Thursday, January 28, 2010

Beach Bum

That's kinda what I feel like lately... Now that I've lost most of my strength throughout my body, I'm pretty much relegated to hanging out at the pool or the beach as my big activity for the day. There are so many things to do down here... I guess things could be worse but I'm really struggling mentally to accept that I'm basically useless physically. I've always been into being active, playing golf, biking, hiking, etc... Now, simple things like carrying groceries into the house, opening jars, peeling bananas and brushing my teeth are a challenge. I've also noticed that my muscles seem to be shrinking or dissolving, strange. I know for sure my wrists and forearms are smaller just by taking my hands and wrapping around my arm not to mention just looking in the mirror. I think I have to investigate getting into some type of physical therapy program to try and reverse this muscle atrophy if that's possible.

I've wanted to try and keep this blog more positive going forward but this is just so hard to deal with. I'm hoping all of this is just temporary but realistically know that as long as I continue with this SGN-35 things will only just get worse. I worry how I'm going to take care of myself living on my own. I just don't know what to do. Like I mentioned previously, I have an appointment with a neurologist on the 11th and maybe she'll have some answers for me.

Until then, I just have to be grateful for the things I can still do and one of them is swim! :) So tomorrow, I'm going to hope for calm seas and try and get out snorkeling around here. My buddy Jay has an underwater camera and I'm gonna see if I can borrow it.

Hoping I can post some cool underwater pics on my next entry :o)

Later

2 comments:

B. said...

Thinking of you -- sometimes being 'positive' takes too much energy. I know exactly how you feel. And the 'taking care of myself' part is so hard to deal with... when you're so weak.

Give yourself a break Chris... know, i'm here fighting here with you. Maybe they could stick us all in a house together down by the sea.... have people serve us margaritas, and forget our worries away.

Sending Love,

B

Loraine Ritchey said...

My son's fight is over, but I want to thank you and all of your fellow bloggers on the subject of HL. I am not sure what I can do or where I am being led at the moment. I have this need to discover more about this disease, the so called "curable cancer" ..if you think about it my son wouldn't be in the stats as dying from HL but H1N1 but the cause was directly attributable to HL.

I am not sure why except I have this niggling thought that keeps surfacing that in this HL there should be more of a focus on the Epstein Barr Virus and researching that aspect of HL.my non medical mother thought is as long as my sons body didn't see this as a threat no chemo stem cells to kill cancer would have helped..... I don't know I just bleed for you all as I did for my son and still do... I wish you all strength and life. Loraine