A Spork in the Road

I made potato pancakes last night, my own spin on an interesting recipe I found. I chopped mixed nuts in the food processor, chopped up some onion and parsley, and mixed it all in with leftover mashed potatoes. Then I made little patties, dipped them in corn meal, and lightly fried them in olive oil.

The pancakes themselves were good, but in combination with the eggplant I pickled last week, they were amazing, if I do say so myself.

(I didn’t even pickle the eggplant properly: I forgot to press the liquid out of the eggplant before pickling, but oh well. They still taste good. Lots of fennel seed!)

I myself am feeling somewhat pickled of late. I’m out of the deep dark shadow of chemo but realizing that the sun isn’t yet fully out. I’m still getting occasional mini-migraines that read like a weird recipe: 1 half hour blind spots, 1 half hour visual halo, 2 hours headache, dash of fatigue. The metallic taste has yet to vanish. And my counts are slowly climbing back up, sans medication, leaving me more tired than usual until my body remembers how to manufacture its immune system unaided.

My culinary adventure this weekend will probably be apple purses. Last weekend I made cream puffs, and the weekend before that, gingerbread with lemon sauce. It’s delightful not to be sunk into doom and woe on alternate weekends!

Tomorrow I have a follow-up with my oncologist and then head into the fourth week since my last chemo.

I still taste metal, but my aches and pains have largely subsided and my physical and mental fatigue levels are improving daily. My appetite has quickly returned to normal, and my various bodily functions seem to be stabilizing.

Yesterday we went to the Earth Day celebration at Honeymoon Island. I was careful to apply ample sunblock and stay mostly in the shade, and I still got a very light burn, so it seems my skin is still extra sensitive to UV exposure.

It took a few days to get over the anxiety of not being on chemo, and I still get a nervous charge sometimes when I think about my next PET scan.

But hey: the joy of not being on chemo far outweighs the anxiety.

Tomorrow we’ll see how my blood counts are doing with neither chemo to kill nor Neupogen/Neulasta to boost them.

We went to see Legally Blonde The Musical last week at Ruth Eckerd Hall, which was Lil’s birthday present.

I admit, I was not gung ho. I loved the movie, but I thought making a musical out of it was perhaps wringing more life out of the story than was possible.

I was wrong.

Wicked it was not, but the show was hilarious, perfectly paced, and packed with light but surprisingly catchy songs. The performances were excellent, the staging clever, and of course the dogs were both Tony-worthy.

I think the best moment of the show was when the UPS guy stuck his arm out from off-stage, holding a big package (wink wink, nudge nudge), and the entire audience of pink-clad mothers and daughters went ballistic.

Today is the first chemo day that’s not a chemo day!

[happy dance]

My blood results were good, and although I overslept today (having forgotten how tired I would be from starting up yoga again) and had a crazy morning, I am getting caught up and very much enjoying that I was not drugged up and poisoned today!

Special thanks to the Wild Woman of Hoboken for her very effective chair dances, as well as the various anti-cancer headgear I received from across the country. And of course all cancer correspondence and cancer swag. It’s all paying off.

Oh, why do I ever stop yoga?

I took a yoga class tonight, for the first time in ages, and it was glorious. A nice, slow, intro yoga class that let me stretch out, feel how pathetically weak my arms are, glory in the sights and sounds and scents of a beautiful yoga studio.

We really do store emotions in the body. Yoga squeezes them out. I feel strange waves of elation or sadness at different times during a class, apropos of nothing, and then afterwards I feel calm and quiet.

Woo-hoo!