Some Observations

With the recover well and truly underway, here are some random observations/rants.


Shaving:
While the area under my neck is indeed largely a no-need-to-shave zone, the hair on my chin and my face seems to have decided to grow faster than it used to.  Or is it just because I've forgotten how fast it used to grow?  Either way, the daily shave is back on the agenda.


Wet shave is still my preferred option, but admit to being lazy and just using the electric shaver on most occasions as haven't regained the wet shave routine yet.




The Lump on My Neck:
Still there and likely to be there forever.  Gives me sort of a double chin ,that seems contrary to the "leaner" me as a result of the weight loss.


A small price to pay for successful treatment.




Weight:
Despite eating seemingly all day, my weight has dropped another Kg.  Not sure the dietician is going to be happy with that,  but given I'm actually doing physical exertion type things now (as opposed to just blobbing around the house), I would expect to lose a bit of weight.  Am I clutching at straws, or right to take this stance?  Time (and dietician) will tell.


Good news is it has held stable for the last week though.




Eating:
What a challenge to find out what the body will tolerate and can process.


While I'm now eating normal cuts of meat as opposed to just minced, still some issues with ensuring the meat is moist.  Have found 'dry' meat cause issues.  So what starts out hot and moist, can become a problem as it starts to cool and dry out.  Pork cuts seems worse for this than do their beef equivalent.


Chicken is a real challenge.  The texture (quite stringy effectively) is weird and I struggle with it.  Even nuggets are somewhat of a mission.  Popcorn chicken works (see I've managed to reintroduce KFC), but is a lot of work and only in small quantities that represent a snack, not a meal.


Breakfast now normally consists of weet-bix, which has replaced the previous norm of porridge.  Weet-bix is a lot quicker and I've found just as satisfying/filling.  Porridge now a weekend "treat".


Instant noodles used to be my lunch mainstay, but they have started to cause the throat some processing issues as well.  Interestingly, the beef ones are worse than the chicken ones, yet only difference should be the flavour sachet.  Weird but true.  To the absolute shock of those that know me, lunches now consist of macaroni cheese (true), other single serve pasta meals, omelettes or scrambled eggs.


Dinner now consists of an attempted "meat and 3 vege" each night.  Some nights becomes a bit of a mission, especially if I'm feeling a bit tired, but I understand the need and in all fairness, seldom come away not feeling full, so must be doing something right.


Local Roasts have proven a good "easy fix" as the food remains moist to the last, so is easy for my system to handle.


Dessert favourites now are Aunt Betty's Steamed Puddings.  They come in a number of different varieties, but didn't enjoy the after dinner mint one.  35 seconds in the microwave and some ice-cream = bloody marvellous.


Can now eat potato chips in small quantities (they gunk up in my mouth as no saliva to help ease them down) and despite my diet being meant to exclude breads, can manage single pieces of sour dough bread - providing it is toasted and I'm prepared to spend the 10-15 minutes worth of effort to help ease it down.  I kid you not, it is a real commitment to eat bread.


Another side effect of this eating lark - the dishwasher needs to be turned on every 3 days or so to deal to the dishes.  It had been through a period of some 4-5 months where it was turned on maybe once every 2-3 weeks, now it is earning its way.


One thing I'm meant to be having is fortisip straight out of the bottle, or as part of a milkshake.  All I can say is thank goodness I didn't have to rely on drinking this stuff during my recovery, it tastes terrible straight out of the bottle and the milkshake version was equally unpalatable.  In fairness, haven't tried all the flavours yet, but not holding out much hope that they will have made one particular flavour nice.


Suppose if my taste-buds hadn't recovered I'd be none the wiser, but they have thankfully and once again I can be picky.


Thanks Jake for taking the hit on all those fortisips over the months for me. 




Sleeping:
Seems to be less of an issue now.  Have found some pills from the health shop that work and I'm pleased to be off the potentially addictive ones given to me by Tatiana.


Sleep is still somewhat "disturbed", but I don't wake up feeling tired, so I'm obviously getting enough combined sleep to satisfy the body.


Intend to try a pill free sleep tomorrow night - if it fails, have weekend to recover with the aid of pills.


One potential "benefit" of the non-prescribed pills is I can now technically drink alcohol.  Figure given the weight loss, etc, my threshold will be considerably lower and intend to try my first beer from the safety of my own home.  Might be part of the celebration of my first night's sleep without any pills? 




Early Mornings:
When I wake up, my throat is really dry, despite my sipping water during the night.  I used to be sipping almost non-stop (2 x 750ml of water a night, plus the resultant toilet stops to interrupt sleep), whereas now I seem to stop sipping around midnight and only consume around 500ml a night.


So while I get more sleep, I have to deal with a dry throat in the morning.  Water is the  preferred initial "treatment", but the other side effect seems to be a fair bit of phlegm builds up overnight now, so that also has to be moved and invariably it becomes a vicious cycle. Drink to ease the throat, which loosens the phlegm, that by shifting in turn aggravates the throat again.  Gotta love it.


Solution seems to be drink water for a while, then switch to soft drink for a while.  However, after maybe 2 glasses of soft drink, have to revert to water.  Why?  Well, without the saliva, the sweet syrupy taste of the soft drink remains and means I'm trying to get rid of that, making the lips and throat work overtime, and the cycle starts again.  Reverting to water seems to provide some sort of balance.


Does it ever go away?  No, it just settles to a tolerable/manageable level.




Previous Blog Posts:
I sat down and started reading the posts from scratch the other day. Got as far through as posting #26.


Was really interesting (I'd forgotten some stuff) and quite an emotional exercise as I once again faced the early stages of my battle.  At some stage I will pick up where I left off, but think it is going to be one of those things I do when I'm in the right head space.




Diabetes:
Seems to be a non-event now.  Last appointment has everything at acceptable levels and apparently my cholesterol level is now really good.


Given my diet consists of so much high fat and sugary stuff (only doing what I'm told), that was quite amazing, but I'll take it thanks.


In it's own strange way, the cancer has had benefits - my weight loss has helped take me out of the type 2 diabetes danger zone.  Not the preferred method of achieving this though obviously.




Time to go and sort out some lunch now.