Thursday, October 15, 2009

What's going on?

Yesterday, I felt okay. Had a decent night's sleep and then had two appointments which weren't too bad. One appointment got rescheduled for later in the day and I agreed to the later time. However, I completely forgot about my department's faculty meeting yesterday! Sheesh. I heard from my colleague that most of the talk has to do with changes that are in the works at the university level, but nothing set in stone yet, so there was a lot of speculation.

My rescheduled appointment was with Wells Fargo - I called to ask them a question regarding my parents' mortgage on their manufactured home and then they said that maybe they could help me out somehow. So, I let them offer some options, but they weren't good enough to get me to make any changes with regard to a refinance or other loan. My folks have been paying an outrageously high percentage rate on their mortgage for the past 11 years . .. but since they don't own the land their home is on, they are kinda out of luck. Afterwards, I picked up Eddie from my sister's house - he played with his cousins for a bit while I met with the bank - and then the three of us had a teriyaki chicken/veggie dinner that was quite good. The rest of my sister's family were at soccer practice.

Anyway, I slept okay last night but not nearly long enough, so I've been dragging all day. Eddie and I slept in a little since he doesn't have school and then I dropped him off at my folks' house so I could teach. I felt better at the beginning of class then I did before Tuesday's class, but afterwards, I felt fatigued and I had a headache and my neck and shoulder are achey and now I may have a slight sore throat again.

Is it the flu? I don't have a fever; I did three weeks ago. I have continued to have fatigue off and on - and when I get a good night's sleep and take it easy, I do okay the next day, but it seems if I do a little bit of running around, then I pay for it the next day.

Or, is it fatigue from my meds? Femara does cause fatigue - does it cause headaches? It does also cause achey muscles and joints. I've been on Femara for about six weeks now. Maybe it's just now kicking in.

Who the heck knows? Maybe it's a combination of both. But that's life with metastatic cancer - you don't know what's causing it. I guess it doesn't matter, because in the end (although my left-science brain really wants to get to the bottom of it), I think my body is telling me to keep resting and to not overdo it even if I feel okay.

I leave for Alaska in five days, though. I think that means I really really need to discipline myself and just take it easy - hard for a do-er like me to do.

Or, perhaps it means that teaching takes a lot out of me and that I should try to decrease my teaching load as much as possible! HA! I kinda like that spin on things!!

Seriously, though, teaching a class does take a lot of energy - and since I am innately shy, standing in front of a classroom is draining. I'm glad that I was able to buy myself out of a class this term - I can't imagine the shape I'd be in if I was teaching two classes at once - or even worse, four classes at once like I did when I started my tenure-track career in Connecticut!

Okay . . . got to go rest now. TTYL!

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