I felt this paranoia that every time I posted about a new side effect / body impact from cancer or chemo, I’d then experience ANOTHER ONE.
It felt pretty quick after the thyroid diagnosis that I was thrust into the diabetes evaluations and eventual diagnosis. I sat on it for awhile (because T2D feels like something we’re to be ashamed of), and literally within days of posting about it, I was in a remote doc visit with The Wizard and ..
I hate this
I learned a new thing. I mean, I learned the name of a thing that’s been going on. That I knew but didn’t know how to name. And it’s like, ONE MORE DAMN THING. Like, Jesus, will the piling on ever end?
Oh this sucks so much. This is so hard to say. The more things I reveal about my body the more I let the world know, I am so much more damaged than you thought. It’s like the world’s worst dating profile. “And now this! And now THIS!”
It’s called “lordosis.”
You know when you’re driving through rural areas and you see that old horse put out to pasture and it breaks your heart, seeing that dramatic swayback, that hugely concave back?
I don’t know if it happens to horses in the same way it happens to people, but in people it happens when we lose abdominal muscles to hold up our cores. If your abdominal muscles don’t work, your body will rely on adjacent muscles, like lower back muscles.
That shit hurts. I learned that the first time I tried a plank after I thought I was recovered from the TRAM repair.
I can cross planks off my exercise list forever.
Yep. I have a sway back. My abdominal muscles are gone, atrophied or non-functional. My PT is lying on the hardwood floor, trying to push my lower back to the floor and I can’t do that anymore.
My entire body is jacked/tight-wrapped, brittle.
A long, long time ago, I danced ballet. I could run and finish 3 ceiling-high grand jetes before running into the opposite wall of the studio.
My feet aren’t trustworthy because of chemo-caused neuropathy. I trip on a regular basis. There won’t be any more grand jetes.
Have you ever watched your kid play one of those PC games where each goal they try to meet requires a task, and then that task requires another job, and then that job requires an endeavor.
(See Freddi Fish, Pajama Sam, or any number of similar games.)
It’s superstition, it’s paranoia, but yeah, I stalled MONTHS reporting that I have another fucking diagnosis – lordosis. Swayback.
And this should be in the other blog. The cancer blog. But I can’t remember what it’s called. I started that site in August 2016 and updated it regularly until I tried to get over it. I Googled every version I could think of of “cancer blog site” and “free cancer blog” and “free host site cancer” and cycled through page after page of descriptions of sites. I can see the images of the home page.
I recommended that site easily dozens of times for folks dealing with their own or a family member’s cancer or chronic illness. I’d say, “consider opening a ____.” A WHAT? Opening a WHAT?
I never saved the link as a favorite, I’m sure I thought I’d always remember.
But I don’t remember. I can’t fucking remember what it’s called! Wait – it was “Ann Gentle’s Cancer Show.” But on what site?
I mean.
This is crazy.
It was . … … ?
I
can still see parts of the home page from which I started new posts hundreds of times, over YEARS.
And I have paused in typing this entry a dozen times, closing my eyes to try to see that home page or… something?
I’ll find a link via past posts. I know that, and yet, for all the times I saved this draft to stop and visualize – what is the blog site ?????? I can’t remember it. So I guess I gave myself my next diagnosis. Lordosis? Meet chemo-induced brain damage.
Yeah.
Don’t worry.
I’ll stick to bike gear reviews on this platform. All the juicy stuff is on the platform I don’t recall.
Go 