aLive @ Stage 4!

Monday  -- If you haven't already, read about Day 1  here . Tuesday  -- Man, was I sore when I woke up this morning!  It was good, though!  I went down to the gym after breakfast.  My goal was five minutes on the recumbent bike.  I downloaded a new book on my Overdrive app hoping to distract myself from the timer on the bike and it worked.  I ended up going for 30 minutes!  My legs were a little wonky for the rest of the day; thank goodness for the walker, lol.  After taking an afternoon nap (inactivity) my legs were even more sore than earlier.  I needed to use the lift chair (recliner) for the day as I had trouble standing from a sitting position.  I know that the soreness will wane over time.  Not stopping. Wednesday -- Not so sore upon waking this morning.  Yay!  Managed to up my game on the recumbent bike from the 30 minutes yesterday to 45 minutes today.  I'm sure it looked weird, but I took m...

I joined a gym today.  I've been wanting to for awhile.  You see, I've tried to do this on my own so, so many times.  Call it laziness or whatever, I just can't seem to push myself to get on the bike or walk every day.  With my health issues, it's become a necessity, not a luxury; a need versus a want.  One of the medicines I'm on (Herceptin) is known to cause heart issues.  I have an echocardiogram every three months to monitor my heart.  Once my heart function deteriorates, it's time to switch medicines.  We want to delay that as long as possible.  In the metastatic cancer world, there are limits.  We are on a medication until it stops working, then we try something else until it stops working, and so on until there are no other options left.  So you can see why we want to do everything in our power to stay on the same medication for as long as we can.  In this case, that means me doing what I can to keep my heart healthy....

I had my regular, every six week oncology appointment today.  I left the house at 7:45am and checked in for my appointment around 9:40am for my 10:00am appointment.  Traffic was good up until I got on 295, then it was heavy the whole rest of the way.  It was a good drive, though.  Traffic moved steadily, just very slowly.  It was a pretty stress free drive. Hardly anyone was in the waiting room when I arrived, just one other lady with her husband and grown son.  As I pulled my knitting out, she came over to chat.  She's been knitting for just over a year and loves it as much as I do.   She admired the shawl I had with me, and the share of blue I'm using for a baby blanket I'm currently working on.  She told me about the sweaters that she's making for her granddaughters; they have to be identical so the girls won't fight over them.  😊 During the appointment with my oncologist, I inquired about increasing the dosage of my an...