Chemo Day 3: We're a Go

I just spoke to Mom and all her lab values were peachy keen, so all is well in the chemo world. She's beating herself up a bit because Dr. K had given her a homework assignment to be completed during her off week (last week): not one, but two 24 hour urine collections. One to be refrigerated, one non refrigerated and as far from her last treatment as possible. She got the first one done last week, but totally spaced this weekend and forgot to do the second. Blame it on the chemo brain!

She struggles with getting a good night's sleep, which is most likely due to how much she is trying to get accomplished during the day, and she's also complaining about her voracious appetite. She never feels satisfied, but is finally within the healthy limits her cardiologist suggested for her and she doesn't want to undo the one benefit of that miserable December.

It can be such a double-edged sword because on one hand it is amazing that she is finally feeling herself again, but on the other hand, this is the opportunity to make positive lifestyle modifications, and it's so much harder said than done!

She is toying with the idea of meeting with a certified dietician, and looking into the Benson Institute of Mind Body (I'd mentioned it a while back) to learn ways to reduce stress and help institute all those positive changes we all know we could benefit from.

Sometimes I worry that we've created a world in which we need bonified institutes that specialize in stress reduction. What are we doing to ourselves? Stress is actually recognized as a risk factor for cancer, modifiable no less! Moral of the story- take some time for yourself every day. Everything else can wait, but your health can't.

PS- Know what stresses me out? The fact that blogger.com has not had spell check for about a month now. It's a problem they claim to be fixing. It's not the broken spell check that stresses me out, so much as the fact that I can't spell to save my life (a sign of genius, I've been told). My younger sister is kind enough to point out the endless gramatical and spelling errors, but I refuse to not post for fear of being scrutinized for my imperfections. How's that for being zen?

Ommmmmmmm.