Throughout the fall of 2008, I continued to feel better. My appetite returned and my weight gain continued. Unfortunately it actually accelerated to the point where I'd regained 110 pounds in just under six months! That was 40 over what I'd originally lost. I was able to take my thyroid medicine uninterrupted during that time, and in a visit to my Endocrinologist he discovered that my thyroid disease had swung from hyper (fast) to hypo (slow), and the medicine was only making it slower still. He thought it was possible that after an extended bout of untreated hyperthyroid disease, my thyroid was burning out. He switched his treatment to hypothyroid medicine, and the weight gain stopped.
One side effect of the chemotherapy that became apparent at this time was neuropathy - nerve damage in my fingers and feet. It resulted in sensations of either tingling or numbness, especially in my feet, and combined with the balance problems I'd been having from the start, made things worse. The overall weakness in my legs still persisted, and now with the nerve problems, I began using a hiking stick my sister-in-law gave me to help my balance. The nerve damage in my hands resulted in periodic spasms where the thumbs would close in to the palms. I'd have to force the thumb outward and hold it there until the spasms passed.
Since I was pretty worn out from the first half of the year, I spent a pretty sedentary second half. I decided to study one arm of French cuisine - the 5 mother sauces - and experimented with stocks, soups, gravys, chowders, etc. I had to plan my cooking events so that I wouldn't have to be on my feet for more than 5-10 minutes at a time, because I'd become light-headed and break out into a full-body sweat if I didn't. Then I also started writing again, outlining and starting the skeleton for the first of a 4-book children's series. This was a little problematic as well, since the effects of chemo/fuzzy brain were still with me. I worked on it a lot in the 4th quarter of 2008, and by the end of the year I had a very rough draft, poorly written, but the bare bones outline of the story to work with later. I also spend a lot of time laying out the 300 year back-history, since that didn't require actual writing skills and forgetting words wasn't such a big deal. :>
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