Changes Continue

The saga of phase 2 and a self discovery continues.

This is not been all that good a day. That’s a shame, because it’s really been a good week, almost 2 weeks. I’ve been more active. Nothing like back to baseline, but more active. In fact, I had had several days in a row where I thought I was doing pretty well and Karen thought I was doing pretty well.

Which is why it was really disappointing when I got up this morning and wasn’t going to make it to church. I prepared to last night. I hoped to this morning. And 10 minutes trying to help out with getting some exercise for Angel just took it all out of me. I might’ve been strong enough to drive to church. I would not have functioned well there. Since I’m really the music leader in this small congregation, it would not have been missed. So, close to tears, I admitted I wasn’t going to make it to church.

This is still part of adjusting and understanding what I am and am not sufficiently resilient to do. When I feel good, I can walk with Karen and the dog or I can garden or I can cook. The thing is, after any one of those things I am washed out. I enjoy each accomplishment, and I want to do them again, and so far on a good day I may get two or three things in. And today, I couldn’t get to church.

Not that I was left out. I went to YouTube and found multiple churches live streaming. If I’m not going to make communion, I like to listen to the lessons and at least one, and maybe two sermons. Today I heard two, and I enjoyed both of them. I’m disappointed not to receive communion, but it is only by God‘s grace that we receive grace in communion, and I pray to receive grace without the elements, as if I have been there. It’s not what I want, but it sustains.

So I adjust to small changes. As I think I wrote last time, food still tastes good, but things have changed. I’m discovering that I prefer tangy to creamy. I’m not snacking, at least not in the way I used to. That’s part of the reason, I think, I’ve lost 20 pounds. I have long been someone who ate when he was bored, and who felt the need to eat on the schedule, even if he wasn’t terribly hungry. I’ve always been prepared to eat, even when I didn’t need to eat.

Now, I actually get hungry. With the additional 20 pounds lost, I seem to have lost some body fat and I’m not buffered, as it were. That’s not a big deal when I feel like cooking. For a variety of reasons, we seem to have been eating out less, and if I feel like cooking or dipping into the freezer for meals, I prepared last winter or spring, it’s not too hard. But for the first time in a long time, I look at the refrigerator and I don’t see opportunities to play. That’s what cooking is to me, playing in the kitchen. so I’m learning about this, too.

I do have somewhere to take this. There is a support group specific to Prostate Cancer here in Crossville. Everybody in the group is more evangelical than I am, but so far that hasn’t been an issue. I haven’t given them reason to throw me out just yet. And they give me reason to hope. We have different types of treatment, and we have different places we are on the journey, and some of them have been at this for more than a decade. The thought of more than a decade right now is a pretty exciting thought. I’ve been twice, and it’s going to be a part of my weekly routine.

This is still self discovery and self reflection. A good week, even two good weeks, give a great perspective. Every thing I do that looks like something I did before I started treatment is an accomplishment, and if it takes me more to recover than it used to, well, there I am. Karen, bless her, still tells me I’m handsome. I tell her I’m glad she thinks so because she’s the only one who’s opinion counts. I’m in a good place. I have a good people. And at the end of a day that wasn’t so good, I have every reason to look forward to a good day tomorrow as the start of a good week.