We sure did.
Christine and I spent the weekend in Enumclaw with the family and it was fantastic. I hope that everyone else had a great holiday weekend as well.
I found this Family Guy clip a few weeks ago and meant to post it before Christmas but never got around to it.
So dark and so hilarious.
Merry Christmas to all, and my deepest apologies to everyone (Christine included) who had to go back to work this morning.
The voice is muscle, and like any muscle if you don’t use it you lose it. Or at least it can quickly get out of shape. I realized this first hand last night when I went in for my first rehearsal for the revival… We actually all met last week for read through, but this was my first time working through a song again in a long time. In fact, as I realized during my first hoarse sing-through, the last time I sang ANYTHING was three-and-a-half months ago when I last sang this same song onstage. It was a bit of a wake-up call.
It will be fine, I just need to be sure and actually use my singing voice a bit more to get it back into shape. That, and you know actually maybe warm-up before going into a rehearsal. When we last did this show in September, I had been working for almost a year straight with no breaks, so my voice was pretty much always in good shape without having warm up or anything.
Everything was raspy, crackly, weak, and I just didn’t feel like I had any control over it. I don’t know why I was so surprised though. Like I said it’s a muscle, I wouldn’t expect to run every day for a year, then stop for 3 months, and then go out for a run and expect the same mile time that I had when I stopped. But for some reason I was still surprised when my voice wasn’t where I thought it was.
I also wonder what effects my chemo treatments have had on my vocal health aside from lack of use. I wouldn’t be surprised if there was something going on there as well. In the past I would Google it. “Chemo” and then whatever possible side effect or ailment I was looking for and it always comes back with a result. I find lately though that I have problems doing that. Its getting harder and harder for me to talk about chemo as I have such negative associations with it that when I start to talk about it or think about it I can feel back in the room, in the chair. It makes my heart sink and my stomach turn.
Along those same lines, just the names of the drugs have power over me. When I’m sitting in the chair and they bring the drugs up, they show them to me and read off the names showing me the labels and verifying that it’s me and that it’s the right drugs. Just the other day I was reading something somewhere I randomly stumbled across the name of one of the drugs they give me, and my body reacted to it. Powerful stuff.
Okay, case and point, I have to stop talking about this now as I’m making myself a little ill. =)
For the first time since crushing it last week, my toe is feeling better and I’m beginning to walk normally again.
Interestingly, since I’ve stayed off my feet for pretty much the entire week I’ve been feeling really good as well. Normally I think I would be trying to do things and would up on my feet working and cleaning around the house etc. This would typically exhaust me and make me feel like crap, so I guess there is something to taking it easy and just sitting on the couch for a few days until I feel better.
Of course I’ve accomplished nothing all week, so I guess its a trade off. Push myself and actually be useful but feel the effects of the fatigue and achyness, OR sit on the couch for several days and feel physically better.
The problem is that I just can’t sit still. Even when my “job” is just to “get better” I still find that I feel guilty sitting at home and taking it easy while Christine is out at work.
It’s something that I’ve actually struggled with ever since I left my old day job last spring. When I’m in a show I work nights, but during the day I always found that I couldn’t really bring myself to just relax and read, or watch TV, or play video games. I did whatever I could to keep myself busy with things I felt made me useful: cleaning, running errands, and working on various projects. So it’s something that has always been issue for me, but has definitely been heightened for me since getting sick.
I am beginning to think that I may not be pulling this look off anymore. It may be time for it all to go.
We went to a show this weekend, and at intermission Christine left our seats and went to grab some more popcorn. When she came back she was scanning the crowd looking for our me and our seats and she couldn’t find me. I was leaning forward in the seat hunched over and looking at my phone and she thought that a bald guy was sitting in what she thought were our seats. Turns out she was right, a bald guy was sitting our seats. Me =(
I figured I should take out the camera then and get a good look at myself… I was shocked at what I saw. Or rather what I didn’t see. The angles I can see in the mirror give me an illusion that I still have hair. These pictures do not. Using the flash doesn’t help anything either. Not what I thought I looked like at all.
I shouldn’t be so surprised. I knew it was going to happen, I just think that after it stopped falling out in clumps I kind of thought that maybe I was going to be spared. But it looks like that might not be the case. Oh well, it’s just hair. I should be glad for the extra time that I had with it. Most others on different treatment courses of chemotherapy aren’t as lucky.
We’ll see. I think we may try cutting the sides way back again but still leaving it a bit longer on top. Though I don’t how much longer we can keep this up.
I think the reason I AM suddenly having such a hard time with this is that I got used to the idea that I would still have hair. When I was initially diagnosed I figured I would lose my hair and that was that. I was okay it with it. It was part of being a cancer patient. I was even secretly excited to cut my hair when it started falling out. I looked at it as a right of passage for cancer patients. A “red pale bald badge of courage” as it were. BUT, then when it when it stopped, when it looked for a while like I wasn’t going to have to completely shave my head, I sort of got used to that idea.
These pictures though… sheesh. I’ve been operating under the assumption for the past few months that if you passed me on the street you wouldn’t look at me and think that I might be sick. But if you already knew that I had cancer, then yeah, you can see that my hair is pretty thin. Not anymore though. I don’t think I’m foolin’ anyone with this current look. We’re gonna need to do something about this.
Chemo today.
For the record: Do. Not. Want.
Also, in case you’ve been wondering: we did not win the Mega Millions.
Didn’t even get a single a number.
Stine here. Brian had chemo yesterday, and he spent the evening resting on the couch, and going to bed early.
For the record, those are two of my favorite things to do. Sometimes when Brian has chemo, for the few days afterward, it’s like he’s taking an interest in my hobbies. Resting and napping. But I digress.
He’s doing just fine after treatment, and I’m sure that once he starts to feel better early next week he will be glad that one more chemo session is behind him.
I’m having a hard time being patient. I keep telling him that in just a few short months he will be done, and in just a few short months, we will get on with our lives. But with days like today, and watching Brian sit through chemo, I keep getting impatient. I want to make him feel better RIGHT NOW, but there is nothing to do but wait.
I feel like a kid before Christmas morning when I think about what awaits us in the future when he’s better again, but we have a long night ahead of us before we get to the good stuff.
Maybe my focus on the future is the reason I am suffering from a serious case of spring fever right now. I could only wait until January 3 to pull out the gardening books, and I’ve been watching those very appealing “visit Hawaii” commercials very closely. I keep daydreaming about warmer weather, longer days, sun, and a healthy Brian to enjoy it all with.
While we wait for Brian to revisit the blog (read: wake up from his nap), let’s all enjoy a moment of Aloha, and focus on getting to the bright warm future. =)