These 32-Hour Weeks Are Killing Me!

Well, I've reached the end of my first week of work after chemo. It was pretty gruelling, I have to say, but it got a little better with each passing day. Monday was dreadful, Tuesday was kind of dreadful, Wednesday was merely difficult, and today was only interminable. Tomorrow is a normal day off where I work. I was thinking about working tomorrow just to accumulate some hours, but I think I've changed my mind. Though I'm stronger and fitter now than I was at the start of the week, I also think it's important to rest and not overdo things.

I'm continuing to improve. My leg is lots better than it was. It isn't quite back to normal, but it won't be long, and I find that I can do just about anything I need to without too much difficulty. If I have to get out of a chair many times in a row my leg starts to tire out, but things like driving, walking and getting dressed don't bother it any more. My oncologist is quite pleased with the swiftness of my body's response to chemotherapy, and believe me, it doesn't delight anyone more than me.

My only complaint (for today) is that I've developed a few sores in my mouth, which can happen. Compared to what I've been through in the last month or so they hardly qualify as uncomfortable, but they do make it difficult to eat tortilla chips, Cap'n Crunch cereal or certain species of hard candy (I really love those Valentine's Day hearts made by Necco, the ones with the little slogans like "Do me!" (not really) stamped on them, but they seem to drive my mouth sores nuts. They may be why I have mouth sores in the first place).

Today I feel almost normal, for the first time in months. My leg is almost normal. I have almost no chemo side-effects going on. My tumors are all shrunken to the point that they don't impact my daily activities. I feel... normal. And it's good.

So normal that I'm strongly inclined to work on a model. This isn't a particularly world-shaking announcement in the greater scheme of things, but it's a pretty powerful indicator of how good I feel, because I always seem to give up model-building the minute I start to feel bad. My main difficulty now is that I have about eleven different models in various stages of construction and I can't decide which one(s) I should make progress on. Should it be the S7-class torpedo boat? Or the Wells-Fargo stagecoach with four-horse team? Or the SA-2 antiaircraft missile?

It's good to finally have to confront a nice inconsequential problem like what model I want to work on. Personally, I'm sick of confronting much more serious problems, and I'm sure everyone else is too.