Two posts about the hair thing was overkill. They were a downer. I apologize for having dwelled on it. Happily for all of us, I am over it. Feeling good, getting lots of exercise, socializing, I am WOMAN, more or less.
So yesterday I started physical therapy. The goal here is to increase the range of motion in my arms so that I can more easily reach the food and bowls that sit on the top shelf in the kitchen. I like physical therapy. I've never done it before. I think of PT as something athletes need to heal from injuries earned performing dazzling and hazardous feats of physical prowess. I know some athletes. I ain't no athlete.
Anyway, I like the physcial therapists. I like the office. I like doing something active that makes me feel better. I especially like the process of measuring the progress. It's like getting graded. (I was always a decent student.) They measure my range of motion with strange looking tools and mysterious machines into which you insert body parts. When I first saw one of the machines, I confess that I freaked out. It looked way too much like a mammography machine. If those physical therapists were thinking they were going to stuff my scarred up, tissueless, scrawny chest into a mammography machine, then they were in for an ugly surprise - an hysterical, 50ish, bald, bosomless woman throwing a messy fit. Christ, that was the whole point of the bilateral mastectomy - that I would never again have to stuff my bosoms into machines that must have been designed by male sadists. Fortunately, the machine required no physical contact to register the measurements. I am getting very respectable grades.
As it turned out, the only negative part of the first appointment was that the physical therapist, when examining me, asked if my distended stomach was normal or the result of chemotherapy. I had to explain that the distended stomach was the direct result of the large quantity of food that it contained. That was an embarrassing moment. I think of myself as a petite person, of normal weight, low BMI, not horribly flabby. But, I love to eat. I know, everyone loves to eat. But I love it more than most people. This is the truth. I love every bite of every thing I put in my mouth. People always tell me, "you look like you are really enjoying that food." (Not the most flattering of remarks.) And, I have a huge appetite; way out of proportion to what is necessary to keep a person of my size alive. I could eat a pound of pasta, a loaf of bread, a head of broccoli, and a pint of ice cream every single day. This is not an exaggeration.
So, (assuming the above theory is disproved) it is time to go on a diet. Dieting in the midst of chemotherapy? That seems a little harsh. Especially since the best medicine for curing the queasiness is eating. But I have to trim the tummy for PT. I cannot be humiliated like that again. Now that I think of it, my new diet might be more effective if I were not able to reach those food items and bowls on the top shelves. So much for physical therapy.
Hey if you see an AFLAC ad below. Check it out. It is the BEST health benefit that is out there. They send me thousands of dollars just because I have cancer, practically with no questions asked. More about health insurance in a coming post.
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