Tuesday, January 14, 2014

Mid-Break Report

I have been on break from Chemo for the past two weeks and I thought I would post a "mid break" update - even though there is not much new to report. I guess that's good news.

I am feeling pretty good and my energy level is better than is has been. A couple of days ago, I lit a fire in the wood-stove to heat up our detached garage/workshop and spent a couple of hours with my tractor partner putting chains on the tractor. He did most of the heavy lifting, but I was able to help a good bit and thus avoid feeling totally helpless.

As I have said previously, I have not suffered terrible side-effects from my chemo treatments for which I am grateful. But still, there have been a few. And as s a naturally curious person, these have been very interesting to me.

The most interesting side-effect has been the loss of part of my sense of taste - but only part. I have a lot of trouble tasting salt. I had no idea how important salt is to the taste of almost everything we eat. I first noticed it when I was having a slice of toast and butter. It sure looked good, but it tasted like toast and lard. I find myself looking at a luscious meal and thinking about how great it is going to taste. You don't forget what stuff should taste like and you really anticipate what it is going to taste like and the disappointment is amazing. When we go out to eat and the server asks, "How is everything?", I am thinking - "Why are you asking ME? How would I know?" But I just smile and say, "Great!". It is also difficult when I am cooking and the recipe says, "Season to taste". Like - how am I supposed to do that?

I'm not complaining, mind you. After two weeks, I think the sense of taste is slowly coming back. And most importantly, it never seemed to affect the taste of chocolate which was a huge relief. But we are beginning to run out of chocolate in the house.

Another thing I have started to enjoy again is wine. I had given this up completely so as not interfere with the chemo drugs. Now that I am on break, I have been having an occasional glass of wine with dinner. Too bad I can't taste it.  -  No - no - just kidding. I can taste the wine well enough. And this takes a big load off of Barbara who has been complaining for months about "having to drink for two".

We now have a signed Purchase and Sale Agreement for Fox Hill Village in Westwood, MA. Except that we have started to call it "Foxdown Abbey". We think that is pretty funny, but we are not sure how the the people in the Abbey - I mean Village - will take it.

I should mention another side effect that does not seem to be going away. I think I mentioned in a previous blog that one of the drugs makes people talk more than normal. And since I normally talk more than just about anyone else, you can only imagine what it is doing to me. One faithful reader has suggested that the name of the blog, Warren MM Blog might in fact stand for Warren's Motor Mouth Blog. It also affects my writing (as you can tell by the length of this posting). And worst of all, it seems to lower the "Brain to Mouth Barrier" which, in my case, was never as high as it should have been to begin with. You can only imagine what my poor, long-suffering wife is having to go through.

So I had better stop writing now before I say something that I really shouldn't.

Next week, I go down to Boston for a full day of tests - which should be lots of fun. I will try to post a report on how that goes. 

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