Chemo-Brain

Well, I certainly have not been keeping up the blog lately. My apologies to all who follow it. I have been feeling a little down and out. I am holed-up at home trying to avoid getting sick. It seems that everyone in Alabama has the flu or some kind of sickness. The last thing I need on my plate is a virus that my system will have to battle.

I am in the first cycle of my chemo. Hopefully, once April is passed there will be no more to endure. I have been a little disheartened and tired. My energy is low because of my low red blood cell count. Its that same tiredness I mentioned last year where I just can't seem to shake it. To put it in other terms, I get tired resting. I am also becoming tired of everything going on with treatment. My first round of chemo last year was when I was fresh and energetic about knocking it out. Fast-forward seven months later and I am both mentally and physically tired. My spirituality has been my strength over the past few weeks and I will continue to pray and seek Christ in this struggle. Please know that I am still fighting, but just weak and feeling low.

On a positive note, it turns out my cynicism was a little misplaced about my insurance companies. BCBS ended up paying for my ostomy supplies, albeit about two months later. We still have not heard about any changes in their covering other expenses, but I guess that is a step in the right direction. My primary insurance finally got everything straight and I am back on track with my doctors and referral issues. I am sure something else will arise over the next few months. Please keep your fingers crossed that BCBS really is just looking over my records for administrative purposes and will resume paying for charges incurred with the doctors and hospital.

I met with my surgeon last week and discussed how things are going. He gave me the regular "finger up the ass" exam and everything was good. My tissue is healing nicely and the pain is becoming more manageable. We discussed the next surgery and we decided that we would wait until the chemo is complete. He felt that it would be too much to have me recovering from surgery, having my large intestines start back up, and handling side effects of chemo. So the surgery will likely be in late April or early May. Apparently it is a little difficult to start your large intestines back up. If you will remember earlier posts about the ostomy, the large intestines is where the body absorbs most of its fluids. With my ileostomy, my body has adjusted to not having my large intestines working and has taken over the job of absorbing fluids. After the next surgery, my large intestines will have to pick-up where it left off and start its job of absorbing fluids. This takes the body a little while to readjust, so the surgeon says I will have loose stools and diarrhea for awhile. When I think about it, I guess that is not all that bad. After having such trauma in that area from radiation and surgery it does not seem too bad to have loose stools at first. It would seem really strange to have a large bowel right at first; maybe even a little painful.

Anyway, I hope everyone is doing okay. Thanks to everyone for the Birthday wishes. It obviously was not one of my favorite birthdays, but a good one nonetheless. Please continue to keep me and Kimberly in your prayers and I hope to see or speak with everyone soon!

Peace
Josh