Reasons To Be Cheerful, Parts 1-6

Not long ago, I wrote about trying to find happiness and joy in little things, and how that might be much harder to do when I'm in the throes of my worst days with chemo side-effects. To that end, I've tried to keep track of some things that make me happy even while at my worst... 

1.    I am continually so very grateful for my loving wife, who has taken on the role of caregiver in this situation. The things that she does for me every single day are too numerous to list, yet she continues to do those things without the slightest hint of frustration with me. Her care and concern for me is a love language, loud and clear.

2.    I'm grateful for my oncology nurses, who deal with this disease in people all week long and still manage to greet us with smiles and upbeat conversations every time we see them. I don't know how they do it. As you can imagine, their attitude is infectious.

3.    I'm grateful that my overall reactions, this round, were generally 10-15% better than they were during the first round. I feared they would be worse.

4.    Although I'm not grateful that most of my hair has fallen out, I am very pleasantly surprised at how much easier life is by not having to wash, dry, and comb a head of hair. I'm less happy about the loss of my beard hair but none of my beard hair is growing so I don't need to shave my face and neck. Another plus.

5.    I'm grateful I'm no longer oily! People warned of extremely dry skin when undergoing chemo. However, I have had particularly oily skin since puberty. Instead of the chemo giving me annoyingly dry skin (okay, a little bit on the arms and legs) the effect on me has simply been to dry up the oil my skin was producing. I feel cleaner, less sticky, and don't feel like I need to shower as often as I did before.

6.    I bought a new cane and I love it. I was using my wife's old aluminum cane which had flowers on it and a foam rubber hand grip. Once I realized how frequently I was going to be needing a cane in the next few months, I decided to buy myself a classy, handmade, oak cane. It's super comfortable in my hand, weighted just right, very stable, and looks classy. I love it so much that I want to use it even when I don't feel like I need it.