• I still have not lost any hair (no more than normal, that is). Nancy gave me a fine haircut that makes me feel great to have once again left “The 1960’s”
• I haven’t missed any days of work (besides surgery day on March 25 and that first Monday [due to nausea, et cetera] following Round 1 of chemo).
• I sorely dislike the sensitivity to cold temperatures, which prevents me from consuming anything refreshingly cold for about a week following each round of chemo.
• I equally dislike the hiccoughs that last from "Chemo Day Fridays" through the following Monday (when the hiccough-causing infused anti-emetic wears off). The peanut-butter remedy seems to have lost it efficacy, but I’ve found a better, virtually instant anti-hiccough remedy: I plug my ears and nose with my pointer and pinky fingers of each hand, then, through a straw, take a couple of gulps of liquid…Voilà…hiccoughs are gone!
• Strangely, where most people lose their appetites during chemo, I’ve had to go back to breakfast and supper, else I get nauseated. (Previously, when I dropped from 260 lbs. to 158 lbs. during Summer 2005 [and since then], I’ve usually limited myself to one light meal per day, supplemented with plenty of electrolyte supplements.) During my most recent bi-weekly visit to my oncologist, she looked at my weight gain on my chart from my previous visit and she poked me in the tummy, saying, “It looks like chemo has not dampened our appetite, has it?”
Last night, I was in charge of beaming the satellite broadcast of the “Youth Celebration” to our local chapel from the 21,000-seat LDS Conference Center in Downtown Salt Lake City. My grandson, Zack, was one of the over-7,000 performers in the youth celebration of the completions of the Draper and Oquirrh Mountain LDS Temples locally.
Tonight, I’m headed to Pleasant Grove, Utah, for a reunion of Pleasanton, California, friends. During the day today, I’m trying to phone hundreds of friends I know from the 1960s from Menlo Park, California. Every five years, I host a Menlo Park reunion here in Salt Lake City (since more Menlo Parkers from that era live outside of Menlo Park now than still live in Menlo Park). At our last Menlo Park reunion here in Salt Lake (on July 9, 2004), we had over 500 attendees. We hope for a similar attendance on Saturday, July 25 this year.
I’ve probably overtaxed your endurance for blog reading, so I’d better close with my continued appreciation for your continued thoughts, prayers, faith, support, encouragement…You really DO make a big difference in my well being !
Love, from Dave and Nancy
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