Checking in for 2024-01-11:

Today I started taking the Regorafenib (nee: Stivarga, Regonix). This drug is a little tricky to take because it requires a low-fat, low calorie meal to precede it. Low fat means things like skim milk, low fat cottage cheese, and the like. I grew up with some of these things but over time I've grown apart from eating them. I've appreciated the flavor that fat adds to food. And usually things that are "low fat" use things like sugar and salt to make them actually palatable. So we tend not to have anything low fat in the house, save for things like oatmeal and the like. Since I need to take this pill during the same time of the day I need to standardize on one meal to be my low-fat meal while I take this drug. So I've decided on doing this for breakfast. I can at least have some steel cut oatmeal and get mostly in the ballpark both calorie-wise and low-fat-wise. We'll see how that goes.

I've had a huge pile of resistance around this new drug. After reading the potential side-effects it feels like something that nobody should ever take. But, as I was reminded by one of the nurses at Cancer Care Associates (Hi, Sarah!) if you looked at the side-effects for Tylenol you wouldn't take it either. There's a lot of wisdom to this. Side effects are a collection of things that others have experienced. They're not a guarantee of things that will happen to me. There's nothing wrong with being prepared for what could happen but worrying isn't the same thing as preparation. I've been firmly in the worrying camp. I realized that worrying isn't where I want to be with this. I can just be with whatever happens and let whatever happens happen.

I woke up today in another funk. I didn't want to do much but I decided to try to tackle a few things that needed to get done, like collect up the trash, do the dishes, and other puttering tasks. I'm a little upset that I haven't managed to pick up work on my other projects but I need to deal with some of the other areas of resistance first before I start tackling the larger items.

All of this is connected, of course: the worry, the resistance, the feelings of being out of control and overwhelmed. They're all just feelings though. The reality is outside of these feelings. Being mindful of what is going on and testing these feelings is what is important here.

We'll see where this all leads.