The week atrted with the amazing news that led to the Euphoria post. What can top that for the beginning of a week?

Attended two sessions at the Wellspring centre. The first has to do with Brain Fog, the second Q-Gong.

Brain Fog

It turns out that Brain Fog is not restricted to chemo patients. We all have suffered from this condition at one time or another. You go to another room to get something, but forget what it was as soon as you enter the other room. Chemo patients seem to suffer from this condition with a slight variance, we don’t even know why we changed rooms.

The first session was geared to be an introduction of sorts, explaining what is yet to come. People talked about what they are going through. Nothing dramatic or surprising. Forgetting why you went to the store. Make a list. I did, then forgot where I put the list. I forgot about an appointment. Looked at the calendar three or four times and still forgot. Multitasking – what a joke. Can barely juggle one even let alone try to handle more. And the list goes on.

We will be doing exercises that will help us remember. Games and strategies. Word associations, and lots more.

Q-Gong

Fascinating. This is the mother of Tait-chi and similar exercise routines that have been developed over the years. Another discipline that tries to make you aware of your breath. we were taught how to breathe as it is the backbone of the other exercises. Through the stomach, not the chest. Breathe in through the nose, out through the mouth. We had to put our hands on our stomach to make sure it was rising and falling. The instructions got slightly more risky, at least for me. We had to push in on the stomach to expel the bad chi through our back. This is a bit problematic for someone who has had his insides cut up. At one point, the moderator decided I needed help with the pushing of the stomach. I had to stop her. Why she asks, that is the location of my operation, says I. Ah, she backed off right away and told the class to not do anything that would hurt them.

We also did an energy test of sorts. You put you hands out in front of and cross them at your wrists. She then attempts to push down your hands and you resist. Hands stay up. Someone stands behind the first participant and gives the person a thumbs down over their head. The same exercise leads to little resistance as the hands collapse. She asked me to volunteer, which somehow defeats the notion of volunteering, methinks. I stood up and extended my arms are instructed. She pushed my arms down with great ease. Turns out the thumbs down saps the energy from everyone inthe room. Bizarre to say the least. Doing a thumbs up reverses the process. I guess this means we have to enter rooms and give the place an immediate thumbs up to increase the energy level. Will have to try that.

All the exercises were terrific. I just have to discipline myself to do them regularly while at home. Working on it.

Other things

I am reading a bit more. The week was high in energy for me. No chemo, or anything else. Felt very strong, but was still exhausted by the afternoon. A bit strange. Just have to adjust. I think I maybe push myself a bit harder when I am feeling well resulting in the fatigue. No worries.

Went shopping, mostly for food and stuff. All good.

The days are a blur. Christmas was barely noticed, as is the Hew Year. Cannot stay up to celebrate the coming of the new year. I guess I will have to celebrate when I wake up in the morning.

This is a chemo week. My oncologist’s New Year present. Went in for blood work on Tuesday morning in preparation for my date with the Chemo Daycare. I love the nurses in this unit. There appears to be little pressure on them. They are calm, efficient, attentive, and always smiling.  We joke around a bit. One of the nurses is calling me by my first name, which is cool. She is the one who has had breast cancer and gone through the chemo experience. Very reassuring and listens should I decide to rant or anything.

I have been asked by Wellspring to participate in a study with the outfit that runs the Brain Fog sessions. These sessions are meant to increase your cognitive abilities. They need to know if the sessions are working or not. I agreed to participate. What else do I have to do?

I attended the session on Tuesday morning. It was supposed to last between 60 and 90 minutes. But I talk fast, so it ended a bit earlier. Hah! The study was interesting. They made me sign a consent form, I barely skimmed through it. Big mistake. The first question had to do with recalling what was on the consent form. I recalled one item, which turned out to be the most important one. Lucky me. Don’t ask me what it was. Don’t remember it any more.

The rest of the questions were interesting. They read out a list of words, and you had to recall as many as you could. They would reread the list to allow you to add to the recall. Never recalled all of them. To make matters worse, they asked you how many of the words you recalled about 30 minutes later. That is cheating.

Same with a bunch of number. They kept adding one number to the list and you had to repeat the numbers starting from the first one. They showed you a drawing which you had to replicate. Nothing complicated, but reasonably involved. Of course, they asked to draw it again 30 minutes later. Cheaters. I aced that one.

And the questions went on. They read you a snippet of a story from a paper and you had to repeat the story word for word.They asked you how many years of schooling you have had starting from day one. Are you kidding me? I changes countries three times, and schools I don’t know how many times. This might be fine for someone who grew up in one, or maybe two countries, but not for a migrant habitue, as it were.

I had to fill out these forms full of questions. Like, do you miss sign posts when you are driving? I told the police officer I was suffering when I went through the Stop sign, but he did not believe me, honest. Nah, no problem there. It was a long list. The only one that I highlighted was the trouble I have with reading. You keep reading the same page over and over again, until you realise the futility of what you are doing. Having said that, I just finished reading two books by Malcolm Gladwell. What a lovely writer he is.

The moderator decided that I was doing fine.

The session starts on January 12. Will keep you posted.

Wednesday was chemo day. Janet came with me. I decided to sleep through the process and she went shopping.  Easy peasy, as they say.

The rest of the week was spent recovering from the chemo. We went shopping on Saturday because Janet was going a bit stir crazy from being in the house all the time. Went to see It’s Complicated on Sunday, to which all I have to say is Not! Chick flick.

That’s all there is.

© 2010 I Have Cancer Suffusion theme by Sayontan Sinha