8 June 2023
Hoo! I kinda know what they mean when they say fatigue sets in. Yesterday morning, John had just dropped off a dish for dinner tomorrow night when I decided to crawl into bed and read a little. That was around 11:30 am and I waked at 1:30 pm. (Sorry, but I was taught by Mrs. Duncan in 9th grade English that the past tense of wake is waked. I know that goes against popular convention.) Again, because I fell asleep, I had missed one of my nausea pills so I took that immediately.
It was bulk trash day and as you may have seen in previous posts, I had a lot of bulk trash. They picked it up but when they do, they usually rake up the small stuff and take that too. This time, my yard and road in front of the house was scattered with the debris of the small stuff. I can’t stand that so I headed out and raked it up and got it semi-cleaned up. This was in the heat of the day. I was exhausted. All I want to do is get back into bed.
I didn’t want dinner so I had an Ensure (peach flavored) and went to bed at 6:30 pm. Twelve hours later, I got out of bed, had breakfast and did my morning walk. This morning was 1.5 miles. I was wiped out after the walk until I cooled off. Still have a little chem fog and have a little trouble reading small print but otherwise OK.
Unfortunately, the Imodium worked too well. I’ve gone two days without a significant bowel movement but made up the difference this morning in a big way. I guess the Imodium had to work its way through my system. Mother’s gift keeps on giving.
The nurse told me today would be the hard day but after my walk and after cooling down, I feel pretty good. I think yesterday was my nadir for this round on chemo. I realize the chemo is cumulative and as I go through five more sessions of the four drugs, it’ll be harder on me but for the first session, I feel that if I can sleep it off, I’ll be OK.
Summer has certainly arrived in south Florida. Temps drop to the high 70’s at night and we are in the mid-80’s during the day but what makes it difficult is the humidity. Currently, the temperature is 79°F but with the humidity at 85%, the “feels like” temp is 85°F.
I think back to my childhood and remember none of our schools had air conditioning. The school year in the south was eight months from September until May. You really didn’t want to keep kids in a classroom much past May. Another reason was a lot of kids were farm kids and had to go work the crops or chop cotton (the term chop means to hoe the weeds around the cotton plant).
The first a/c I remember was my grandmother on Mom’s side. She had a window unit on a small addition to the main house. You pretty much lived in that room all summer during the day. At night, she had a gigantic attic fan. You left the windows open for about three or four inches and the attic fan would pull air from outside, through the windows and up into the attic and out the vents in the attic. It kept you pretty cool at night.
I suspect young kids are a little more immune to the heat than adults and young adults a little more immune to heat than an old fart like me. Summer camps were in June-July and we never had a/c in the dining hall and we slept in tents in campgrounds and we seemed to have survived the heat. I couldn’t imagine trying that today. Give me a/c!
Stay tuned!
I am so glad that you seem to be feeling better today, but sorry to hear yesterday was so rough.
I remember Mrs Duncan far too well. Because she ended each word with uh, once a student about her accent. She replied that she had no accent; she just pronounced each word distinctly-uh.
The first a/c I remember was at your grandmother’s house, too. That room had the most amazing heater that you used to sit on in the winter.