So yesterday was my first post in a while and I think it opened the flood gates.  I laid in bed thinking and writing in my head where everything sounds much better than when I actually sit and write it down.  Amazing how I can compose an entire book, memo, narrative, in my head but when I actually go to write it down and can barely remember a thing.  Honestly I bet I could be a fantastic writer if I did not have to do the actual physical writing and could just transcribe from my thoughts.  At least it seems pretty good while lying awake at night.

Then first thing when I woke up this morning I thought about Lance Armstrong and his testicular cancer.  Well, not exactly that but my train of thought took me there pretty quickly.  I think the steroids have made me pretty wired and sleeping is difficult now.  Plus once my thoughts get going and a noise distracts me I cannot stop.  The sprinklers were going and I could hear them so of course I fixated on them and could not block them out and then I started thinking and writing in my head and off I went, toss and turn and write for a couple of sleepless hours.  The big debate is should I just get up and write or should I fight it and try and get back to sleep.  I know I need the sleep and rest etc but when you are wide awake you cannot help it.

I am going to digress a minute because I want to explain something.  I sort have a lot to say and as I laid in bed I thought about lots of stuff and it would cause this to be an EPIC post.  So big I was thinking it would not fit on Facebook.  There had to be a limit to how much they would let you post.  I will try my best to break this up and cover the subjects I was thinking about because it will be much easier to digest and I don’t think I have time to sit and write it all out this morning.  Plus it was really good stuff in my head.  Once I mull it over it is probably fluffy drivel that I find so annoying on the internet.  Also, that is why I struggle a bit putting my thoughts into tangible words.  Do I really care to do this, do other people really care what I have to say just because I have a life changing disease.  There are lots of people that are going through what I am how am I any better, different, meaningful.  I mean, who really gives a shit what I have to say.  Maybe I should have gotten that philosophy minor in college but then who cares does it actually make a difference in anything.  No idea but I think it may help me sort some things out.  I spend WAY to much time on the internet but I cannot help it.  I am a curious person and like to learn.  Much of what I have read is the cathartic effects of writing.  I should just put this in a personal journal or something like that but then I would not get the Facebook accolades we so desire.  I think that is why I like the blog site a bit more.  I can just put it out there and it is what it is.  No FB feedback.

Now for a double digression to get to the point of what I started in the previous paragraph, my mind is like a butterfly, it just flits about taking me where ever it seems to go.  That is my life these days and my new life motto I guess.  Accomplishing a task is a herculean effort anymore.  I start something with the clear goal of completing it and the next thing I know I have learned how to build a mud hut on the island of Ibadu that is made from spit and bark of the Babunga tree.  Seriously I will have no idea how I got there nor what I was trying to do in the first place.  (That will lead to another post about Internet time and the exponential time suck).  There is so much going on inside my head anymore staying on task is practically impossible.  So, I am just a butterfly now.  Honestly I want to find a researcher and get them to name a new species of butterfly Digression.  Actually Surreal Digression, as most of my life seems so surreal anymore.  Surrealus Digressus would be a great name.

OK I could ramble along all day with this BS but I have to get back to the main topic here.  I will save my musings for other posts so I can be one of those other bloggers with a life changing disease that makes me philosophical thus have important things to say.

I have been watching the Tour de France and I think that made me think about Lance this morning.  Now he was not the first thing I thought of when I woke up.  It was really the results of my blood test from yesterday.  Each week they draw blood to check my levels and see if everything is hunky dory while under chemo treatment.  Yesterday I felt a bit weird as I was fairly light headed, a bit more dizzy than normal.  My feet would get sort of numb when I sat, if I got up quick I would get lite headed.  My calves have funny sensations.  What do you do when you have odd symptoms?  You go to the internet of course.   I start researching restless leg syndrome to see if maybe something like that is happening.  The steroids have really improved the muscle tics but my right calf still seems to be funky.  Of course that has me worried a bit as GBM’s make you more susceptible to blood clots in your legs.  I have always been pretty in-tune with my body so when something funky is going on I notice.  Plus I am now hyper aware of any abnormality.  The Doctors say that is really only a problem in sedate people and I am far from that but still when you have these weird twitches, feelings, sensations in your leg that do not seem to be going away you think about it – a lot.  When you go in for the blood draw they check your blood pressure.  I thought maybe it was too low as the symptoms I was having are similar to low blood pressure.  I have never really had low blood pressure I have always been sort of on the high side, 130/80.  Since the surgery I have been pretty normal 120/79 but the other day I was 113/seventy something.  I am rarely that low so I thought maybe it was BP.  But I was spot on at my appointment so that is not it.  That made me think of my blood this morning.  As I said my weekly blood draw is to check my blood cells and make sure they are staying in the normal range as the chemo inhibits the creation of all new cells in your body.  Blood cells are created regularly so the chemo has a big impact on them.  When I looked at my last two test results my “normal” range was on the lower side and in many cases was below the “normal” thresholds.  I could look back at my records from the days after surgery and saw I was low in most of the key areas other than white blood cells.  They were always in the good zone.  And that would make sense as I was healing from rather significant trauma.  (damn I take a long time to get to a point – sorry butterfly digression there)

So when I woke up I thought maybe my blood counts are getting low.  I have been trying to eat things that help you create blood cells but still not sure if it is making a difference or not.  That made me think of Lance.  When you get a disease there are SO many pills.  You take drugs to counter the affects of the other drugs, quite the vicious circle.  I hated taking an Advil if I had a headache and now I have a little old man pill kit loaded up with my morning pills, my afternoon chemo pills, my evening pills.  If my blood counts get low they will just give me medications to boost them.  I doubt it will be any performance enhancing drugs but you never know.  I am at the point where I am getting desensitized to all the drugs and the needle pokes and the oh you have this issue, take this drug to fix it.

The whole chemo radiation process it to try and kill/weaken the tumor cells.  The goal is to not let the treatment kill you so really you are fighting against the thing that is trying to save you from the bad thing trying to kill you in the first place.  That is a crazy thought.  So now you have this guy that is a pretty good bike racer and has some amazing potential in a situation where he is constantly getting jacked with drugs and can see how they “fix” the deficits that arise.  How can you blame him for not “using” them to “enhance” his performance.  These bike racers are amazing and some of the toughest guys out there.  Watching a guy smash into a rock wall at 30+ mph and get back on his bike and keep going is quite remarkable.  I have no idea what kind of physical torture they put themselves through.  I sure don’t have that ability inside of me.  Yah I ride my bike in circles on the weekends in the fall and make myself kinda sick doing it but it is nothing like what they do day in and day out.  Now I don’t really know all the details in the Lance Armstrong case.  It sounded like he was a real dick about a lot of it and that is why there was so much animosity against him.  I am sure he deserves it BUT he was still an amazing bike rider and I can understand a bit why the drug situation was easy for him to get into.

That was a whole lot of words to say how I thought about Lance Armstrong when I woke up but it also paints a picture of what is going on inside my head anymore.  Just a butterfly flitting about landing on random bits here and there. Plus I saved you from the epic post I created in my head that would probably be 5 times this long.  I will save some of those musings for later, if I can remember them.  They come and go pretty quickly anymore.