Sunday Morning in the Fall

Sunday morning, the 19th of October.  It is an absolutely perfect Chamber of Commerce morning here in the Mountains.  50º going up to 68º, painfully clear blue skies, and the foliage is at the height of the color change.  By next weekend,  it will become a torrential downpour of leaves as they all seem to have changed colors together this year and won't be hanging around much longer.  The house is still and quiet, the dogs have been out and are back asleep, the girls are still sleeping from a well needed evening of revelry (daughter Erika came home with a girl friend for the weekend from college).
And I am up, fairly rested from another night of semi-sleep and a restful day yesterday of college game day couch potato-ism.  Today, I get to drive the girls back down to Greensboro so they can get back to the second half of the semester and Kim and I get back to living in our "empty nest".  I think she really misses having Erika here, considering the brilliant conversationalist I have been since coming back from treatment.
There hasn't been a lot to talk about when your life consists of sleeping, taking liquid diets 3-4 times a day, and having to be in semi lock down because my white blood cell count is low.  This situation is keeping me from going places for fear of catching a "public" disease like the flu or a cold.  A cold could put me in the hospital again in a matter of days if it developed quickly and turned into pneumonia.  WBC's are the defense fighters of the body and mine have been on overtime since June.  The reinforcements are arriving slowly everyday with my blood counts going up but slowly is the definitive term.  Not eating real food does not help the process.  Nutrients are needed to make me stronger, the liquid food is merely to keep me stable, but I am beginning the process of tasting and eating foods again.  Not much mind you.  7-Up is a winner.  Those little effervescent bubbles make my mouth happy by cutting down the phloem attack and cooling temperatures as it goes down my still slightly sore throat.  Sherbet is also good, although the acid in the citrus flavoring tends to bother my throat.  Pretty exciting fair, eh?  It's a beginning.  And that is my new mantra and attitude.  I have been too negative for a long time.  I've finally decided it's time to get off the Pity Bus and take control of my body and my life.
My friend Steve sent me some very positive recordings about Self-Healing through Guided Imagery.  They describe what Guided Imagery is and how to focus meditatively on connecting with my body to basically create a conversation with it to help in the healing process.  It sounded a little odd at first but I am taking the time to do it every now and then and it helps.  If anything, it is refocusing me in a positive direction instead of being such a downer all the time.  That in its self is huge I think, positive vs negative.  I have noticed it has generally helped in all aspects so this is good.
This week I am going to Vegas for a survey of venues at Mandalay Bay.  Work has begun again.
I'm feeling about 80% if you don't count the eating thing and I think that is good.  My hair is growing.
And the world is changing and preparing for the next phase of life and so am I.

Yeah! I'm home , I think

Dorothy couldn't have put it better.  There is no place like home.  Your own stuff, your bed, your pets,
your family.  It was a long summer but now I can get back to a little R&R at home and get back to working.  I was fortunate to have had enough money stashed away for us to make it but I really need to get back and start finding jobs again.
The big rub in all this revelry about being home is that no one from the cancer center sat down with us to discuss what the recovery period for told.  In my mind, I thought 10 days to 2 weeks of laying low and resting while working at getting my swallowing back up to where I can be eating solid foods.
No one told me that my body would be a tortured radiation sponge.  I was home no longer than 2 days and I was off to see my local doctor.  I couldn't keep food down in either direction.  I was totally gagging 24/7 with phlegm build up in my mouth that usually keeps me no farther than 15 ft from a bathroom to rid myself of the nasty stuff.  She admitted me to the local hospital.  So I spent my 2nd-5th days "home" lying in a hospital bed, hooked up to continuous fluids IV, and being tested for something I knew I did not have (like I caught a virus on the plane home).  Got back home at 9:30 at night after being told I was going to be released at 9am that morning.
Love my wife she's a saint.  But I feel totally using and abusing her.  She was and is exhausted in this process as much as I am.  The phlegm is so bad that I only sleep at night maybe 3-4 hours in chunks.
I have to cough and spit out stuff constantly.  So I have driven Kim from our bed.  She is now sleeping in Erika's room at night just to get sleep.  And I know the anxiety is getting to her because she can't fall asleep easily and gets up very late in the morning looking like a train rolled over her during the night.

It sure would have been nice had someone from CTCA sat down with use and given us a little precursor to what was to happen with me during my recovery.  It would have lessened some of the frustration I have.  Yesterday I went to some forums on Head and Neck Cancer survivors to read about others recoveries.  This phlegm this is not a short term thing.  I read one guy had it for 8 weeks, another for 4 months, and still another for 6 months.  Not very conducive for a work environment.

I am not in a very good place mentally.  Last night I fired off a couple of emails quitting a job that I have been contracted for since the beginning of August.  I was feeling about 95% back then so what was to not take it, the job was 2 months away.  Last night I bagged them, I was supposed to leave next week.
There is no way I could travel to Europe for a 2.5 week show.  There may be repercussions but what can I do, I can't be like this and be working a production.  My life is a total production in itself these days with the script writers coming up with new material daily.  I need to find a focus point to get me headed toward a better place.