Almost summer

It was a warm, sunny day today and I have to confess that my fun on the weekend is catching up with me as I’m feeling drained.  I fell asleep while watching a movie this afternoon with Don, who was very amused that I’d watched over an hour of a murder mystery and fell asleep when the murderer was identified and confronted and I still have no idea who it was because it was a live broadcast.  I think I’ll just record everything so I can rewind if things like this happen again!  Jerry seems to think that people are coming over, as he’s been sitting at alert and glaring at the door.  That’s increased by the fact that Don has been going on his computer more often, and that’s usually where the boys go when my nurse/support worker/lay minister/therapists are over to see me.  But no visitors today, and no amount of persuading convinced him.  Don was again feeling more energetic, and had some plans which involved him running errands on his own.  I’m always suspicious when he does that, as he comes home exhausted and gasping for breath, but at the same time I don’t want to just tie him to the house, so I just adjust my worry meter.

I think that I slept a bit better last night, although I know that I woke up a few times.  I fell back asleep fairly quickly, and then I got up even though I wanted to sleep more.  I’m trying to stick to a routine of a regular bedtime and wake up time, since that’s recommended by sleep “experts” as one of the ways to handle insomnia.  I’m still avoiding taking meds for sleep as I found that I’m too groggy the next day with the combination of the chemo meds and sleeping pills.  The chemo drugs do a good enough job of knocking me out.  I’ve got an early morning phone call with the healthcare coordinator to do my 6-month evaluation of the service that I receive (and potentially add a couple others)  Even after using these services for over 2 years, I’m still not completely certain of what’s allowed so I usually have a range of questions.  I do know that I’m protective of my support worker, so I don’t want to jeopardize getting her to attend to me.  I’ve gone through enough to know that she’s invaluable, so I’ll also make that fairly clear.

I learnt that today is supposedly “Vanilla Milkshake Day” which can be adapted to any flavour you might enjoy.  Part of my newly acquired knowledge added that milkshakes were considered a “health drink” when they were first introduced at the beginning of the last century.  It then led me to wonder about other health foods that have fallen out of favour.  Things like cornflakes, breakfast cereals, Coca Cola, cottage cheese, peach halves, celery, grapefruit or diet cola among a long list of others.  Remember when celery was touted as the “perfect diet food” that required “negative calories” to consume?  What about the on-again, off-again foods like beef, eggs, coconut, avocado, low fat, or dried fruit?  So many people have been made miserable by all these diet fads where whole categories of food were forbidden to ‘force’ rapid weight loss followed by the inevitable regaining of weight.  I wonder which of our current food trends/fads will be laughed at in 10 years?  In the last few decades or so we adopted and discarded juicing, egg white omelettes, and so on, although I still see them popping up from time to time, plus of course the floods of idiotic messages giving foolish and inaccurate information on eating.  (Sadly, I’ve lost my sense of humour where those are concerned)  

On the subject, though, of enjoyable foods, milkshakes — of many flavours— are excellent.  As is chocolate, with a high concentration of cacao, which allegedly has a long list of benefits, but I’m not interested in those, just that I really enjoy a good dark or semi-sweet chocolate.  Some things are high in calories but low in other nutrients so it’s probably wise to limit those.  I’m eagerly anticipating both my lobster and chocolate cake on Monday evening, so I’m practicing eating a bit more frequently (yay, taste!) so I can eat both.  I don’t plan on having any doggie bags, although I can probably assure that the lobster side dishes will not be consumed.  

It’s time for my pills, so off I go to swallow those and then to bed shortly after.  Jerry has decided that I’ve been left alone too long and is nagging me.  He’s about to get evicted for pressuring my arm, but he’s so sweet I can’t stay mad at him too long.  Good night!