At my last post, on New Year's Eve, I'd just received upbeat blood test results. There's been more good news this week, especially being able to work out again. Still going at a reduced intensity, but I'm doing full-length workouts now — weights, cycling, swimming — and it feels like only a matter of time until I recover all my strength.
Unfortunately, that wasn't the whole story. Bad insomnia plagued me all week, waking me up for good at 3 or 4 in the morning. Thursday I managed a full work day, about nine hours more or less straight through on a grant proposal I'm writing with half a dozen colleagues. Friday morning, another four hours on that proposal. It was intense work: a lot of concentration, rapid thinking, staring at a computer screen, pressure to meet our deadline.
It felt great to work again, but by Friday afternoon my head was pounding like a taiko drum. Now it's Monday, and the headache's still hanging around, even after going back to bed for a while this morning. My teeth hurt again from nighttime teeth grinding. My bite splint helps a bit but doesn't solve the problem. Did some reading about bruxism and discovered that bite splints probably can't fix this, but nobody really has a better idea, even though about 20 percent of the population suffers from this.
Insomnia + teeth grinding = headache, maybe, but I still don't understand why it's so much more intense than it's ever been before. (These aren't new problems for me.) I ruled out various possible causes — supplements, caffeine, squinting — by cutting them out completely for three days, with no effect. I'm praying it's not a cracked or infected tooth.
So I'm seeing this headache as part of the recovery from chemo. However tempting, it's unrealistic to expect to jump back into my normal work life overnight.
Last week's test results are only numbers. They're good indicators of important variables, but they don't tell the whole story about what a week of intravenous poison did to my body, or how much recovery time it still needs. I have to keep taking it a little easier for while, rest more, not expect too much too soon.
2 comments:
Interesting, I am also a HCL(-V) patient and grind my teeth.
The stress from the diagnosis & treatment caused a lot of grinding & jaw pain in my case but life & the grinding have settled down.
BTW, do you use the HCL Discussion board (http://www.network54.com/Forum/263810/)? I didn't see the link on your site...
Hang in there. I was treated last year and am now in complete remission.
tokyo hcl, thanks for this. I didn't know about the HCL Discussion Board, but you'll now see a link to this in my sidebar.
Yes, I think the tension from the whole experience -- treatment, recovery, fear and trembling -- has a lot to do with the bruxing. The dentist is helping, but ultimately there's no good solution. Hope it calms down, like yours, in a while.
- Paul
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