mid august lament

Hello everyone
This chemo cycle is somehow worse than the previous ones. I guess I was thrown off last time as it was a breeze......at least that is how I remember it now :)
I have had more generalized pain, more nausea, more fatigued....more easily sort of breath....generally feeling unwell.
I guess then I get more down about it all, it certainly seems to be a cycle, my mood is up and optomistic when I am feeling well. I guess with all the aches and pains, it is hard not to worry about recurrences etc. I wonder if some of the abdominal cramps etc might be due to having had radiation to the area, and now exposing the area to chemo.........or maybe I am just being impatient.
I think of all the things I would like to be doing, if I felt up to it this summer, but I guess it will be one summer I will just write off. I look at all those folks cycling the oregon coast this summer and I am SOOO envious. I am even more envious when I see someone out running.
Perhaps I will chalk this year up to the year that I sacrificed so that I might have many more and just hope that it works out that way.
SO THERE, enough feeling sorry for myself.
I swear my hair is just getting odder and odder.
It does not seem to be how anyone else describes their chemo hair situation. I will try to get a more recent photo to post.
Basically what I have now is a matte of thick white hair. Everyone tells my how "cute" it is.
All of the dark hair that grew when I finished radiation, is now gone and all that remains is this white hair. The best way I can describe it is a thicker version of the white peach fuzz that I had during the first set of chemos.. It is clearly better than not having any hair at all, and perhaps it will stay until the real hair starts to come in, which I would expect perhaps by the end of September. Somehow it seems that focusing on silly things like hair is a good distraction some days..
I think that what happens with my hair is a bit different because my treatment is not really common, ie to have chemo, then radiation, and then chemo.

I think that my open wounds are becoming tolerable, and seem to become more inflammed at times and then they settle down, I think I will just have to learn how to best deal with them.
I recently read an article that suggested the use of moisturizers to the area that was going to radiated BEFORE you started. I guess I am beginning to accept that the body might not be quite the same as it was before all of this, but I just hold out hope that I will be able to run again.
Running has always been such an important part of my life.

Ken recently put to words, how to descibe how these past months have gone for us.
On the bad days, you just wait for the day to end, and on the good days, you look forward to the next day. Right now I am just waiting for September.
Thanks for reading this, sorry to be such a downer.

Love and peace
Janet Bates
jankenb @ gmail.com