I can feel progress. Sometimes on some days I feel almost 100% normal. I am full of energy, think clearly, walk around with a purpose. The bathroom scale shares my optimism. It’s getting very close to giving me a big 6 in return for my efforts with the calories. Life is good.
Then there are other times. I tend to lie down after meals. My body complains when I skip the rest. From time to time, about once a day but sometimes more often, a piercing pain burns through my gut. This must have something to do with digestion, but it feels as if the pieces that were stitched together when the tumor was removed are coming apart. This can’t be, and the pain doesn’t stay long. If it did, it would be quite difficult to take.
Yesterday, two weeks after my operation and one week out of hospital, I made another effort at bringing normalcy back to my life. I took the boy to childcare and then the bus up to work. The bicycle is still out of the question, much as I’d love to. At work, I sit or stand at a desk most of the time. Sometimes I’m in meetings, sometimes I walk around. My job is far removed from manual labor. I don’t have to carry anything beyond the limit of 5 kg that the doctor set me when I left the hospital. Working isn’t much more strenuous than resting at home. Or is it?
After some catching up on accumulated emails and tasks, I had a big lunch in our cafeteria, chicken saltimbocca with risotto and grilled zucchini, and a front row-seat to our monthly company-wide assembly that followed. Listening to company news, sales figures, strategy updates, product developments and new technologies might be like sleeping, but I had the uncanny feeling of missing out on my nap. Something was brewing down there, and it didn’t feel good.
I hobbled back to my desk after the meeting. I wish I could have called it walking, but I wasn’t. Holding on to my mouse, I survived another hour or so but eventually had to throw in the towel. First, I lay down in one of the private rooms my company provides for whatever reason, maybe exactly this one. I didn’t find peace there. Half an hour later, I made my painful way back home where I collapsed in bed.
Strange that the bed didn’t provide any solace. I couldn’t lie on my back. It felt as if my belly were stretched to ripping. I couldn’t lie on one side (instantly uncomfortable), and I couldn’t lie on the other one (not quite as bad but not pleasant, either). All I could do was roll up in the fetal position of those who are near a painful death. I arrived in this position at four and stayed there, interrupted by frequent and futile tossing searches for comfort, until ten.
At six, when Flucha came home with the children, she was rightfully concerned. Maybe I should have been as well. Who knows what the reason was? I didn’t. I assumed it was the big lunch and the skipped rest, but I had had big lunches during the weekend without any problems. With every passing hour, I regretted not having called the hospital for information and reassurance, but I never did. At about ten o’clock, after I must have slept for half an hour, all pain was suddenly gone.
Did I do too much too early? Should I work from home? Should I stay in bed all day? Or was it just that lunch was too big? I’m in a bit of a dilemma here. I need to bulk up to be strong during chemotherapy, but I also want to take it easy on my digestion. Most of the weight I’ve lost during the hospital stay seems to have come from my legs. They look like sticks. I should get back on my bike to get it back, but I’m not allowed.
I have eaten large amounts over the last seven days, but I’ve gained only minimally. When your body is used to maintaining its weight, it’s not easy to make it suddenly gain weight. A friend suggested buying a women’s magazine and doing the opposite of what its diet pages recommend. A valid point, but eating 500 kcal of cream yogurt right before going to bed is probably already close to the worst a dieter could do, and it doesn’t do me much good.
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