Hi Gang

and a Happy Superbowl Day to you! I'm hardly what you would call a "football fan," in fact, I'm not a fan at all. But I know some of you are going to be watching the big game today and attending parties...so have a wonderful time! I will probably be switching back and forth from the FOOD CHANNEL just to check in on the Superbowl commercials. If I am lucky, there will be a marathon of baking shows. So much for my interest in the game.

I haven't blogged for about a week, so I thought I had better check in. Things have been going fairly well and that is a good thing. I've only had a few "bad" days and I just deal with them as they come. It's usually for a short amount of time that I feel lousy, and I just let it run its course . (so if you call me and I don't answer...I'm not avoiding you..I'm just "sleeping it off.")

I'm continuing to receive physical therapy about twice a week for my arm and shoulder. It is helping tremendously! Marilyn, my physical therapist is just wonderful, and when I don't see her, I'm at home trying my best to do my exercises. My left arm is not as swollen anymore thanks to the miracle of drugs! (Repeat after me, "CHEMO IS A VERY GOOD THING!" However, my arm is extremely weak and I am also doing strengthening exercises with Marilyn.
Last week I actually hit myself in the nose. (nooo not on purpose!) Ok, picture this...Me, on my back on the. P.T. table. Marilyn standing to my left, holding my left arm up at a 90 degree angle.
(any of my students that are reading this...you KNOW what that angle looks like because I taught it to you) She is supporting my arm somewhere between my shoulder and elbow (not really sure because I don't have much feeling up there) with one hand and her other hand is holding the lower part of my arm near the wrist. She let go of my wrist and asked me to "hold it." I did. For about five seconds. Before either of us knew it, my lower arm flopped over like a dead fish and it landed right on my nose! OUCH! (lol I told you it was weak) Both of us were so surprised and we burst out laughing. There's not much humor in physical therapy, but this definitely qualified as humorous. (I might not have called it funny if I had given myself a bloody nose...yeah..I probably would still be laughing) Anyway, you now see the need for strengthening my lower arm. I'm sure you're asking yourself about now why it is weak. Well, let's just use the old "domino effect" theory because that's what it is. The cancer cause enlarged lymph nodes, the lymph nodes that I have left were working over time to handle lymph fluid movement, they couldn't handle it anymore so lymph fluid didn't move, hence swelling in arm from fluid, fluid build up affects muscles and surrounding tissue, affected muscle movement causes your arm to flop like a dead fish and you nearly give yourself a bloody nose. Get the picture? Honestly, it IS getting better little by little, and I am working hard to get back to normal. I have a feeling however, that my old "normal" is not going to be my "new" normal, but that's ok. There are worse things to have than a gimpy arm, as we all know.

On the horizon for me will be chemo #5, one week from this Tuesday, # 6, three weeks after that, followed by another scan. But, let's not get too ahead of ourselves. I also want to tell you about a new B.C. support group that I've been attending, but that will have to be for another post. I've also been reading (so what else is new) a FABULOUS book called Anticancer that is a real eye opener, and one I think that everyone should read. I'll tell you more about that as well.

So have a SUPER Superbowl day, and as always, thanks for checking in on me! :)

xox
Joanne