Shut up, Kathy

Well, this ought to be interesting.  Because that is probably what the husband is thinking, as he toils across the office from me .

I’m not rambling to myself about the latest and greatest outrage I can find with the help of my mouse, my DSL Internet connection, and my browser.  Instead, I’m dictating this with the help of a speech recognition program built into XP, into Word, so I can cut and paste this into the blogging window, so you all can read it and see how pathetic I really and truly am.  Why am I using a speech recognition program?  Well… it’s because my neuropathies, or nerve damage from the chemotherapy, have kicked in with a vengeance.  So much so that typing is out of the question for the time being, as the neuropathies are in something of a days-long flare mode. 

This sucks, to put it mildly.

I have no idea why they are so bad, this far out from chemo, after a summer where they disappeared.  The cold makes them worse, obviously, but I've noticed the barometric pressure switches, which seem to be happening in a dramatic fashion with alarming regularity lately, have something to do with it.   After suffering through them last winter, they pretty much disappeared over the summer.  As in I, literally, had no problems with them at all until about the beginning of November, and even then they were very mild in comparison to what they were last winter.  However, Christmas week they came back, and they were worse than they’ve ever been .  Suddenly now I seem to have developed arthritis along with the shooting pains the neuropathies usually caused .  My hands ache and are swollen.  The shooting pains go up into my arms now. Also,  I have these lovely little patches on The skin of my hands where, out of nowhere, it suddenly feels like I’ve splashed scalding water on my hand, and now have a third degree burn that lasts for about a minute or so and then, miraculously, disappears.  Good times, no?  And, to explain the speech recognition software, the tips of my fingers are incredibly tender and it’s painful to type, and to do so generally encourages the shooting pains to really get going.  So I’m going to avoid typing as much as I can for the time being, and so I can continue blogging somewhat, the husband rigged this up for me.

Dr. Academic is sending me to a neurologist, in search of some understanding as to why they’re so crappy because he’s clueless and his prescription pad is in really helping me this time. We're also curious if this means the damage the Taxol caused to my nerves is permanent.  I have that appointment on Wednesday and it should be interesting to hear what this neurologist has to say. I was chatting with my dear friend, The Doctor, who also happens to be a neuropsychologist, and she has worked with this neurologist and had lots of good things to say about him. Hopefully he’ll be able to provide some answers, because as of right now everyone---and I mean everyone---is clueless. I am not normal.( yeah, yeah, keep your comments to yourself because I already know what you're are going to say, and it’s not that original.) I shouldn’t be having problems with the neuropathies right now. Well, let me correct that: I can have them, it would be normal to have them at this stage of the game, but they shouldn’t be so bad that my hands would swell up, that I wouldn’t be able to type, that the pain would be worse now than it ever has been. None of it makes sense. Hence, it’s time to go to the nerve specialist. I doubt, given that there’s generally not much they can do about these things to begin with, he’ll have any helpful suggestions, other than to win the lottery and move to a warmer climate, but I’ll go and hear him out anyway, just in case.

Unfortunately, training the speech recognition software hasn’t been a lot of fun.  You’ll have undoubtedly  noticed that there are few mistakes in this little screed, and that’s because the software and I are still getting to know one another, so bear with me while I train it.  Furthermore, I’m trying to get it to swear for me and it doesn’t seem to want to work. Fox. You see “fox” isn’t supposed to be fox; it’s supposed to be something a wee bit dirtier. I think perhaps you might understand what I’m saying, or writing as the case may be, even though it doesn’t feel like I’m technically “writing” right now, but am rather rambling to myself, in the cold office,  in the middle of the night, with a lukewarm cup of tea at my side, and am wondering if I have, officially, gone nuts. So perhaps you’ll forgive me for trying to have some fun with this, eh, my devoted take your readers?

Ship. She had. Ship. Ship. Fox. Fox. Fox. Talk fox fox five fox fox buck Falk Sox Sox Sox. Koch sector mother Fokker.

God damn Microsoft. Oh sure, you can say “god damn” in Microsoft-ese, but if you want to drop an F. bomb forget about it.

Anyway, I shall try to soldier on, but don’t expect any great posts over the next couple of days, because this dictation thing is freaking weird. It’s one thing to be screedy when you’re simply typing away, but then to have to listen to yourself being screedy? Well, that’s another thing entirely, and I think it’ll take some getting used to, but hopefully I won’t have to.