Everyday I have people ask me how I am doing. Normally I tell them that I am doing awesome, because not doing awesome is for suckers. Okay I lied, you can not be doing awesome and having a hard time and that is ok. People need to be able to not feel awesome. But when it comes to cancer, just be awesome, even if you are not doing well. Be awesome in your own way.
They stopped commenting about my weird blood results, which is fantastic. Having results that do not coincide with normal is ok now. Melanie made a comment this morning that for all the psychological assessments that I have ever had done in the last 20 years, I was always at the extreme and rarely considered “normal”. I would score really high in some things and then extremely low in others. I have worked on a lot of things that I scored low on over the years and I score slightly higher now.
The nurse was a bit concerned with my PICC line as it looked infected or a bit weird. So, what happened was that it was pushing in more than it should, normally you have a bit of line exposed, but mine was pushed right against my skin causing some scarring. She pulled it out slightly and said to watch it. I am going to need to have someone watch it for me because I am sure I am going to neglect it as I do not feel pain there. Melanie loves picking scabs so she will be looking for scabs to pick I am sure. I need protection from her.
People around me are quiet and doing their own thing which allows me to work on my laptop. I am pleasantly surprised with the battery life on the laptop as I believe that I can easily get 5 or 6 hours from it. For those going through chemotherapy, highly recommend doing work while sitting there. Helps kill the time, but as the combination of drugs build up you tend to get fatigued and a bit muddled, so make sure you do all your important work early on.
I talk to the surgeon on April 27th to schedule exploratory surgery. It is expected to be 3-4 weeks from the end of chemo. This projects out to week of May 10th or May 17th. For those who do not read my blog, my wife is adding plants to our house indoors and outdoors because it sparks joy. During the next 3 to 4 weeks I plan to add more shower plants. Melanie is picking up eucalyptus within the next couple of days. I have on week where I need to disinfect the washroom every time I use it and then 3 weeks without it. I have some big plans during the next couple of weeks. Baking sour dough bread daily for 2 weeks to perfect my technique. Since funding for my private jet are slowing down, I am going to sell fresh baked sour dough bread for a shilling. I am going to make a killing. This sparks joy. This is the new thing in our house. Well not “new”. Melanie was all about this for a while, so I figured, I am going to participate. If she questions anything I do, I am going to tell her it sparks joy. Adding a Venus Fly trap? Sparks joy! New 75” 4K TV and PS5, sparks joy. I am looking forward to putting grass in the shower so we have a live floor. I am pretty sure I have an iron clad excuse now. It sparks joy in my life.
I did a survey today for my symptoms and scored a 0 across the board. There was no question on awesomeness. Treatment so far has been wonderful. I would rate the experience 10/10! Hopefully no one else will need to go through chemo in the future, but if you do remember just be awesome.