sex baby tip 71

Cancer tip 71 (Recovery – adult themed). Comedy is easy sex is hard. Don’t let a bad sex episode get in your head. All things in time.  I guess I can only speak for balding quintogenarians (I just made that word up), who like pizza too much. Sex while important, is pretty low on the laundry list of things to worry about as you battle through the haze of residual side effects. As you all know side effects can hang on for a while, so be patient. I have a lot of stupid jokes, but this is too important to be glib about. Okay never mind, remember like anything else practice makes perfect. 

Tips 68, 69, 70 forgot to post them

Cancer tip 68 (Recovery) Stash some money away to cover federal income tax. This is one of those “Do as I say. Not as I do.” Tips. If your employer has a disability policy and you go out on short or long term disability, be advised some insurers DO NOT withhold income tax. I dropped the ball here and it cost me a bit of cash just as I was coming out of my cancer haze and returning to work. Even though most disability insurance is woefully inadequate to cover lost wages, the tax bill can be shockingly high.

Cancer tip 69 (recovery). Get in shape if you can. Referring to tip 66, Set up a plan to get yourself back in good enough shape to do the things you want to do. This can be ridiculously hard, but it’s gotta be done.  Want to go fishing and need to walk two miles to get you your fishing hole? Slowly work up to it. Important note – make sure platelets are sustained at 50,000 before you do anything too crazy. Although normal platelets are 150,000, I think we all threw normal out the window a while ago. Safe – for exercise – is 50,000. That’s what Lance Armstrong says – he’d never lie.

Cancer Tip 70 (recovery) Forgive yourself for the emotional outbursts you’re gonna have at work. This goes for caregivers too. When you go through this and return to work, you’re gonna realize that a lot of what you’re doing is pretty stupid.

I was on a conference call when I first got back and it went on for about 30 minutes too long as everyone tried to jockey for phone call supremacy. The big muckety-mucks asked if there were any question. I said, “Since it’s painfully obvious we’re done, can I hang up?” Another time a subordinate gave me a ration of shit and I resigned, luckily the secretary of labor talked me out of it. Another time I just broke down and cried. 

Me -- Burkitt’s never looked so good

Pretty cool huh!

Stiff arm work a bit longer

Recovery tip #67 – Don’t rush back to work. If you can afford it, return to work with the same enthusiasm of a dog going to vet or a cat taking a bath. If I had to do over, I would have stiff-armed my return by a couple of months. I wasn’t ready. Even though my job has been very supportive and I felt a moral obligation to get back as fast as possible as symbol of returning to normal – I did it too soon. 

tip 66

I realize I am way behind I’ll catchup today.

Recovery Tip #66 – Do an inventory of you. How beat up are you from your cancer treatment? What are your limitations? What still works pretty well? What doesn’t works so well? Is there anything you can fix? Do you want to? For caregivers – same thing. 

REcovery stuff we’ve already discussed

Tip #62 – Recovery stuff. Since I lost my neuropathy notes and the Internet is full of stuff here ‘s a link to the mayo clinic -- http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/chemotherapy-neuropathy/MY01327. Okay maybe I should’ve held the mayo (heh, heh). Oh god I love “Airplane” humor. One question -- why does the spell-check make you capitalize Internet? How did that become a proper noun? I digress. Recovery is its own little bag of happy in a lot of ways. There are false starts with doctors; neuropathy pain; return to work issues; the realization you are not the same as you were; and the constant fear of getting sick again. But then again, that might just be me. The thing I noticed was how much physical strength I had lost from getting sick even to now.

So here’s the tip. Be patient. This walk is just as long and winding as the treatment phase. 

Sorry about yesterday

I was kind of maudlin yesterday. I don’t know why just was. You know it be that way sometimes. Feeling pretty good today. Lifted weights last night for the first time in 14 months. It’s about time to get into that again. I put it off to let my abdomen heal up a little more. That could become a tip. Hmmm. I am waxing reflective these days. I’ll be two years old Friday and anniversaries make me wonder ... Ho hum.
Had a great night of writing last night.  Cranked out a good 90 minutes of misspelled hackery.
My dear friend Lyn hooked me up with a playwriting group that meets Saturday. With any luck it’ll kick start me into finishing my cancer comedy. I guess that’s it.