It could be laziness, too, that prevents me from getting back to wintersong, but chemobrain has a certain ring to it, don’t you think?

While my stomach and digestive system is semi-cooperating at this point, I am suffering–though not horribly–from peripheral neuropathy. The tips of my thumb, pointy and middle fingers are sort of numb and shriveled, the way fingers look when they’ve been in water too long. That makes it difficult to pick up tiny things and I’ve wracked up two broken dishes in the past month thinking I had a good hold on them but didn’t. Once I wasted a whole serving of pudding. Typing makes my fingers feel funny, but then so does nearly everything else and I can’t just do nothing. I also feel the effects in my toes, sometimes have to jump to my feet to undo the “drawing down” of my toes and resulting muscle cramps. Thankfully they don’t happen often, and mostly when I’m barefoot or move my toes “funny” so I can sort of avoid those most of the time. Hubby seems to think his job as my informant is finished at this point of my “treatment” or “cure,”  and I do stop by and read other blogs during the week ‘though I don’t always comment (the fingers!).

What I have been doing is a lot of reading, closet organizing, planning how I’ll run the rest of my life in the future, what’s important, what can be let go. The room addition, while thoroughly not necessary but something Hubby wanted to do since almost the first day we moved into this house, is coming along. We’ll gain about 4 1/2 feet of space and our oversized furniture that fit perfectly in all our houses (with big bedrooms) until this one will at least not block the view from our BR windows to the wild world outside, and very soon there should be a place for everything to go–a longtime dream of mine.

I haven’t seen the grandkids as often since we haven’t been available to take them after school every Friday since this whole thing started. In the meantime, Thomas is wearing glasses, bewitchingly green/black rectangular frames that seem perfect for his round little face (like mine). He picked them out himself. Who knew he had such good taste. Although he’s still a kid in every sense of the word, there are times when I get good glimpses of the gentle man I believe he’ll grow up to be. Vimmy (the 2nd, daughter #2 was first) is growing into quite a little dark-eyed beauty and every inch a girl who knows how to fight like a tiger if she’s pushed by all the big boys around her (brother and his friends). She has a “best friend” across the street but he’s a beautiful little boy around her age with long silky lashes and he lets her boss him around enough to keep her happy. Although she looks at me funny when I’m wearing a wig, she doesn’t seem to unduly concerned which is good.

As for hair, I can hardly wait til I begin to grow some! My head gets so cold some days I have to wear two hats at a time in the house, and wigs are “open weave” enough that I’ve taken to wearing hats over them if it’s a windy day. It could be starting to grow in a mere weeks and I can hardly wait to see what color it decides to be. Right now the fuzz looks totally white. The dark spots at the base of the skull have disappeared if that’s any indication that dark hairs are gone forever from my head.

Other than finishing up the work on the house and getting everything back in place, I find I have little ambition. Everything seems to have taken a back seat for awhile. Maybe after I have the followup CT/PT scan on the 20th, and learn the results (!), I’ll be better able to refocus. In the meantime, I believe it’s enough if I just go back to my books and look forward to a short visit from Daughter #2 in a couple of weeks. Things are going well for the Indian family reunion in Goa in June. I feel bad we won’t be there, since the whole thing was our idea, but gratified that many family members there are continuing with the plan and will meet the rest of the family who’ve joined us since our last visits as a family. People tell me, and I read in the experts’ books, that during the first year after cancer treatments, it’s normal to feel uncertain and even a little depressed about the future and what comes next. In view of all the things I’ve been through during the past months which are past now, will (barring negative CT/PT scan) pass as well. I will be back, because I have a lot to tell you.