I don’t use an alarm unless I have an important meeting. Mostly I let my body decide when I should be up – and a normal time is somewhere around 7:30am.

Friday (day 10), I woke up late – around 9:30. Although I slept in, I still had lots of energy and got a lot of physical work done.

When I woke up on Saturday morning (day 11) late, I felt like a truck had hit me … well maybe not physically, but I was so tired, I almost had my coffee and then went back to sleep. But alas, a puppy needs walking and so does Becky when she is experiencing fatigue. So, I went out for a walk on a beautiful (if not cold) sunny morning and felt amazingly better. Low energy for physical stuff, but I still managed a 2.5km walk in the afternoon – which included its own adventure.

When we (me and whomever is walking with me) walk Cali on the trail away from town, there is a great stretch where I can throw the ball. There is small creek on each side of the trail, but I wasn’t too worried. Cali is good at retrieving the ball, even when it is in the water. On the early part of the trail, the banks are pretty steep (about a 10 foot drop to the creek), where later the creek is right beside the trail. It isn’t really a creek, more of a ditch with water flowing through it. Anyways, as is inevitable, the ball goes over the bank and into the water. What we didn’t know, was that the ball we like to use onsite, which has a hole in it and whistles when you throw it, doesn’t float! Cali found the ball, but wasn’t about to put her snout in the water to go get it.

After a little debating and finding a couple of good trees to anchor on, I climb down to retrieve the ball. I all see it, so it didn’t make sense to abandon it. Fortunately, the hole in the ball also makes for a great thing to put a stick through, allowing me to retrieve the ball without having to get too close to the water. My walking buddy had to make sure there was photo evidence.

Although I get out of breath easily after climbing up the hill, I was still able to continue on our walk. I find that I am tired but getting out for a walk helps.

Today, I woke up after 9am and lounged in bed until 10am. I’m clearly in that Nadir – low blood count state. My handy little side effects calendar tells me my white cell and platelets are low from now until Wednesday. Mostly this just means more sleep and finding the motivation to kick my own butt to get up and go for a walk.

But before I do that, it is time for my second cup of coffee!