My Chemo Brain Counter-Offensive

So… yeah. I’ve been having some chemo brain issues for quite a while now and I’m in search of interesting ways to build up my brain muscle to counter these “cognitive disorder” side-effects, as my neurologist so neatly calls them.

I’ve never been a board game – or any game for that matter – kind of guy, but I’ve read and I’ve heard anecdotal evidence that board games do help with one’s focus and clarity issues.

With this anecdotal evidence as my impetus, of course I went to Amazon, the event horizon of the internet, and searched around for what the best board game for my particular interests would be.

And I found this:

Cards Against Humanity
 
As you can see, it tags itself as “A party game for horrible people.” And while I don’t feel that I’m all that horrible, after reading a few of the many thousands of reviews, it does seem like a game that would appeal to my interests.

Does that make me so horrible?

That was rhetorical.

Anyway…

Which brings me to the point of this pointy post…

Research, with you being my source information.

Have you played the game? And if so, what do you think of it? Is it fun? Challenging? Stoopid? Do you feel you have a stronger brain because of your playing it?

And don’t worry, just because you played the game doesn’t mean I will judge you as a horrible person.

Necessarily…

I will, however, admire your courage for admitting it.


If you’re not familiar with the game, you can learn more about it here.

 
 

Feeling Pretty Darn Good!

It seems the better I feel the harder it is to keep folks updated on how I’m doing. Now that I am feeling better I have more options to do other things other than to sit and think about how bad I feel. Now, mostly I sit around and read and write and take walks with the wife and eat all of the delicious, healthy, cancer destroying foods that she prepares for me. So that’s why I haven’t been blogging or tweeting as much. Besides, it’s redundant for me to keep posting: feeling good again today day after day. But since I’ve stopped getting the regular doses of chemo and I’ve been taken off of most of my meds, that’s exactly how I feel. In fact, I feel better than I have in a long time, even since before my diagnosis.

Yesterday I met with my longitudinal doctor, that is, the doctor who has been my consultant and adviser since I was first diagnosed and who will be with me until the end. I have been seen by a boatload of other doctors for a boatload of different reasons, but it is my longitudinal doctor who I depend on most. I met with him and his boss. The purpose of this visit was merely a formality to give me one last checkup and their final diagnosis and authorization for me to proceed with my transplant. Everything is good. My counts are perfect and based upon all the tests I’ve had…spinal taps and bone marrow biopsies…the amount of cancer in my body is less than 0.04% or something like that. Pretty good, indeed.

I have only one more consult with a doctor between now and when I get admitted back into the hospital on 3/23/10. The consult is for the heart and as far as I’m concerned its just a waste of time…an evil plot to make sure I don’t stay away from the hospital too long.

Like I said, on the 23rd, a week before my transplant, I get re-admitted to the hospital so I can begin getting juiced up with some new kind of chemo. This kind will completely kill my bone marrow in preparation for the transplant. I’m definitely not looking forward to the chemo crud again, but it will mean I am one step closer to getting to the transplant and beyond. Again…pretty good, indeed.

So, as far as my blogging and tweeting go, no news is good news. I reckon once I get juiced up again I’ll be back to complaining on a regular basis as to how bad I feel. Misery loves company.