Slippery slope

The responsibility of keeping up with fresh postings can be a bit challenging when one day feels like the next. Or you'd rather not burden readers with details of discomfort and boredom.  After all this blog is my therapy first and I want to make myself feel good by writing in it. Interesting things do happen every day and as long as I am not beaten down by some oppressive symptom of chemotherapy, it is not hard to render them into a story.  But I am being beaten down currently by an annoying 2nd bout with oral thrush.  It's adding insult to injury.

So on top of having nausea and no appetite, any food or drink I do put in my mouth feels like it absolutely does not belong there.  Add a constant sour taste, a heavy film on your teeth, a bit of a sore throat and you get the idea.  It is challenging to morale.  And the stupid part is that it took me days of suffering before I recognized it.  I chalked all the discomfort up to "chemo" without actually entertaining the idea that individual symptoms were treatable.  When I finally took the time to look at my tongue and remember that this was something I had seen before, I had already endured days of it; days that could have been spent treating it.

Now I'm on the meds (swish and swallow 5 times per day) and although it is still pretty bad, I'm noting improvements.  The yogurt smoothie I had for breakfast tasted pretty good.

This experience goes to show the slippery slope of letting yourself feel bad.  Bad slides to rotton. It is worth the effort to continuously pull yourself back up and remind yourself that so many others have it so much worse than you do.

We figured it was 1991, fresh out of Blandford School 6th grade
 when Aaron came to GRTV to volunteer

This morning I am looking forward to a visit from Aaron.  He lives in Brooklyn and we have made the habit of getting together once in a while to catch up for several years since he left Grand Rapids, and spent time living in France and New York.  I've known Aaron since he was a young volunteer at GRTV in the early 90's.  He eventually became an intern, and then an employee and ultimately a colleague and friend.  He'll bring tales from afar.  I feel currently feel energized and not sick at all!  That slippery slope flows uphill as well.