Not long until my lump is drained and maybe I can start living normally. I have managed work 3 days now, only 3 hours, but by the time I have pulled files out from one shelf or out of my desk drawers, entered info on the computer, turned this way and that for the printer then to file what I've done etc my stomach feels like, well Hell. I have worn some hipster jeans but after a while even they hurt, they sit just under the lump but now are forced down ward. Those men you see with big bellies and their jeans hanging six inches lower than their backside, well that's now me, and I hate it!
I have written a few articles on and off for various websites over the years, always to promote what Mesothelioma is like. Lately, I have had the privilege of being asked to write a few for MesotheliomaHelp which you can read by clicking here, they are similar to what I write on my own blog but not everyone with meso would ever find my blog let alone read it. But the site also has different people writing on certain subjects and sometimes a different view point can make all the difference to what you think to what you know. Why mention this, you are asking? Well having this fluid in my stomach has made me feel ill some days and ok others. I have gone on to lots of sites that detail ascities but not one says 'you may feel like' or 'if you feel like do this'. Mavis, the Google Queen in our group found me a discussion group, one that was for ovarian cancer, the thread was now closed, but what disappointed me was that Macmillan information or Cancer UK don't say the how you will feel in much detail. Yes they detail symptoms, but the symptoms are how to diagnose the disease not how to deal with it in a personal way.
Hubby has started the intense workout video's Insanity. These are all cardio vascular exercises to rid him of his over large stomach. He doesn't eat junk food but can devour a large packet of crisps in 5 minutes. He had food poisoning, am sure I mentioned this before, and then lost weight before gaining lots and blew up to nearly 15\16 stone. He lost a lot of that but his stomach has never gone and he blamed the poisoning for doing something to him. His tops are stretched to the maximum!
I have never nagged my hubby but on the last holiday I saw what hubby will morph into in another few years if he kept his crisps and over eating up. Finally he agreed to do something about it. I once told him that if he suddenly went on a diet and lost all his weight and toned up after I died I would come and haunt him. If he could do it to find a new wife he could damn well do it for his current one. I think I got through to him. So the menu plans have come out and even more healthy eating is currently taking place in our house hold. Problem for me is that I am still not eating enough. His stomach needs to shrink so instead of eating till he is full and bursting he is learning to eat until he is nearly full. Me I have a little food and feel stuffed, example tonight one piece of broccoli, 2 oz filled steak and 2 new small potatoes, a few thin slices of mushrooms. The dogs got a potato between them. I have also consumed today 2 thin wafers and half a pork roll, yes the dogs got the other half.
I don't want that fight I had in 2011 where I had to gain weight because I had dropped so much. It isn't easy for me to eat a lot, that's why I didn't think I had middle age spread. I knew I was eating a lot of liquorice and thought that was what caused my small bump at the front, now I know it was fluid slowly building up.
On chemotherapy you don't really want to eat, either due to nausea, sore mouth, sore oesophagus or loss of appetite. Your stomach shrinks and although it is something that can grow and stretch, hence we get fat because we overstretch it by overeating, it is hard when it has become use to eating very little. Not eating enough makes us lethargic and down, but it also does other damage, our organs aren't receiving the nutrients they need to fight off illness or keep our organs healthy.
Taking the water tablets as well I have also noticed how thin the rest of my body is going, like your insides are being sucked dry. My skin isn't as radiant, ok I know I am old but my skin has always been soft, now it feels hard and dry. It seems they are draining me of fluid but not from the right spot! Which brings me to any other worry, once the lump goes (maybe I should give it a name?) and I am to stay on the tablets will my insides keep getting sucked dry?
Wow I've written an essay not a blog. So where do I end this blog, if you aren't eating enough ensure you take vitamins (something I mean to do everyday but forget!), eat small and often (not always easy to do) but these are essential to us. Instead of fighting this battle of food alone try and get the family involved too. Work on menu's that if you don't eat a lot you are getting some of the 5 inside of you. Veg and fruit are a must, carbs and protein are important. 500 Calories can be made up of healthy and filling food without the plate looking overloaded but a good meal to feed each part of your body.
There are many people currently fighting this cancer, the treatments are giving them so many problems but they are battling on. At healing today I asked for a rainbow of healing to fill each and every one of us, whether you believe or not there is no harm in asking for healing in your mind... you never know a couple of those pains might just disappear.
On that note I bid you all good night.
