Diversions in Here Be Dust

My prior post included blank coloring sheets that I had drawn for my Creativity Heals group. I’ve now filled mine in:

Large size
Blank sheet (can be downloaded and printed)

Large size
Blank sheet (can be downloaded and printed)

Recently I downloaded Batik and Other Pattern Dyeing by Ida Strawn Baker and Walter Davis Baker (Atkinson, Mentzer & Company, 1920), free from Project Gutenberg. I don’t know what fabric arts techniques exist these days, but the book is a great guide to practices from almost a century ago. I downloaded it for the patterns, so that I could play with them. These two Batik variations use tracings from a couple of different patterns:

Large size

Large size

I’ve posted my latest 30-day maintenance update on MyFitnessPal, which I call my “Wait, what?” edition. After what seemed a slow but steady weight gain despite increased exercise and decreased calorie intake (a gain that I had attributed to anastrazole), my weight has now dropped back to where I want it. That makes me happy, but I don’t know why it’s happening – especially now that my thyroid function is down, which should contribute even more to weight gain.

But I have a possible clue. The reversal had occurred after my bout with E. coli (as diagnosed by my radiation oncologist, once I had told him my symptoms). My GP had been surprised to hear that I had not experienced diarrhea during that episode, but “during” is the operative term here. I had not only not experienced diarrhea, but in the days following the bout I had trended slightly toward constipation. (I knew there was a good reason I still log my BMs and rate them according to the Bristol Stool Scale – an activity I had begun when I started chemo. “Slightly” means a change from my baseline Type 4 to Type 3.) Then, 20 days after the bout, and with no other ill effects, I had experienced a brief episode of diarrhea (Type 6, followed about a half hour later by Type 7) and had then returned to baseline. Since I had started keeping track, my only other episode approaching diarrhea had occurred in July of last year (two of Type 6 about four hours apart), in-between my fourth (and last) infusion of Adriamycin/Cytoxan and my first infusion of Taxol.

So, is E. coli even the right call? Nothing in the FDA’s list of foodborne illnesses is an exact fit for what I had experienced, but cancer and cancer treatment might insert a few confounding variables there. Below is how my 21 30-day maintenance periods compare:

Speaking of “collateral damage” from cancer treatment, I’ve already written about having to learn the new topography of my breast when I do self-exams. My anastrazole-exacerbated carpal tunnel flare-ups have added a new wrinkle. In addition to factoring my new lumps into the exam, I have to pause and wait for my flare-ups to die down. It’s hard to do a BSE when my hand is tingling and otherwise numb.

The following vignette from Sept. 1 (which I posted on Facebook) might be traced to chemo brain, but I prefer to think of it as ordinary aging:

I confused M earlier today when I shouted, “ALGORITHM!” as she read to me from an old Guinness Book of World Records, in which she had found a typo. (She wanted to confirm a math error with me.) My shout had absolutely nothing to do with what she was reading, which concerned an 18th century senator. I had been standing at the kitchen sink, washing my hands after cutting up an orange, when the word hit me. It was like spying a motherlode gleaming in a dark mine.

M screwed her face up at me. “What does ‘algorithm’ have to do with this senator?”

“Nothing,” I said, feeling punch drunk. And suddenly desperate. “I HAVE to remember this word!”

I had been trying to think of the word “algorithm” for three days. My brain kept handing me the word “analog” and I kept throwing it back, with a maddening internal dialogue that went:

Me: No, that’s not the word. Try again.
Brain: Analog.
Me: I SAID that’s not the word. Yes, it starts with an “a”. But it’s not analog.
Brain: Analog.
Me: Will you STOP it? Starts with an “a”, it’s a computer term. Like the targeted marketing that shoves products in your face based on what you clicked.
Brain: Analog.
Me: NO! Like when your search term is automatically filled in before you finish typing it.
Brain: (after a moment’s pause) Analog.
Me: SHUT. UP. Let me think.
Brain: (thinking) Analog.
Me: analoganaloganaloganaloganaloganaloganaloganaloganaloganaloganaloganaloganaloganaloganaloganaloganalog – Okay, I’ve gotten that out of my system. NOW maybe I can think of the word.
Brain: Analog.
Me: (screams)

Lather, rinse, repeat ad nauseam.

I have now told my brain that if it forgets “algorithm” again, it should think of the star Algol as a mnemonic (eclipsing binary, that old Algol rhythm). I just hope it doesn’t keep repeating “Algol” to me if this happens again. :-)