Appointments and February Blahs

Rich still feels as if he has no energy and he is not really gaining any weight back.  This of course is a hard time of the year for him anyway.

Right now he is having the doldrums.  The overcast days have got him in a down mood.  Well, as he said. "I'm depressed.  I'm not getting better, I'm not getting my energy back."

When he is like this, there is no discussions to be had.  One just has to listen.  I can't point out to him that he is still alive and that he did have a great day out on Saturday when he went to an auction with the neighbor.

These things don't really matter much to him at this moment.  It is how he feels internally what matters.  He has stopped doing Tai Chi. I tried to get him to do it again.  But he just gives me the look.
He is supposed to be doing physical therapy but he has dropped the ball on that too.
  
I think part of it is that it is so muddy that doing anything outside right now is a huge chore.  When it was so cold two weeks ago, he had some trouble with doing things outside and breathing.

He has COPD and I think that the Throat Cancer and treatments may have made it worse.  That makes doing daily things a lot tougher. And unfortunately he feels that he should somehow be much better.

I have pointed out to him that he actually is doing more than he was pre-cancer.  But he can't see it.

I know once the winter blahs go away and the weather gets nicer, he will go into his 'spring' mode. At least that is what I am hoping.

We go for the CT scan and meet up with the Eye Doctor tomorrow.  I will ask the doctor how long of a recovery time he'll have with the eye surgery.  Rich is under the impression that he will be back at things the next day.

I am trying to be very positive for Rich and sometimes getting the dark look of gloom doesn't make it easy.
We take this time of year one moment at a time.
One foot in front of the other.

Visit with Rahim/ Chemo Oncologist

The blood labs turned out fine and Rahim basically met us with a follow up.
He let us know that he was scheduling a follow up CT scan that he thought should have already been done to the one done in Boscobel in August.

"Just to be diligent," is what he said.
The August CT scan had some 'things' in it that should be looked at again.

Um.  I don't like that.  But I recall asking the attending doctor at the ER what exactly did all the techno stuff mean?

His answer?  See the VA and have a bone scan also scheduled.  This was the doctor that had seen us 9 months before the VA caught the throat cancer and had said to Rich...get ENT to see you ASAP.

Okay, so I'm not going to obsess over another scan.  Rich has already said if there was more cancer to deal with in the future, we would only treat it with Palliative Care and nothing else.

So far things are good, the basal skin cancer will be removed next month and we see a doctor this month to check on the floaters in his eyes.

The stroke has affected Rich's eye - brain co-ordination and he is supposed to doing home assignments exercises for that.  He does it when he feels like it.

Too busy to take 5 minutes or 10 minutes a day for it.  I'll have to insist on more Tai Chi if I can too.  He has dropped the ball on that.

So here it is 13 months from the day he came home and said the word Cancer.  
He is doing pretty well I think ... and so do the doctors, for going through a very rough regime of treatment and all of the things in between that he went through.

However, Rich thinks he isn't doing as well.  His weight has stayed fairly stable.  Up and down a few pounds with each doc visit.

Onward.  Let this March be a much better one.  Eye surgery and at the end of the month?  Remodeling begins!