Since my last post things are continuing to improve .... I am still on pain relief (paracetamol and ibuprofen) and my mouth is sore, but I re-introduced minty toothpaste earlier this week on the morning brush. I ate a beanburger which wasn't home made and there must have been some unexpected spices in there that irritated ..... it felt as though I had a huge ulcer at the back of my mouth (just behind my epiglottis) ...... Carrying on eating it was a very brave thing to do, but the next day I haven't felt this giant ulcer as yet. I definitely need to keep checking that food won't irritate, and I still have no taste (apart from celery and cucumber!). The treatment side of my face appears a little swollen and I am gently massaging it to see whether this helps any. The skin remains dry but the redness is reducing.
I managed to wash my hair after over a week because I felt the scabs behind my ear were sufficiently healed. It was all fine .... a piece of scab definitely came off during the process so it is obviously healing. The relief of having clean-feeling hair (especially because I have worked up a bit of a sweat this week) was huge.
My energy levels have increased slightly, although I was awake lots last night and so am tired today. I have exercised on 3 days this week (some gentle weight training and fast walking) - but I am limiting this to maximum of 30 mins at a time and going with what my body tells me in terms of tiredness.
I am still feeling the cold and spend my evenings with a blanket wrapped around me. I realise this is a side-effect of RT for some people and can only thank my lucky stars that it is spring time and not the depths of winter.
I went for my 3rd reiki session on Wednesday (at the Northampton Dunston Centre - a charity offering services for voluntary donations). However, now that my treatment is there I am not sure I can warrant the 50 mile round trip for a 25 minute session. I spoke with a Macmillan Support Manager at my local hospital, but they don't offer such services at the moment. She tells me that she is re-building the services available (she has been off for 12 months) and has kept my details in order to contact me as and when relevant post-treatment services become available. She sounds lovely and really helpful.
I did lots of digging around on the Macmillan pages and found two great things:
Boots MacMillan Beauty advisors and the online learning section of the Macmillan website. So, I spent an hour choosing a relevant online course and working through the first section .... there are some good ideas in it and I was telling my husband about it, or rather I tried to tell him about it and then I realised my concentration levels must be low because I could hardly remember it. I intend to look at it again a couple of times before moving on to the next sections. This surprised me a little and tells me that if I decide to ever return to my role working with groups of new mums, I will have to ease myself in very, very gradually - otherwise I will not be effective and will not be able to reflect of the work that I am doing. I had already decided to take the remainder of 2014 as time out, but requests for me to offer 2015 courses have started to come in ..... I need to consider this really carefully.
Yesterday I went into town, having decided that I going to make a huge batch of choc truffles for everyone that has helped out over the past few months. This means I need some new equipment and, of course, was a great excuse to go to Lakeland and also John Lewis buying some lovely things like presentation boxes and raspberry sprinkles. Never having made them before I am hoping it is not too tricky and the BBC Good Food recipe works for me. While I was in JL I popped into haberdashery and got a great trousers pattern .... but then had to 'pop' across to the market and get some fabric and threads. So, I have a project for a few weeks ahead of going away at the end of May .... making some denim pedal pushers. But, what size? Will I or won't I lose weight?
Anyway, back to the other lovely thing that I did while in town .... I went to Boots to hunt down their Macmillan Beauty advisor. After confusing lots of the staff, who had never heard of such a person, someone eventually found Heather. I waited and eventually saw her - she told me she had trained last year, but it sounds as though people don't really know about her .... she held a Macmillan evening last year, but only 1 person showed up. This makes me sad and so I am going to ask the local Macmillan Support Manager from the hospital whether she is aware of Heather at Boots. All I really wanted to discuss were my red, flushed cheeks because at this stage, it is too early to make up over the main treated / ops-scarred area. She colour-matched my skin and applied some of the lilac base (which helps to minimise the redness) and I felt so much better. She also gave me a couple of pots of free samples and said to go again in a few weeks and she will repeat the colour match so that the foundation matches my skin once it has settled down. What a lovely experience, and how glad am I that I found out about this service - I would highly recommend it.
Today's tasks are ..... get showered, log on to try and buy tickets to see PRINCE, yes PRINCE! and after doing this (fingers crossed) I have an initial call from someone who works in the BUPA counselling service to see what they can offer. I have requested this because, although I am functioning fine, I know myself well enough to be aware that I have a low mood setting in and I want to address this before a bigger depression takes hold. For me, the emotional recovery is equally as important as the physical one and so I will be keeping this blog updated with any steps I take.
x
