Tuesday, May 19, 2009

5/19/09

Extreme boredom and funked-up taste buds has driven KD to a crazy change in diet. Probably not for the best. He really cracked the whip last year when he was diagnosed with diabetes. He went to a totally healthy, whole-grain, no-sugar, real fruit and veg diet, and not only shoved the diabetes back into the dark, but dropped some unhealthy weight.

Throughout chemo he's been encouraged to eat, eat, eat. It's usually so hard to keep food in the belly while getting treatment. And some of the foods he's been encouraged to eat do not fall into the category of 'healthy'. 

So now that he's doing much better, really on the upswing from this, he's gotten back into bad habits with food. And the pills he's taking have totally destroyed his taste buds. He actually gets grossed out by the thought of eating pizza. Bizarre, I know. Unthinkable actually. Come on! Pizza! But alas it is true. 

He's almost feverish in his quest to find something that actually tastes like it's supposed to, and he'll try just about any grubby, greasy, sugary, messy food he can find. So long story short, his diet is totally shot to hell. I'm constantly amazed when I come home and look in the kitchen at whatever the craving-of-the-day has delivered upon us.

Monday, May 11, 2009

5/11/09

Been a while ... this is the part where everything starts catching up. Where there's no crisis numbing you and making it possible to put off everything until some fictional 'later' time. So yeah, now is later, and real life is still going on. Bills, cats going to the vet, oral surgery, car brake job, etc. 

That's not to say KD's done. He's still tired. He still has aches and pains. He's got a weird taste in his mouth after eating. He takes fourteen pills one day a week. Yes, every Tuesday he takes fourteen little pink pills and rattles like a maraca. This is on top of the other pills he takes. He's going back to the radiology department for a check up soon.

But he is picking things up and trying to find the threads of normal life. He started school again tonight. Pre-calc class two nights a week. He took his mom and her mom out to dinner for Mother's Day. He goes grocery shopping and to the library. He's getting around. Even if he is still self-conscious about the complete lack of hair.

Now with the cancer disappearing and healthy blood ebbing into his bones and veins like waves into tidal pools, he's crossed the tragic coast towards higher ground. But now there's so much to gather up and sort through. Picking up the debris around a bomb blast. Figure out what's worth salvaging. Now the hard part starts. Another hard part that has nothing to do with pills and injections and radiation. 

It's one of those stupid inspirational posters you see in dull offices around the country. Something getting climbed or rafted down, and the phrase "It's not a problem, it's an opportunity." As much as those things make the common man want to gag, the base truth can be just as obvious. Because if something like this doesn't make you pick up your life and shake the box to see what's in there, then nothing will.