A good opening win for the Pats Monday night! The offense looked to be in mid-season form; Brady spreading the ball around at will, great play from the tight ends and wide outs. The running game was quiet but effective, Danny Woodhead and Benny Green-Ellis coming through. The O-line stepped up BIG time, particularly given the lack of depth coming in and the injury to Dan Koppen (Dan Connolly did an outstanding job moving to center.) The defense needs to step it up bit; they gave up a lot of yardage to Reggie Bush early, and Chad Henne (!) was able to pick the secondary at times, a concern as the Pats face a more effective passer in the Chargers' Phillip Rivers this week. But a solid win going into the home opener this Sunday.
One thing that is difficult for me to accept is that there is not more that I can do pro-actively in terms of fighting my illness. It's frustrating that the most beneficial, or effective, thing for me to do is to simply sit passively in a Barcalounger while I get pumped full of poisons every two weeks. Yeah, I run and workout and eat a healthy diet and try to get decent sleep but, except for the rest/sleep part, my doctors don't seem to put much emphasis on the efficacy of anything I can do to help myself. They're glad that I take care of myself but there doesn't seem to be much connection between what I try to do having any tangible, real effects upon the course of my illness. It's not that I don't have confidence in them or that I don't believe that the chemo regimen has positive effects; I do. But it is maddening that it seems there is little I can do on my own, or in addition to what the medical people are doing for me. I'd like to be able to do more, not simply be dependent upon the- very good, and greatly appreciated- efforts of others.
Having said that, I feel good. Honestly, I feel great. I'm in no pain; I wouldn't even know I was sick had I not been aware of it previously. With the exception of the increased sensitivity to cold I've had no appreciable side effects so far from my chemo (no excessive fatigue, no nausea et al, no hair loss, my blood counts seem to be normal, my appetite is good- even if I'm burning a lot of it off.) I'm back up to 6.5 miles/morning for my run (have to add some intervals/speed work soon, try and lower my mins/mile a bit again.) I've been getting in some good, and consistently good, lifts and am back up to 40-45 mins/cardio session after my lifts. (I'm often a bit reluctant to share some of my personal successes, not wanting to come across as a braggart or arrogant.) In a way I keep waiting for the other shoe to drop, keep waiting to suddenly feel sick, feel like I have stage 4 colon cancer, but right now I feel as well physically as I ever have, I don't feel limited at all. I really do feel good, and there is so much out there that I really want and need to do, for others as well as for myself, for as long as I have the time and the health to do so. Feeling good does beat feeling bad.
I do have a CT scan scheduled a week from today. Some previous blood work from a few weeks ago indicated that one marker that they use to try to determine the efficacy of chemo treatment had dropped appreciably- a little more than half- after only two treatments (that's a good thing.) So the CT scan will- hopefully- give them visual evidence that the treatments are working, that the tumors are slowing, stopping, or- ideally- shrinking in growth (and hopefully that no new ones have appeared.) We shall see.
