Had some good food fun this week. Cooked some inventive yummy things. So I've managed to keep on my feet a bit and keep my body and mind occupied. I've made mini choco muffins, some with frangelico cream and others with rum cream. I made cheese polenta cakes with a beetroot reduction and poached eggs and stuff, umm, a yummy improvised pasta and today french toast cups! Savoury with eggs and bacon and sour cream, sweet ones with caramelised apple and frangelico syrup'd strawberries and whipped cream! Pretty excellent actually. Good to keep busy, especially the day before chemo. Also good to eat well the day before chemo, since you dont know for sure when the next time you eat well/enjoy eating will be.
Fatigue has been the major battle this week. Though my platelets were actually improving on their own (yay, bone marrow working again!!) for a few days before last weeks chemo kicked in, my haemoglobin got fairly low, probably contributing a lot to the exhaustion. Had a pretty low day sunday where I only really left my bed for a brief hospital trip for a cross match for my transfusion wednesday. Just one of those days you have no energy and everything makes you cry, so you spend it dozing and watching the big bang theory and the real l word.
The must irritating part of my being so tired so much is that I can barley read. The most I can get through is a chapter, and that takes a lot time because I fall asleep while reading them so often. At least it means the series is lasting a long time. But it'd be nice to finish some day so I could read some of the other books on my rather extensive list.
I've been sorer again this week. I dont think I've had any hydromorph breakthroughs, though I've been taking panadol most days. Which is enough, as it amplifies the effects of opiates which I'm already on.
The pains are primarily in my right shoulder surgery site my back in various places (tumour sites largely I think. Dont know what it means) and my hips. I'm not really sure if the hip sites are the tops of the femurs where the rods were inserted (I think. Maybe I should have asked more questions about the details of the procedure. Maybe not. I dont really like visualising it to be honest. Especially the idea of them hammering/tapping the rods down into my bones. That kinda freaks me out actually) or if its from the increase in movement and weight bearing, or new sites to worry about.
Still so many question marks. I'll be having an xray of my torso soon though, so that should tell us how things are progressing. If perhaps the tumours are going from not growing because of the chemo, to shrinking because of the chemo. That'd be, you know, pretty nifty. I'm feeling pretty good though tonight, which bodes well for tomorrow, which shouldn't be a long day anyway. Fingers crossed that once again I avoid a horrible day after and can just spend it feeling exhausted. I've been out of hospital for what must be over a month now I think. God I hope I can keep it up.
Katie - I posted back here because this is the page that gave me the idea for you. Elsewhere you have posted that you wished you had something else to keep you occupied but that you're so tired most of the time you couldn't really commit to much. AND given your enjoyment of cooking plus how good you seem to be (by the way I tried to make those French Toast Cups - tasted okay but did not look anywhere as good as yours) HERE is my idea. What about a blog (normal web or Tumblr??) called something like COOKING WITH CHEMO (or COOKING FOR CHEMO or something better!!)
ReplyDeleteYou could have sections like:
* Food to cook to keep your mind off stuff/keep busy
* Food to cook to give you energy and strength before chemo
* Food to cook after chemo when you feel sick or tired
* Food to cheer you up
* Food other people can cook for you when you're too exhausted
* Comfort food
And any other ideas you come up with.
From the photos I've seen so far you are pretty good - so you could take photos of your own food to go with the recipes. Recipes could be your own made up ones or ones from other books - but you could post how you've varied it.
In my quick google search I saw a few blogs with an article or two about this - but not a whole blog devoted to the topic. Given you've been doing the chemo thing for more than a year now you're probably pretty expert in what foods help and what doesn't. Plus you seem to enjoy cooking. Plus you seem to be pretty good at. Plus its something you can potter away on when you feel like it and if you don't then its not an urgent thing like a course would be.
Anyway - the idea just came to me the other day - just an idea - so use it or not :)
Either way hope you continue to find things to do that you enjoy in between doctors, hospitals, chemo etc etc etc. Thinking of you :)
Penny