A mammoth undertaking

This last week has gone extremely well. I have been cooking almost all our meals, and have even been able to cook what I think of as normal food. That includes all the sorts of food that were totally off limits three weeks ago. For example, yesterday we went out to one of our favourite local restaurants, The Plough and Harrow at Guarlford, where J. was very happy to see us. We normally eat there two or three times a month, and we hadn’t seen them for at least six weeks. I celebrated by eating a wonderful rib-eye steak, beautifully cooked, and accompanied by proper chips with Béarnaise sauce. Delicious! And in the evening, I roasted a chicken with lemon and rosemary, and also made some goose-fat roasted potatoes. It was a real blow-out day, and I loved it. As a result, I seem to have stopped losing weight. In fact, I think I’ve added a couple of pounds since the low point. I was 11 stone 8.2 lbs this morning.

Not only have I been eating well, but I also have a lot more energy, both physical and mental. For example, I was able to clear the snow from the drive yesterday morning. I admit that it was only about half an inch thick, and very powdery, so that I could clear it with a broom, but that is still a big advance on previous snow clearing adventures, which I had to leave to Gillian. As for the mental energy, I spent most of the weekend preparing art work for a visiting card (I can’t really call it a business card, can I?) which I finally uploaded and ordered from Moo.com. I’ll post pictures when they arrive.

I have had very little pain during the last week, to the extent that I can barely remember the last time I needed to take an extra dose of orally administered morphine (wonderful stuff! when you need it).

The only thing that is less than ideal is that I have been sick most mornings this week. I am taking an anti-emetic (Metoclopramide) and it seems to work during the day, but I wake up most mornings feeling somewhat nauseous. Sometimes drinking a cup of tea is enough to make me vomit, after which I feel completely fine. This morning, however, I couldn’t make myself be sick, which concerned me somewhat. When I had been in a similar situation earlier in the week I threw up not only my breakfast, but most of my pills. The concern was that I didn’t know whether it was safe to take another dose or not. I have now learned to wait until I have finished my breakfast and vomited before taking my pills. This morning, however, things didn’t follow their normal course, so I took the anti-emetic and hoped. And my hope was borne out, much to my relief. I wonder whether the effects of the anti-emetic are cumulative?

To sum up: lots more energy; eating well; cooking; making things; a little more nausea than I would like.

I like the idea of keeping a formal-ish record of progress. I think  I’ll write a post like this one, summarizing how I felt in the previous seven days, once a week, probably on Sunday evenings.