Chondrosarcoma – ah shit, bob's sick

Finally a Three-Day Weekend!

Well I was really looking forward to this weekend! Three whole days off from everything … no work, no nothing. I figured I could finally get a few things done around the house, maybe a little work on the website, oh and maybe even work on my Cancer Tracker a little. Alberic wasn’t here this weekend so I usually take advantage of that time and get as much done as possible. Instead, somehow I managed to sleep the whole weekend away! Oh well, guess I needed it … sure feeling well now though!

Damn, Just What I Needed!

Truth be told, my weekend didn’t really start off sleeping like that … it started like this. I had gotten home from work a little early on Friday and thought I’d try and get to bed a bit early so that I could start my weekend off trying to do some of these little things I’ve been trying to do. With three days off in a row I figured I’d get some things done and some rest too … right? That balance that I struggle to keep going without reaching exhaustion isn’t always easy to find.

I got up early Saturday morning feeling pretty energetic and decided I’d cut some of the lawn (hopefully for the last time this year), so I went out into the barn and started the tractor. Now, anytime I plan to do something like this these days (but this I mean physical work), I take a dose of medicine before I start. The idea behind this is that I know I’ll be sore and hurting later … so I put the meds to work right away. Even though it’s strong stuff and does affect your judgment ( I never drive and take this stuff), doing little things around the house always seems to go OK. I may work a little slower, but that’s OK … I simply take my time and get the job done.

Sher wanted to run to store and grab some items for dinner and said she’d be back in a few minutes. So it left the dog, cats, and myself at home. Now you have to understand that our dog is really attached to Sher, she literally freaks out every time Sher leaves the house. She doesn’t go totally crazy, but she cries and whimpers while she waits for Sher to return.

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Seemed so quiet around the house today. It’s been a long time since I’ve spent any time alone at home. Sher has gone South to see relatives for a few days and Alberic has headed off to Summer Camp for a week. So it’s me, two cats, and a dog for the next few days! You heard right … I’m fending for myself and doing damn well at it too .

So what did I do with all this time on my hands? Well, today’s weather was just the perfect Vermont summer day. There’s a wonderful breeze, about seventy-five to eighty degrees and just simply lovely. What a day to be alive! I decided I’d take a short walk through our woods and check things out.

I haven’t walked our property very much this past year and with no one around I could take my time, move at my own pace, and rest whenever I wanted to. Not that others rush me, but I always feel obliged to try and keep up with others and not slow the pace too much.
For those that walk through the woods now and then, you know the forest and streams are always changing. They grow and the stream change shape with new twists and turns. New trees and plants pop up, and you can usually see the tracks of deer and moose and others that pass through in search of food, water and refuge.

I love walking the forest and the peace of mind that comes from spending time there. I mean just think about the word forest … “for-rest” … need I say more? I always feel like I can think clearer after a walk, I’m more in touch with myself, my emotions, and it always increases creative thought. After walking through the woods I always want to spend the rest of my day writing, painting or playing music. For me, it’s the biggest “turn on” when it comes to creativity and keeping that edge sharp.

Today I took my camera and walked the trails I’ve cut and maintained over the years. The ponds and streams were full of fish, frogs and others, splashing as I walked by as if to say “come join us”. One section of the trail follows the stream a distance and it was simply incredible to see all the life in the water. That’s one of the great things about having ponds and stream to walk … everything in the forest comes for water, so it’s always lively. I crossed a deer run and saw those fresh little “rasinettes” as evidence that they’d recently traveled through on their way to drink.

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I felt like cooking this evening, besides wanting to give Sher a break (she’s been doing a lot of the cooking lately), I felt like something different, what I call “adult” food. Sometimes after cooking and eating simple meals (especially when Alberic is around), I tend to crave something different. Besides, we all too often fall into the habit of cooking and eating the same few dishes. Same can be said for eating out. But every now and then I’ve got to have that “something different” taste. Tonight was one of those nights.

I ran down to our local butcher shop and bought two boneless pork chops, stopped at the farm stand and grabbed some wonderfully fresh picked sweet corn. That is one thing I have to say about Vermont, during the season when fresh corn is available, Vermont has some of the best sweetest corn money can buy.

I picked up a few more things and made my way back to the house.

Prep in the afternoon: Now this may sound like a complex recipe but actually it’s rather simple and doesn’t require much time to prepare and almost no time to cook. Of course that’s one of the great things about most Asian cooking styles, they cook quickly … which in turn, if your food is fresh and healthy, you end up with a fresh, delicious, healthy meal with limited effort.
So prior to cooking anything, I took the time to prepare all the veggies for stir-frying. The prep, is key for this type of cooking.

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One of the things I’ve been working on … you know, one of my side projects (with all the spare time I have these days), is designing a database to capture and track the flow (ebb and tide, rise and fall), of emotional changes during an on-going bout with a cancer like I have.

My interest in this has become intense over the last several weeks because I really believe this is something a person cannot see on their own, and because of that, it’s almost impossible to work on, or improve your emotion health … or for that matter, simply understanding it.

Your emotional well being at a time when something like cancer strikes, is as important as the treatment the doctors are giving you … I believe that. But it’s hard to track what’s going on over a period of time without the ability to look back and see how things are changing.

By mining the data that’s recorded in the database, patterns can appear that are effecting your emotional well being without you ever realizing it. Sleep patterns, depression patterns, stress, can all be seen in a graph. Laid out so you can see what days and times certain emotions are running high, is an important factor in trying to control and understand how your feeling during cancer.

Although I’m not a big believer in the positive attitude thing (a positive attitude will heal you), I am a big believer in having the knowledge and understanding about where things stand and what areas I could improve upon, leading me to a better life quality. The idea of avoiding a stressful thing for example, could lead me to a better day in general … and that’s what I’m looking for.

For example, if I were to find that every Tuesday afternoon was a stressful time for me, it’s gives me something to investigate and hopefully work on reducing that stress.

In a real-life case, I found that one of my medicines worked much, much better, if I took it an hour or more earlier then I had been. The medicine was effecting my appetite in a way that interfered with my family’s meal time. The time I was taking the medicine and the time that we had always had dinner, were in conflict with each other.

Every time I sat down to eat dinner, even if I had just cooked it myself, I just couldn’t eat. If I waited an hour or so longer, my appetite returned. But this effected the rest of the family. Seeing this pattern, helped me adjust a lot of stress out of our household. Being ill is no fun for anyone including your loved ones around you … so any adjustments you can make that can help that, is good for the entire household and your health as well.

The program has a purpose, and a powerful one at that. In the near future I will be revealing parts of this program for you see how it works in real life. The key here is “ask the right questions and you’ll get the right answers” …. More to come about this.

So why did I name this post “The Art of Emotional Health”? Well, besides tracking our emotional health in a database, there are others ways of adjusting and helping our emotional health that have nothing to do with databases, computers or writing software, or anything of that nature.

A friend sent me some recent photos of abstract paintings that I thought I’d share with you. As in looking at any piece of art, and especially abstract art, the artist’s meaning is often not known. Abstract art can be seen by a thousand people and have a thousand interpretations. So we have to say, that the artist’s intent, is as real as is commonly accepted, even if we can’t see or feel it.

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It’s nice to know I’m not alone in my battle with cancer, and yep … some have it even worse then i do … I mean that.