Olympian in cancer-treatment recovery

I've turned into a recovery athlete--my hamstrings were tight and sore when I got out of bed this morning!  Ha!  That's a new development that both cracked me up and provided reassurance that I'm on the right track.  I mean, I know that between the exercises and the protein I'm getting stronger every day, it's just that I'm so eager to BE strong.  My legs are still so very heavy, and I still have bouts of whole-body fatigue.  That's when I sit in my chair with a hot cup of decaf black tea and close my eyes.  Or I lay down for my nap.  Don't worry, I've still got this.  I'm listening to my body. 

On Thursday I decided to skip my lunch steroid, meaning that I'm now only taking 2 steroid pills each day, huzzah!  This was a difficult decision because I had had pretty comfortable brain pressure for two days, and it's really really hard to chose discomfort over comfort. I was worried that cutting a steroid would increase the brain pressure.  It did, and I still have an increased level of brain pressure compared to Wednesday, but I can do this and it's not as bad as it was weeks ago.  I toyed with adding half of a steroid pill at lunch yesterday because the pressure was bothering me greatly, but I didn't and I've stayed disciplined and kept off the lunch steroid.  Each day the the brain pressure is less (better) immediately after my workout and after yoga, so my body just needs a chance to do what it does best:  heal.  And it's all about balance, because getting off of the steroids will help with the external pressure in my head (my face is so swollen from the steroids that sometimes its hard to discern between brain-swelling pressure and face-swelling pressure), and with the digestion, and with my stiff joints.  The other steroid thing that happens is that apparently when you're taking high doses of steroids like I was, your body's adrenal glands quit making natural steroids.  So my adrenal glands need to start back up again, and that will happen gradually as my oral steroid dose decreases.  I can do this.    

Digestion is still great, huzzah!  My new diet it not that hard now that I'm used to it (lots of yummy peeled root vegetables (I added beets, and eggplant, and radish to my vegetable list, huzzah for diversity!!), peeled fruits, canned fruits, avocado, banana, cooked spinach, nuts, eggs, peanut butter, some dairy, white starches).  I've been doing a lot with this and having fun trying new things.  I adapted this spinach soup recipe for my diet.  I roasted the garlic and I used ~5 cloves, I skipped all vegetables except spinach and potato, I added a dash of onion powder and turmeric, and I finished the soup with a splash of soy sauce, for Umami.  Pretty tasty!  Next week I'm going to try making eggplant bacon, lol.  Cooking the eggplant in a smoky sauce and having a sandwich sounds good.  I might not worry about getting it quite so thin and crisp--seems like the nutrition would be gone from it.   

Other achievement:  I finished a book!  My mom, B, loaned me The Paris Wife, by Paula McClain, and it was just the escapist fiction I needed to help me relax into my nap.  I'm a big fan of Ernest Hemingway and I've read many of the novels that he wrote while in Paris after WWI. This book is historical fiction about their life in Paris together as he wrote his novels and they built and destroyed their marriage.  It was a fun and easy read.  Now I've started Alias Grace by Margaret Atwood and it is awesome so far.  Huzzah for gently turning on my brain!! 

Oil for my family.4:  Monday is the spouse's birthday, so today the girls and I baked a chocolate cake from scratch.  He chose chocolate, and A said "not too rich, though!", so that ruled out my all-time favorite flourless chocolate cake recipe and my second favorite brownie chocolate cake recipe.  Many of the chocolate cake recipes I've tried turn out dry, so we tried a chocolate-mayonnaise cake recipe from a cookbook my grandma gave to me.  The girls were super skeptical about the mayonnaise, but I'm 90% sure that it will yield a moist, chocolate cake.  It seemed to be moist when I took it out of the round cake pans earlier.  We're using a chocolate frosting recipe from a different cookbook and will finish the cake tomorrow.  

Bliss list item 13:  I co-lead my youngest's Girl Scout Troop when I'm well, and my co-leader made me a poster (it's almost as tall as E!) and had all of the girls sign it.  It is so darn precious!  Thank you so much, ladies!  You're very thoughtful and kind, and I miss you, too!  I love you, friend A!