keep being patient.      

So, what am I doing to help myself???  I need to increase my small intestinal peristalsis.  The doctors and nurses have given no advice on what to eat or do to achieve this (I'm setting up an appointment with a dietician for Friday).  A few days ago I switched to a mostly liquid diet to see if that would help.  I've had fruit and vegetable smoothies, broth, soup, and lots of gatorade and juice and water water water.  Then, after breakfast, I lay on the floor, on my back, in shavasana pose and practice pranayama breathing.  Shavasana is great for stimulating the parasympathetic nervous system  , as is humming during pranayama breathing, so this is my way of trying to let my body figure shit out on its own, literally.  

I also spend a lot of time with a heating pack on my tummy, to keep things relaxed in there.  

After I digest breakfast for an hour or so, I exercise.  On Saturday the family went on a beautiful 1-mile walk at a nearby walking path.  The sun was out, it was unseasonably warm, the brother and his wife were here, my youngest raced her new auntie continuously, "first one across the crack wins!", my oldest used her roller blades that she got for xmas, and Thor sniffed everything.  It was wonderful!

After exercise I force down a bit of lunch so that I can take my steroids.  I had a small set-back with the steroid step-down--if I take fewer than 16 mgs per day, I feel like my head is going to explode.  So, I was at 24 mgs per day at my peak 'roid dosage, they stepped me down to 8 mgs per day in the hospital (WOA!  way to fast of a step down!!!), and now I'm holding at 16.  I have quite a bit of brain pressure even at 16 mgs per day so I'm not yet ready for the next step down.  My brain is SO full.  I'm sure that my poor gut functions are not helping me to heal my brain, but I'm trying not to worry about it.  I'm trying to have peace and let my body do what it needs to do. 

I take my after-lunch shavasana and pranayama in bed.  I sleep for about 3 hours.  This is very nice and restorative. 

This brings us to family time!  The girls play games with me or we just hang out, and I eat dinner with the family and we do normal things.  Tonight was laundry-sorting night.  The girls threw their clean clothes around the living room into the appropriate baskets.  A good time was had by all. 

After dinner I lay on the floor of the living room, in shavasana, and once I feel sufficiently digested this turns into my daily yoga practice.  This is the best I feel all day long.  I hug each knee in separately, I let each knee fall to the side separately, and I do thread the needle pose with each leg.  I do bridge pose as many times as I can (usually three times, holding for one breath each time).  Then I do supported twist pose FOREVER.  Then I do cat/cow a couple of times.  The hardest thing is down dog, but I get up into it every day.  I try to hold for a minute, but I don't time it.  Then I do forward fold for a long time and slowly roll up into mountain pose.  That's about all I can handle, I'm so dang weak and tired, guys.  So weak and tired!!!!

My brother likes to remind me that this isn't chemo.  He's right, this isn't chemo.  It's its own thing.  I don't know what it is, but I don't like it, and quite frankly I'm a little sick of it.  BUT...I have peace.  I am peace.  I have strength, I am strength.  I have hope, I am hope.  And I have the ability to rest.  And a new line for the time being:  I have the ability to pass food through my guts!!!!

A part of me can't help but acknowledge that there's a little bit of karma going on here.  In my professional life I study swine gut bacterial communities, and occasionally to address our biological questions we dissect pigs and takes samples from their intestines.  I have personally sampled hundreds of piggie intestines, lovingly scraping gut microbes off of the mucosal lining.  One of the locations I've sampled the most is the ileal-cecal junction, which is a place in the gut that separates the small intestine from the large intestine and I feel is functioning terribly poorly in my body right now.  Alllll of those cute little piggies are laughing at me.  All of them. 

I have some items to continue with the Bliss List!

6.  This song right now.  Oh my goodness.  It's much more convenient for you to hear the song via a YouTube link, but I also recommend that NPR has a tiny desk concert of this song that is absolutely fabulous.

7.  My boss, C.

Last week she came to my house for lunch, and put my mind at ease about so many things that were bothering me.  She is full of kindness, and compassion, and practicality, and helpfulness.  She reassured me that my only job right now is to heal, and that the work will be there for me when I'm ready for it.  I know this, but I can't tell you how invaluable it is to hear it reiterated by ones own boss, especially since my healing is taking waaaaaaaayyyyyy longer than I anticipated.  Thank you for everything you're doing for me, C.  I love you so, so much, both as a friend and as a boss.   

8. My brother and his wife, A.

They flew out from Seattle for the weekend and treated my family to so much bliss!  They rented a hotel room and took the kids swimming, they played games, they grew crystals from a crystal-growing kit (and it's WORKING!  Best crystal-growing experiment ever conducted in this house), they got groceries, they bought me a Ninja blender to help with my new dietary issues, they took the old blender away, they cleaned my kitchen soooo well, they brought me to the doctor today, they took me on walks.  It was so, so wonderful to have you here.  I love you both so much.  More than I was able to convey today.  I can't wait to feel better and spend a different kind of quality time with you in the near future.  

9. My high school biology teacher, SS.  

I have treasured both the hat and the note.  I reread your letter nearly daily, dear.  Thank you so, so much for the words.  And the hat is darling!  I especially love the perfect button.  You have excellent hat-making skills. 

10.  My brother's new mother, L.

The painting has brought me so much peace!  It's beautiful, and I am in awe of your talents.  The girls love the paints so so much.  Thank you so much for your thoughtfulness. And it was such a beautiful parcel to open.