Chronic fatigue and chemo brain due to my multiple myeloma, generic anemia, stuff and chemo treatment is the worst and it really saps creativity out of me. I find that I’m pretty drained mentally doing my self-portraits so once they are done, medications I just want to go home and crash. I’ve become very much an introvert. I rarely engage in conversation and minimize social interactions that centre around talking. I much prefer quiet time – reading a book or taking pictures.
Yesterday morning shortly after sunrise, I walked on Varley Trail at Lynn Headwater Regional Park on the North Shore. It is my favourite park to visit and I hadn’t been yet this Winter while there was snow on the ground. It was very icy and I actually fell in the snow. Fortunately, I didn’t mess up my tripod.
When I take morning self-portraits, I generally don’t know what shot I will end up with so I try and arrive as early as possible to sunrise to scout out different locations and practice different poses. By the time, I get something I’m happy with (spent about 40min by the creek today), the lighting will be good for the photo.
I love photography, I love being around nature, and I love sharing my adventures. I’m going to keep doing what makes me happy today, because I don’t know what may happen in my life tomorrow.
To recap: On Sunday, February 5th, I completed Cycle 26 Week 4. I have Multiple Myeloma and anemia, a rare blood cancer. It is incurable, but treatable. Since February 9th 2015, I have been on Pomalyst and dexamethasone chemo treatment (Pom/dex).
Weekly chemo-inspired self-portraits can be viewed in my flickr album.
Hi Phillip,
I stumbled on your blog today and read through some of your posts. I think what you are doing is really cool and I respect you.
I just thought you might want to know that it looks like some of your posts were hacked. There are random links to random things in the middle of your writing. I didn’t click any of them, but something tells me you didn’t put them there? In any case, if you did, my apologies. The ones that appear to be hacked are in January and February.
Thanks for letting me know Amanda. I did have some problems in the past. What year were you looking at?
Jan-Feb 2017 were the ones I noticed