Day 117 - Day after chemo

08:00
What a screwed up night and morning.
I am paranoid about my stump now. The scar has no protection at all.
I slept poorly, but not from phantom pain, I just wasn't sleepy.

I discovered the most amazing thing. If I fantasize about moving my left toes. forward and backward, and left and right, Not much, sort of like if I had a shoe on. By visualizing it, it is almost as good as mirroring.
Because there is absolutely no feedback from muscles, or positioning sensors in my foot, the phantom foot never moves. That makes it hard to do. But by imagining the movement, I was able to mentally move my leg and foot. The instant my missing foot moves in my brain, the phantom pain goes. Very repeatable. I played around from 1:00 till about 3:30. I could repeatably stop the phantom pain. It takes lots of visualization, and concentration. When either would slip, the pain was there in a second.
Not really a practical solution, as I can not let my mind drift for even a second. Sleep is not possible while stopping the pain this way.

I got up at 07:45 to call a guy about selling the beetle. I sat on my wheelchair, and started dialing his number. Then I had to poo, and I pooed. There was about a second between no need to go, and shit everywhere. I yelled for Maddie, and zoomed to the toilet. What a mess. Very explosive, but so short lived. No warning. We then started taking all the pillow cases off the pillows on the wheel chair. Poor Maddie, what a smell. When we took the one pillow case off the buckwheat pillow, the zip had come undone, so about 1/4 of the buckwheat fell all over the floor. What a mess.
I took a shower, and will live in old underwear all day. I am paranoid.
We have a booklet from the chemo lady, saying what to do to treat diarrhea.
She says don't eat or drink the following:
Coffee, broccoli, hot sauces, chillis, beer, soy milk, beans, raw fruits, vegetables, nuts, whole wheat bread, and bran cereals.
That just listed the food contents of this house. Now I will starve to death. The doc says to eat high sodium food. Bananas, and bovril. Bovril has 5830 mg of sodium per 100g. Shriek!

We still don't have confirmation of the wheelchair for the flight to George. I need to call for that now.
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18:35
I am so useless. I have slept 3 different times today. all for 2 hours, then I am awake for an hour, then I pass out.
We have so much to do before George, and I feel so useless.
We sorted the airport wheelchair saga, and the ladies at the airport say that I should bring my own wheelchair, and then there is no problem. So tomorrow at 1 we will go buy a wheelchair.
At 11 we need to take the beetle to a guy that acts as a broker for beetles. Then we should know what it is really worth.

20:30
From Maddie

Our dear friend/bro has passed out, so I'll just end his blog for the night.

It was not a good day for Dan, to say the least. I agree ... AS sucks and chemo sucks too.  To just think that there is still 3 more cycles of chemo treatment ahead, is enough to make the most positive person depressed, no need to say how  the patient  feels about that. I feel so sorry that he has to go through all this :-( BUT I'm positive that tomorrow will be a better day, that he'll have less fatigue and more energy, less nausea and better appetite and less negative with a more positive spirit.

Hang in there Dan!  You are in our thoughts and prayers.

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