Slogging it out, day by day

Things are still going well here at Mulligan towers, basically my health continues to improve and I have not caught any nasty bugs, the kids continue to expand their horizions with horses (jr) and singing (snr), and Lee is taking advantage of a full time home help (me) to move onward and upward with her business, which is actually looking quite good just now.

We had a funny conversation last night where Lee observed that I had not become depressed yet, apparently I am supposed to be depressed about now because I have not got my full health back and that I have not got a cast iron promise of an ongoing future. Its true that I have spent a lot of time summoning the energy to get out of a chair from time to time, just because I am puffed out, but the cause has not been depression as predicted by a lot of the folks who work with us "survivors". My reply was that I quite like my life, and so getting it back, even in this limited way is a hell of a lot better than Melfan chemo any day of the week, or dying, which was the alternative. So for me walking down the street to the gym is good, picking up a few ingredients on the way home for tea is good (stroganoff today), chatting to the kids about homework, what they will not eat for tea and what time they are going to bed at, is all good. Perhaps people who are depressed did not really think they were going to die, honestly when I had my relapse, and the consultant told me I had a 40% chance, I thought I was done for, thankfully I seem to have been wrong, and so each day is good, no space for depression.

I did get humiliated at the gym today however, I was on a ski machine beside some very cool looking babe, I felt good about keeping pace, more or less, with her on the machine - until I noticed that the heart rate monitor on my machine was reading a solid 145 while hers was reading 68, clearly I will never reach that level, but none the less it was a startling reminder of how much work I need to do to get fit. My gym and pool routine is now up to about 2 hours a day which I think is a good level, still at low resistance but that will crank up as I get fitter.

We had some friends around last night which was nice, so a late night, and a few glasses of red wine, knocked me out for today, I just managed to get up at lunch time, and get to the gym, in time for the kids coming home from school. No way I would have been out of bed at 7am for work so even though I am doing well, and feeling well, my stamina needs time to build up just as the doctors said. This is a strange feeling as my mind is just about as sharp as it was before, but my body overrules me all the time. I find myself in the chair at the kitchen table 15min after I have finished my lunch just thinking about what to do next. There is a big disconnect just now between mind and the body so when folks see me, and hence I make an effort, I seem fine and sound fine, but in the quiet times I am really still puffed out a lot of the time.

So steady exercise, and lots of rest inbetween, seems to be the formulae for success, I am determined to cycle to my next appointment with Dr Scott, which is a good way across the city, as a target for next Thursday. In the meantime we have a long weekend coming up as the kids and Lee have Monday off, so that could see the bikes come out for some family cycling as a way to get prepared for my run to the hospital later in the week.

Cheers

Gerry

PS for you cooks I discovered a french recipie for pork roast which involves steaming the roast over a stock of onions, garlic, shallots, carrots for 45 min and then finishing it in a hot oven for 25min which makes great juicy pork roast, not at all dry like my previous attempts!