The After Before

My after is about to end.  And I was just starting to enjoy it.  Kinda.  About 10 days ago, the world returned more or less to its expected movement.  It took several weeks and happened in fits and starts.  Little by little, the bonus effects have gone away. Tapering off the steroids helped me start to sleep past 4 am.

I started walking a bit.  Then riding a bit.  Still early in getting back into riding shape.  I pulled out from the MS 150 in early October, but still plan to do the biking part of the 1/2 Iron Man in late October.

I’ve pushed back any thoughts of driving to at least October.  I think legally I probably could now (past 3 months since my last recognizable seizure), but I want to be way past my “acid trip month” before I even try.

I did return to mostly normal life, albeit without driving (but with unnecessarily complicated words like “albeit”).  I traveled to Dallas last week for work, flying and Lyfting.  I started teaching Thursday night.

Side note on my Lyft experience, generally the rides have been great - fast, a minimum of questions, efficient. I do have to say that the last one, with Donovan, from the Austin airport to home, was the outlier.  When I was getting in the back, he said “no, you can sit up front.”  Um, ok.  Up front with the unpleasant music, and the blue strobing light that flashed to the unpleasant music beat.  Donovan asked me about my job, talked about the weather, Austin, traffic, road construction, and football, and this was all before we got out of the freaking airport.  It did not get any better the rest of the way.  On the plus side, Donovan got me home in 15 minutes.  I live about 22 miles from the airport.  There is no way the drive should have taken only 15 minutes.

One thing that hasn’t gotten better is my appetite and how things taste.  Which is bad, and like straw, respectively. My interim doctor is prescribing me something for the appetite part, with a very spot-on name.  Something like “Marijuananol”.  Looking forward to that.

Dr. V left Austin Cancer Center, leading to a complicated dance where I have a new doctor there for a minute while Dr. V gets settled at his new place.

So, my after is making progress finally.  So, of course, it ends today.  I re-start chemo tonight, going to double the dosage but only five days a month.  When they told me this, for some reason, I thought it meant once a week.  It’ll actually be five consecutive days, with 3 weeks off after.  Lather, rinse, repeat for 6 months.  Not sure why I thought it would be once a week, or why that even matters.

I had the after MRI Thursday to see how the first round worked, and will find out Wednesday, during my next During. Not sure what to expect or even hope for - I am guessing there will be no dramatic change, good or bad, at this point.  So I have just a few more After hours, then I am back to the During. A few pictures from my brief After.

This is from my Thursday MRI, which likely won’t tell me much.

The blue socks in the middle are from the MRI. I promise at the end of this I will donate a crap ton of socks to the homeless. I needed these. They are warm and non-slidey and blue. And came to me in that tiny window when I felt like the After could actually eventually become the Before, but just a few days before the second During, which starts in about an hour. Sigh. And one bonus picture. Not driving leads to walking (and sporadic bus riding). On a walk to lunch a couple of weeks back, I came across this planter in the strip mall next to Galaxy Theater (near old Highland Mall).

It’s hard to pinpoint what killed this plant. You might think it would be the alcohol, but it seems to have been drinking just a little at a time. Possibly it’s the popcorn, though my money is on the smokes.