Another drab update

Thank you for bearing with me. Life is upside down and I post infrequently, off-topic and in a most un-engaging way.  Let’s get the health stuff out of the way and then I’ll do a half-hearted post on weight loss.

P is about to start on his 2^nd round of chemo.  He’s had side effects but nothing too bad or too dramatic.  We understand that these side effects can be cumulative – but hopefully he won’t have too rough a time of it.  He is positive and cheerful.  I find it difficult to follow this admirable example.  The odds sound scarily slim to me: the chemo has to work, it has to work sufficiently that it shrinks the lesions so the surgical team can remove them from his liver – and then there has to be sufficient liver left if they are to do this, to ensure it can still do its job.  There seem like an awful lot of dependencies here.  We won’t know whether it’s worked and whether they can operate until sometime in August.  It feels relentless.  I’m beginning to find it sapping, emotionally.  This has been going on since mid-February.  I just want it to be over.  But of course, I only want it be over if it’s the right over.  If we can get back to our lives.  If we have another 20+ years together to look forward to.  If we look back on this as a terrible time, but one in the past.

The uncertainty.  It’s my birthday at the end of August.  I’ve booked us somewhere nice for dinner.  But hopefully, he’ll be in hospital.  What a horrible thing it is to hope for this.  We’re due to go to Marrakech in late September.  It’s impossible to look this far ahead.  The flights are booked and paid for, the hotel is paid for.  We just don’t know if this is money wasted or whether we’ll get our, frankly, much-needed break.

Weight loss: well, it’s been a year since surgery.  A bit longer since I’ve been getting my head down and dieting.  I’ve lost almost 4.5st.  I’m almost at my post LL weight – albeit that it’s taken over a year to get (back) here, rather than 100 days.  I know it still sounds like a lot – and it is a lot and I am pleased (as much as I’m pleased about anything now) - but it has been slow and frustrating.  My pattern seems to be for the scales not to shift for ages, then to drop quite a bit and then to bounce back up, before inching back downwards.  This is illogical.  I still don’t have the result from the band that I should have – I am still very hungry.  Much over 1000 cals a day and I start putting it back on.  I had to have a de-fill recently because I couldn’t swallow anything – but in another month or so, I’ll try another fill.  It should mean I’m satisfied with small portions and not hungry again for c4 hours.  I think I eat less, but I last c2.5 hours before I’m hungry again.  I spend a lot of time hungry.  It does add to the general feeling of finding life quite hard at the moment.  But equally, I know that if I started steadily putting weight on, I’d feel a lot worse.  Apparently the band can tighten as a result of stress – this is why they think I needed a de-fill.  So I may need another one yet, rather than putting it back in again!

As my friend said to me, all I can do is ‘keep buggering on’.  I’m trying.