Bits and Pieces

• Ah, the life of leisure! Even if I don't sleep well some nights, I have the luxury of sleeping in on other days. Today I slept until 9:15 (about 10 hours), and the day before yesterday I slept until 9:45! This offsets the nights when I wake up at 3:15 and go back to sleep at 5, and get awakened by a mistakenly set alarm at 6:50.

• I have cancelled all gym workouts until chemo ends and I begin to recover from it. This pains me. I adore my trainer, if you couldn't tell already, particularly because she can tailor workouts to what I need on that day. But I just don't have the energy reserves now. Some days, just making and eating breakfast sends me back to bed for a rest. So for now, I'll continue to rely on walking for my exercise. I am excited because after two days of really horrid, cold, windy, rainy weather, we have blue skies and a pleasant chill. I am hoping to walk over to the lake, which I haven't done in a while. I doubt I should do the whole 2-mile bridge-to-bridge loop, but ... well, once I get there you never know what foolish thing I will try. At least I know where all the benches are.

• I am rethinking my habit of leaving a glass of water by the bedside. You can't see her little pink tongue, but Umbra was indeed getting a drink.

• Here are two pictures of the "new" haircut that I promised weeks ago.

• You can see from the side picture that I was getting pretty thin even three weeks ago, and it's gotten worse. This week I started to wear hats and scarves. I still feel a little self-conscious with this new style, but I'll get used to it. It helps when people like the coordinator at the blood lab -- who continues to recognize me, even thusly disguised! -- compliment me on the way I've tied my scarf. Accessorizing has never come easily to me.

• We have discovered that missing just one dose of Coumadin sends me below the "safe" level that protects against blood clots. I might have to find a reliable way to ensure I've taken my daily meds. I know that having a routine helps offset my middle-aged, chemo fogged mind, so indeed I use a day-by-day pillbox and take my meds at a regular time. But sometimes I feel ill in the morning and postpone taking meds. (No good having them come right back up again!) And if all the compartments in the pillbox are empty, who knows if you took the morning's dose and now need to refill the box, or if you meant to do that yesterday and forgot? Hmm .... Well, this is the kind of problem I work on all the time in my teaching life, so I'm sure I'll come up with a system to try.