9/14 Dancing With Cancer: Living With Mets, A New Normal

Please add updates@feedmyinbox.com to your address book to make sure you receive these messages in the future. Dancing With Cancer: Living With Mets, A New Normal A compromise position September 13, 2009 at 9:18 pm Here is the compromise position -- wear the glove during the day until the swelling is so uncomfortable that I must bandage. Then get into pajamas and wrap my arm. That's what I did at 5 PM and I'm sticking to it, so this is a short post. Bandaging only helps so much September 13, 2009 at 2:41 pm I wrapped my arm yesterday afternoon and prepared to do nothing for the rest of the day and night. But after spending an hour trying unsuccessfully to nap in the hammock, it became clear that I wasn't going to be comfortable no matter what I did. I had rubbed a burn (like a rope burn) just below my thumb where it meets the wrist. So I removed all the bandaging, re-rolled all the bandages, and found something to pad that spot. Then I re-bandaged. By this time I was inordinately frustrated with everything. The noisy kids playing next door didn't help either. So I fell back onto my old stand-by whenever life gets me down: I went to bed. Yup, at 4 PM I gave up on trying to relax with a nap and by 6 PM I was in bed with the blankets up over my ears. I have been doing this for a few years now. When life gets too frustrating to deal with, I simply take a "time out." I stayed in bed yesterday from 6 PM until about 4 AM when Bob the dog had to go out. Then I got back into bed and slept until about 7:30 AM. I woke up feeling more balanced and of course was thrilled to remove the bandaging. Did it help? Not enough. I either have to live with the puffy hand and limit my activities (and remember, I'm left-handed), wear the glove and reduce my fine motor control, or bandage again and be unable to do practically anything. They are three bad choices and right now I can't decide which is the least terrible. There may have to be ice cream in my future just to help me deal with this. Provided I can eat it with my right hand.   This email was sent to cancerinfo09@gmail.com.  Create Your Account Don't want to receive this feed any longer? Unsubscribe here.