Moving Me (not my blood clots)

Moving Days
I mentioned earlier that moving was also on my plate for this week. It has happened. In fact, it's the bulk of what's happened in the past few days. Being sick humbles you in a lot of ways - going to the store in slow-walking-often-resting-using-the-cart-for-support mode, being dependent on having someone stay with you most of the time, and now having all of my earthly possessions gone through, packed, moved, and unpacked by others while I literally sit in an easy chair. My initial plan was to move to a duplex I'd leased with a relatively new friend, but found myself led to accept an offer to stay this first while in a casita belonging to a family from church. Thus, the past two days have found me watching other people first move all of my stuff to the duplex, where the furniture and furnishings would stay, then go through and re-pack the things to come with me to the casita, move them, and unpack them into place. I feel like this blog space could easily become a long long list of people I'm grateful for (which would include everyone reading this), but today a special thank you to Matt, Scott, Alene, Jeanne, and Mary Beth for all of their sweat and wisdom, and to Erik, Leanne, Josh, and Allyson for the willing loan of their beautiful casita.

The Report from the Health Department
I remember having a thought, probably Monday of this past week (before I ended up at the hospital), that went something like this: "Man, I guess this blog will get kind of dull just describing my health . . . tired, nauseated, tired, nauseated, feeling better, lather rinse repeat. I guess I'll have to start coming up with Deep Reflections On Having Cancer to keep people entertained." I wish that were the case (though if I'm struck with any Deep Reflections, I promise to share). Here's the report on Margaret's bodily functions:

Thursday I felt well all day. I didn't even nap. Right after supper, I started getting this weird pain in my side, on the left, towards the back, like by my rib cage. Like muscle spasms almost, that was sort of correlated with my breathing. It started as discomfort, but grew to around a 6 on the 0-being-no-pain-10-being-the-worst-pain scale. Not only did it hurt really bad, but it was kind of by my lungs, you know, the ones with the pulmonary embolisms. I was worried, so I called my oncologist and, while waiting for him to call me back (it being after hours), almost decided to leave for the ER anyway. But the doctor was totally confident it wasn't dangerous. "You're on chemotherapy," he said, "You're going to be uncomfortable," and told me to take drugs. So I did, and after a while my pain grew less, and by laying in a certain position I could eventually almost make it go away. It still hasn't entirely, and there's only one way for me to lay down, but I'm no longer worried about it.

Sleeping at night has also gotten to be a problem, as night seems to be when my nausea comes on more forcefully. Thursday I woke up a number of times to go to the bathroom and take various meds to soothe my stomach, but last night I slept really poorly, with a severely distressed tummy that did not seem responsive to the usual drugs. I was able to nap some this morning, and have been feeling fairly well today, a low-level nausea that allows me to be hungry and to eat.

As always, here's hoping.