Which is really good news. I’m feeling good, generally, recovering slowly where it comes to the hands and feet, but I can type, and I’m working.
I will say the whole cancer experience has been a trial—I went into it able to pass for late 40’s and come out of it looking like the model for Ilisidi, including occasional recourse to a formidable cane, on uneven ground or bad conditions—but I’m regaining my health, anyway. Hair is all white, skin is, well, it shows experience, say. I dropped 40 pounds in the whole business, and am still (purposely) losing weight, since I can, and want to. But fast weight loss means muscle loss, which I didn’t intend, and am trying to rebuild. I can walk 3/4 of a mile, and back, and then I’m done for the day. Lower back issues, yeah. And I can’t sign my name in the same style as before.
But way ahead of what’s in second place, friends. Feeling generally good, just quickly winded. But I’m triple vaccinated for Covid, far enough from chemo that I should have an immune system capable of responding to the vaccine, and I’m pushing what I can do physically to build back muscle. Gut surgery is a pita, where it comes to keeping you out of action for a while. But the PET scan found NO anomalous cellular activity, anywhere, and that is really really really good news. Get those scans and blood tests and colonoscopies, friends. I was on the early side of a breakout when they caught it. A few more months and I’d have been in far worse trouble.
The koi are settling to sleep for the winter, the winter cover is on—Maddy (a white butterfly koi) managed to get herself atop it in a small puddle until rescued: I used the pool net to depress the edge of the floating cover and let her back to the pond below…
The garden is all reds and yellows. The lotus has given up and is shriveling in the frosts, and the waterlilies have stopped blooming. Winter is coming. But we enjoy the snow and hope for a lot of it, since we don’t have to go anywhere, and can just tuck down and work and write.
I already had the white hair, but my skin is still recovering (it goes into peel-in-patches mode in early summer, every year, but each year it’s a little better). Mammograms are coming up normal, too.
I got the CT and PET scans before I *started* chemo; they’re an experience (and medically useful: some of the information is handy to have). I’m pretty sure it was trying to break out, but my system was still taking the loose cells out. (My question, after the tech was telling me what would happen with the scans, was “What’s the half-life?” – F-18, a little under 2 hours.)
Down here on the south end of the coast, it’s fall: cool nights, and days that are usually comfortably warm rather than hot…though today it only got to the mid-60s.
So glad your scan results were good news. I’m 4 years out from my diagnosis and have just noticed this year that my fingernails have finally returned to normal after chemo, and I only had to be on Taxol for 8 weeks. Even in that brief time I had some minor neuropathy that made using the computer for work that spring a little problematic.
I rather liked my chemo curls when my hair came back and the color was silvery, but it’s gone back to my normal brown/gray mixture.
We had a nice cool front come through this weekend and the temperature was down in the 40s this morning. Leaves are falling, and I’m thinking it’s time to take out the vegetable garden for the year.
ReadyGuy and I are so happy your recovery is happening apace. That’s such good news that your scans have come back negative. I’m due for my next colonoscopy this winter and I’m hoping I don’t have any more pre-cancerous polyps. My dad died of colon cancer so I and my doctors are keeping a sharp eye out for it. Now that I’ve also had a basal cell carcinoma, the handwriting is on the wall, but I’m not giving up or giving in… Isn’t it a sad commentary that most of the previous participants in ShejiCon have all had cancer in one form or another?
That is good news. My Dad also died of colon cancer, up in the transverse colon under the pancreas, not seen in his sigmoidoscopy, so I’ve been on a 5-year cycle of colonoscopies. All clean for 15 years, 4 procedures, but for one adenomatous polyp this last time. Two Mohs surgeries for BCC & SCC, ear and eyebrow. Thing is, nature didn’t intend for us to live so long! We’re expendable at this age.
Time for me to put IN my garden: hard-neck garlic. Raised 13# last yeat, 11# this year. I love garlic. But I never use too much in any dish. 😉
I’ve made two relevant observations over the years. 1) Count on it taking a full year to recover reasonably fully from any signifiicant surgery. 2) Alcoholism & smoking are really bad things to do for the skin. Besides too much sun/tanning, of course.
Welcome to the tribe of Silver Foxes! Having been a blonde, didn’t have to pass grey to get to white. Sharon Lee favors a purple rinse. I’ve thought about doing a blue one (trope joke).
That is such great news about your PET results. I get to have one in January. Unfortunately, I’m having a recurrence. Oncologist wants to see which tumors are growing, how many and where they are.
Nerves take time. I’m two years out from my knee replacement and I’m still getting nerves back from my knee surgeries. Vitamin B-complex-rich foods and time. Don’t give up hope.
Thanks for the garden pix. Your wisterias are gorgeous. We had an arcade here with them, which has since been extended into a full-fledged pergola. I’ll be interested to see what happens when it’s time for them to bloom. Those flaming maples! We don’t get fall colors here much except the oak trees turn a kind of ox-blood red and the color Bermuda grass turns when it dies in the fall which always reminds me of the winter grass in Wyeth’s paintings.
Oh dear, WOL. Hope that recurrence gets thoroughly trounced! Keep us updated as you feel comfortable doing, please.
My sis goes in for purple, but she’s done other colors. Having pale skin that freckles/burns, she looks spectacular in henna: very natural looking!
Had foot surgery as a kid, which left a patch where the sweat glands were Always On, and there was basically no feeling in the skin. Forty years later, the nerves connected up, the sweating stopped, and it’s normal again. (I didn’t think that would happen at all, so never expected it.)
Glad things are working out for you and Jane. I had my last ‘scope 3 years ago, due again in 2 more years. Brother has one tomorrow morning and I’m the chauffeur, so have to get up very early. Had to get up early this morning for physical therapy for my lower back, and this after an 800 mile trip to and from Tennessee over the weekend for a reunion of my second ship’s crew.
None of my trees have started dropping leaves in earnest, yet, the neighbor’s walnut tree has been dropping leaves for the past month. Mine will all drop pretty much by the end of October or the early part of November. I bought a new rake just for that reason, it’s bigger and lighter, and maybe will be more efficient. Of course, the kids across the street come over to help when they can, too. It gets them some ice cream, as long as their mom says it’s okay.
This is really good news.
This is great news, CJ! And the pics are lovely too.
I hope nobody minds if I go “skinny” from now on. Gravatar has locked the changing room away from my version of Firefox. So I figured to just be myself and not hide behind costumes. (Yahoo! broke its Finance site this weekend, and I had to download Mozilla’s Firefox binary until Yahoo! fixed what they broke. But Yahoo! did fix it, and Mozilla’s binary doesn’t work with the drivers I have for sound, etc., so it’s a tosser. But it occurred to me that first I could shuck the Legionare’s costume, it’s really drafty!)
IMPORTANT: There are two separate threads hanging off the image of CJ’s remodeled kitchen. Somebody should fix what’s wrong.
The pic links to the original thread, from 2017/2018. Not a WordPress problem.
Mark me as another person happy that people are recovering from their various oncology studies. My Dr. has started haranguing me about coming in for all the routine tests I had put off during COVID. None of the tests deal with known issues, being predictive or preventative in nature; I think my insurance is the main driver behind wanting me stabbed, swabbed, scraped or otherwise invasively checked out. Sigh. I guess I will start setting up tests over the next few months.
Congratulations on such good news! Hope you have a comfortable autumn and winter. The garden photo looks amazing. Much to enjoy but it looks like a lot of work to maintain. Don’t overdo it. The body takes a long time to bounce back.
So delighted to hear you got such good reports, CJ! So happy for you and Jane 🙂
Glad you are on the mend, both of you.
I got a phone call from my younger brother yesterday, he told me he’s been diagnosed with myelofibrosis, a rare form of bone marrow cancer. He’s been getting transfusions as his own red cell production has nose-dived. He needs a marrow transplant, and unfortunately, according to the information I’ve been able to glean, anyone over 55 is ineligible to donate, even close matches. None of my other brothers are young enough, either.
I’ve asked the marketing people at my local YMCA for help, since they usually sponsor blood drives a couple of times of year. This would be just a sidelight that they could add to their notifications.
Oh dear! Sorry to hear this, Joe.