Lake St Peter

I’m writing this from my BIL’s cottage in beautiful Lake St. Peter, Ontario.  We arrived yesterday and I had a great sleep last night.  It’s so quiet here, especially compared to NDG, where the city is busy changing pipes and road configurations on both our street and the adjoining street.  It’s been an unpleasant summer, partly due to the construction and partly the weather.  Anybody else notice an uptick in crappy weather this year?  Pretty sure I’m not the only one.  It’s hard to believe there are people who don’t believe in climate change.  At this point it’s like not believing in a round earth.  The evidence is almost as glaring it seems to me.  

I was not sure I was ready for the drive to the cottage yesterday so I ended up putting off the decision until the very last minute.  Finally we got away yesterday around noon.  Not too bad really, considering I didn’t do any packing until the morning of, which is not my style.  I usually linger over packing but not so much this time, so I ended up not packing enough t-shirts and forgetting Buster’s frisbee.  Oops!!  He lives in the moment, though, so he was over it immediately.   We found a tennis ball, which is a perfectly good substitute.  As long as he can run after things, that’s all that counts.  

Dave and Tyler (his brother) have gone out to pick blackberries.  It’s the season, and a banner season it is!  We also got lots of blueberries when we were here last.  I guess because of the plentiful rain, the berries have done really well.  I chose to stay behind and do some writing.  I guess I could have used the exercise, but I wasn’t feeling perky.  We’ll see what happens today.  I’ll try to take a walk later.  The physiotherapist I see once a month at the Cancer Adaptation Centre has told me it would be great to aim for 5000 steps a day. We’ll see!  Since the last chemo I don’t think I’ve hit that target once.  It’s crazy how tired it makes me.  I just don’t have the energy to take long walks or do a lot of things.  

Still no news from my CT scan.  It could be another week or two before I get any, even though I got the scan on the 14th.  I’m not sure whether they trickle in or they come in all at once, but it takes too long. It’s really hard to wait, I have to say.  It’s weird to live in limbo all the time.  Even if I didn’t have those results to wait for I’d still feel it.  Just living with a mortal disease makes me feel like I’m waiting constantly, looking behind me obsessively, and when there’s a test result to wait for things ratchet up a notch.  

Later, from home:

Because I finished 6 chemo treatments with this drug (Abraxane) I have an extra week off and possibly even two, depending on the results of the scan.  I hope I’ll get that extra week, which will make a full 4 weeks off at once, wow!  

 I’ve been having a rough time of it with quite a bit of pain, especially lately, plus very little energy, which explains my radio silence the past few weeks.  I don’t think I manage pain very easily.  I know some people who have lived with chronic pain for many years and I don’t really know how they manage for so long.  I suppose the only alternative would be suicide, and not many get that desperate, I guess.  

So, that’s all for now. I will keep posting as frequently as I can, but it won’t be terribly often!