A rough week

Out of every 21 day period right now, I can do CrossFit an absolute max of 8 days.

I check into the hospital on a Wednesday (day 1).  I'm there through Saturday or Sunday.  If I go home on Saturday, Sunday (day 5) is purely a rest day.  The same is true for Monday, because I can never sleep on Sunday nights.  By day 7, I can walk for up to an hour on a treadmill.  If I'm lucky, I'll do that 2-3 times through day 10.

On days 11 and 12, I can ski, but I have to take it easy.  On day 13, I can return to CrossFit.  I did that this week.  And, I wrecked myself for the entire week doing squats.  I managed to get through the workout on Tuesday, but on Wednesday, I could barely walk.  My hamstrings were so sore that bending over to pick something up would tweak the muscles.  If I was working out every week, this would never happen.  Yes, I would get sore from some workouts, but not so sore that I can barely walk for days.

On Thursday (day 16), I couldn't do the workout again.  I rowed 6000 meters, but it wasn't the same as a real CrossFit workout.  Today, day 17, I did the warm-up and started to warm up for deadlifts.  On my 4th rep at 135 pounds, a weight I use as my starting point in warm-ups, I tweaked my right hamstring.  I had to bail on the workout.  So, instead of 4-5 CrossFit workouts this week, I got about 2.5.  I'm guessing my skiing will be somewhat compromised this weekend.

If I'm lucky, I'll be able to do CF on Monday and Tuesday (days 20 and 21) before I re-start chemo on Wednesday.

As I sat there this morning, unable to do the workout, knowing that consistent training would have allowed me to do the workout, I was angry.  For the first time in the past 10 months, through this whole ordeal, I was just plain pissed off.

It's bad enough that my body wants to kill itself.  It sucks that I've lost so much fitness, endured a really painful surgery, and I have another on the way.  My quality of life (QOL) is so compromised that I'm just pissed off.

And, the way this stupid disease works, it may never get better.  I have an aggressive form of liposarcoma.  Even after chemo and surgery, I imagine the odds for a clean scan in June aren't that favorable.

So, I found myself daydreaming of walking away from it all.  No more chemo.  No more surgery.  No more scans.  No more doctors.  Yes, I know what the end result would be.  But, I'm really torn on the issue of quality of life vs. quantity of life.  I want to know what would happen if I refused any more treatment.  Is it that much worse than if I continue?

I know I'm venting.  But I'm pissed off, angry, frustrated, etc.

Why did I bother to spend the last 30 years working my butt off as an athlete only to have 2 cancer diagnoses in my early 50s?

I'll probably feel better in a few hours and then I'll want to delete this post.  But, right now, I'm just so filled with raw emotions that I needed to write them down.

I have time to change my mind on my future treatments.  I doubt that I'll do that.  But, if today was day 1, my wife and I would be arguing, most likely, as I tried to simply skip the next round of chemo.