Melanie remembers dates of events. I tend to not remember all of them. I know roughly when some things occurred but not the exact dates. One year ago on January 29th, I received the phone call from my doctor telling me that I had cancer. I think I had written about it in some update at some point. I remember answering the phone right before I had a meeting with my manager and one of the senior leaders. I told my boss that I had to miss the meeting, and he asked me if I was ok. I told him no and that I would fill him in. I had to tell Mel right away. I do not think that she believed me at first, but it was a huge shock. It was quite the turning point. After Melanie and I had a chat I went and told my boss. I do not think that was the news he was expecting. I immediately called my team together and told them as well. My team and boss were extremely supportive. That continued over the course of the year. My attitude at the time was I was not too concerned and thought it was just a blip on the road. Overall it was not that bad of an experience, but it is not something that I would wish on others. There were some tough periods, but the year had gone fairly fast. My next CT scan is now March 3rd. Right now I am not anxious or anything, but I think that for the first while when I have these scans I might be nervous when those dates approach.
Melanie wanted to celebrate yesterday the date of the news. She had asked me if there was anything that I missed eating and we could eat it. I can not eat spicy food anymore and that is something that I really miss. I could not eat a burger for a long time, but by November I was able to. Eating spicy food is not great for my stomach, though I still crave it sometime. My parents sometimes forget and they make some food spicy. It is nowhere near as spicy as I use to eat, but I am very careful with it now. Xavier loves spicy food. When he was young he hated it, but now if we tell him something is spicy he wants to eat it. Olivier started off liking spicy, but now he hates it. He also has quite the discerning palate now. We ended up ordering sushi for last night because I did not want to cook. Tonight we are going to have a wagyu beef steak salad. Salad is probably the thing that I missed the most. I had to be careful with eating that during the last year. Raw vegetables are a bit difficult so I have been careful with it over the last year. I have also started eating a bit faster but it is not something that is a good thing. I need to slow down and pace myself. I still need to be careful about drinking before I eat as it fills my stomach and I eat less. I also need to make sure that I start with eating protein and then I can move onto salad or vegetables.
Things are starting to get back to normal. Tomorrow Xavier has a hockey practice in Warren and it will be the furthest that I have driven in a while. For the hockey tournament we decided that we were going to leave on Thursday night and drive to Barrie and then from Barrier to King City the next morning for his 1pm game. That way we do not need to leave super early in the morning on Friday to get there. The next morning he will probably end up playing at 8am. He does not tend to play well early in the morning as he is half asleep. He might be better this time. I can start to travel again and do things a bit more.
Q