Recovery Day 69 - Tingling Feet

At my visit with my radiation doctor this past week I brought up an issue that I thought was unrelated to the cancer treatment. My feet were tingling, kind of like they were falling asleep. I feel it more when I have shoes on but it is still present with just socks on. Unfortunately, I was told that this is likely a side affect of the chemotherapy and the medical term is neuropathy. It may or may not go away and it could also affect my fingers. I'm taking a B vitamin complex as well as vitamin E as directed by my doctor.

I worked my first full day on Friday. That worked out well because the client's department was having a Thanksgiving potluck lunch. There was a good selection of food I could actually eat. I still don't have much in the way of taste bud activity and my mouth continues to be rather dry.

Cathy told me that I'm now snoring. I didn't do that before cancer. I sure hope it goes away. When I go camping I declare the area around my tent a "Snore Free Zone". I really hope that I haven't become one of them. :)

I'm slowing ramping up my physical activity level. I helped assemble Thanksgiving baskets at church on Saturday and today I mounted the winter wheels/tires on Cathy's van. I think the tires gained weight while in storage. I don't remember them being that heavy.

Recovery Day 61 - Life Without The Tube

Most of my abdominal pains have gone away now that the tube is gone. I can now sleep on my left side as well as my stomach. I still find myself trying to move the tube out of the way when I tuck in my shirt. I'll be glad to get rid of that habit. I would like to start doing sit ups but I'll wait another 5 days like the surgeon recommended.

Since the tube came out I haven't been tracking my calorie intake. I suspect that my intake is a bit lower now but so far not down enough to cause a drop in my weight. Eating is still a time consuming chore and my taste buds haven't come back much. I have recently added canned grapefruit to my diet. The taste is muted but I can tell it is a bit sour/tart.

Before I went back to work I was concerned that I had lost some of my skills as well as my ability to concentrate on complicated problems. I am happy to say my fears were unfounded. I can still write complicated code that nobody else understands. I am consulting at a local school district helping them to come up with a data warehouse for their student data. The past two weeks I have been focusing on grades. We have come up with grade data (GPA, cumulative GPA, class rank, etc) that doesn't currently exist in their current system in a format that they can report off of. The data warehouse is going to be impressive.

Recovery Day 57 - No More Tube!

I had my stomach tube removed today! It was a very quick and painless procedure. Before they removed it they took a look with the ultrasound machine and apparently the end of the tube had slipped out of my stomach and into the lower bowel (I think that's what he said). That could explain some of the abdominal pain I've had. Anyhow, I had a big grin on my face as I walked out of the hospital.

I have a thick piece of gauze over the hole where the tube was. It will take a couple days for my stomach to close it off and there could be leakage. I was told to not drink large quantities of water in a short period of time. Perhaps if I drank a lot of water and did some sit ups I could make a fountain.

Over the past few days I have averaged 2,600 calories by mouth. Today I was off that mark because my stomach seems to be adjusting to the absence of the tube and was feeling a bit off.

I have been back to work for a week now and it's going well.

Recovery Day 50 - Good Progress

In general, I'm feeling pretty good. I'm eating at least 2,200 calories per day and pumping only two cans of formula at night. I only have six cans of formula left to use so the tube will be coming out soon. Meals are taking a bit less time and less water to get down and I'm eating a wider variety of food. I continue to walk about 3 miles at the mall on most days. I started back to work last Friday - mornings only for now. I'm pretty pooped and hungry by the time I get home. I drink a bottle of Ensure about half way through the morning.

I'm currently on Diflucan for Thrush. The Nystatin wasn't cutting it. The Diflucan seems to be doing the job.

I have some abdominal pains that I really hope are due to the stomach tube. My mouth is still dry four days after stopping use of the Nystatin. Hopefully that affect will wear off soon.

We had 20" of snow dropped on us last week. The kids had three snow days. Cathy said I was not allowed to shovel snow or use my snow blower. So I did both - but kept my activity to a minimum. The boys ran the snow blower on the driveway while I supervised. I probably would have done more work with the snow blower but it ran out of gasoline. It was good to get outside.