January 11 - And the cancer saga continues.....

This past weekend I noticed a lump behind my ear and a weird, painful rash spreading across my head. Saw my regular doc today, Dr. K, to find out what's going on. Turns out I have shingles. I had no idea what that was. I guess it's a form of chicken pox. She said even if you had chicken pox as a kid you can get shingles if your body is put under a great stress and your immune system is suppressed. Gosh. Can't think of anything like that happening to me as of late, can you? ;-P

Anyway, it's on the right side of my head. I asked her if that was normal. She said it's not unheard of but not usually where it happens. Figures. I guess there is an anti-virus they can give you if you catch it within the first 4 days. I've had it for 5-6 days now so I just have to wait the 2-3 weeks for it to run its course.

She also checked out the lump behind my ear. She said it's likely an enlarged lymph node. Probably trying to fight off the shingles and not succeeding since most of the lymph nodes in that side of my neck have been removed. She said to keep an eye on it and if it gets bigger, call Dr. C. I told her that it has actually gotten smaller since I noticed it over the weekend so all is well.

Meanwhile, I DID get another prescription for this damn thrush. It's the same med that had me throwing up last time but I got it in pill form this time instead of a suspended liquid. I have to take a pill today and a pill tomorrow and voila, hopefully the thrush is gone. And hopefully since it's 2 days of meds instead of 2 weeks, I won't be doing the throwing up thing. She said if the thrush keeps coming back she can put me on a continuous dose of this med every 2 or 4 weeks, whatever it takes. Although she wants me to start sucking on citrus lozengers and/or using the synthetic spit during the day to see if that helps keep it away.

I ended up not going bowling with Match Scott last week. We were e-mailing about our bucket lists and I mentioned that I want to go golfing in Scotland. So, instead of bowling, he took me to one of those indoor golf simulators and we did the Scotland course. How sweet is that?? Tonight he's taking me to a comedy club. I just had to text him and verify that he's had chicken pox so that I didn't accidentally expose him. Talk about embarrassing! Sheesh.

Weight is pretty much the same. I think the scale said 122.8 this morning. Now that I've stopped losing it, I can own my skinniness and feel good about it. Everybody keeps telling me how fantastic I look and it now makes me smile instead of shooting the look of death at them. :-)

Now that I'm back to work, the snowshoeing and skiing can only happen on the weekends. And heck, that's only if we get more snow. It's been raining all day today and it's supposed to be 56 tomorrow, so bye-bye snow. So, I have now taken up yoga. I figured it was a good way to strengthen muscles without burning too many calories. I've only been once so far but I really liked it!

That 7 hours of continuous sleep that I got the last time I blogged WAS a fluke. I'm still only sleeping 3-4 hours at a time. That's okay, I get lots of e-mailing, house cleaning, and reading done during the wee hours of the morning. Plus I was at my desk by 7:15, 4 out of 5 days this week. QED is definitely making out in regards to my insomnia. :-)


Improvements:
- Gagging is happening only a couple of times a week!
- Weight has stabilized!

No Improvements:
- I have shingles.
- Sporadic sleeping still happening.
- 10% of food tastes meh, 10% of food tastes okay, 80% of food tastes rotten.
- I still have thrush.
- Back of tongue still swollen.
- I'm still not producing spit.
- Garbled talking.
- Bullfrog effect still going on.