There and Back Again

This week was really rough. I would have loved to be home with Lynn, but instead I was away in Texas and Ohio for work. Work going well aside, I am really happy to be home. I wish I had more motivation when I'm home but I barely have much more impetus to sit on the couch and geek. This has really been bothering me lately. I should be really pulling my own (gratuitous) weight here and I'm feeling like I'm letting things go. Perhaps in a few weeks I can get a better handle on it (once work travel is at an end for a while).

Which brings me to our next thank you. Usually you expect when people come to visit that basically you are taking care of their needs. This is not the case. Not only did Lynn's siblings come in and finish the majority of the back room, but Lynn's cousin Alex came in and also was very helpful! Thanks for cutting my lawn while I was at work (he did the diagonals too)!

Next Wednesday is the last of the first four treatments. This means it is uphill from there---in two weeks. I am really looking forward to her feeling better. In general, though, on the good weeks, she is doing very well.

The 20:40 ratio

So, after a month of chemo, I've decided that a positive experience revolves around respect for the 20:40 ratio (20 minutes of activity to 40 minutes of rest). If I follow this ratio, I have a good day. If I ignore it, I get overtired (with all of its miserable sequelae: weepiness, soreness, overwhelm,...) or bored (followed by feeling worthless, restless, career panic,...)

It is also clear that there is a night and day difference between week one and week two of the chemo cycle (reference my rather whiny post of a few days ago). Last week I thought I just couldn't do 5 more cycles of this. This week, I am (pretty) sure I can. There is just something indescribably awful about the combination of exhaustion, nausea, and fluttering attention that comes in the first week of chemo. And the sneakiest, hardest part is that there is a tiny possibility that the sick phase won't end until the chemo does in November. That the first cycles were the flukes and that 'now, THIS is what chemo will REALLY be like'. Even a bad flu ends in a week or two. And a rough pregnancy ends with a baby.

Here I am, though, back in a good week. (Praise the merciful stars.) Although my energy is still low, the 20:40 ratio feels like a challenge rather than a limit. ('How much can I get accomplished in 20 minutes?') And I am beginning to think of all the things I've ever wished for long swathes of time to do, or to learn. I am, of course, limited by the 20:40 rule. But, for instance, I could practice sewing pants and jackets in 20 minute bursts. I was thinking that I could check out a combination of fashion magazines and K/atherine H/epburn movies for ideas. (KH movies being great for the :40 side of the ratio).

Still, even with this insight about good weeks, questions remain:

But how to do the 20:40 ratio on the bad weeks? If reading a novel or watching a movie is a 20: side activity, what could possibly be on the :40 side?

I still wake up in a panic about schoolwork most nights. How to write a dissertation following a 20:40 rule? 20:40 does apply to thinking work, too. It feels like being a smart person only 1/3 of the time. (yes, all you people who rely on your smarts, it is absolutely, gut-wrenchingly, abjectly terrifying)

How to make sure, 100% of the time, that Zack knows I'm crazy about him, even though - especially in the :40 parts of bad weeks - he does all the work?

A View from Afar

I'm in Texas. Harlingen Texas---middle of nowhere just across the border it's not really spring break at a spring break town Texas. It's not the desert land I expected actually. There was a lot of greenery on the flight in.

I would rather be home with Lynn. I wonder if I will ever be inspired by what I do for a living.