Yesterday I received a phone call from the hospital. One of my doctors called me to inform me of the cancer and to make sure I was aware. Our of all the doctors that I have this one is the most pragmatic and lays out the facts as they are. No sugar coating. Nothing. This is both a good thing and a mood dampener. You know how everything stands as it is the facts as stated. What he mentioned is that with something like this you generally would not do surgery as if it is in location the indicators are that it has spread. Luckily nothing has shown up as of yet, but the worry is that there are small specks of it everywhere. We will find out once I go through the imaging this week and hopefully it is not too bad.
I finally told my parents. We felt we could not delay it anymore. I was lucky with my phone call as I chatted with my father and not my mother. If it was my mother it would have been a much more difficult conversation. At least with my father he does not show emotion. If he is upset he will not show it to me. It makes it much easier that way. I know that they will be worried. My father said to not spend so much time at the arenas with Xavier and take care of myself. I will attend as much as I can while I can because I feel that once I undergo treatment it will be difficult. I think that I can find a substitute for have someone there and give a scowl though. At his last hockey game I was sitting with a friend and he kept on asking me if it counted as a shot on net. Xavier made a bunch of “saves” that were missing the net. I do not count those as saves.
I have a lot of gratitude for everyone that is helping me out. Especially with Mel. A lot of people have offered assistance to us. I think Mel needs it more than I do. I will need someone to come to the house and make sure that they leave cabinet doors slightly ajar. Apparently I do not always do it. She will be all confused if all the doors are closed.
The next steps are to look at all different treatment options and be aware of all possibilities. If this is systemic the options for treatment are much more limited. There are experimental treatments and other options.
Olivier lost a tooth and he walked up to Mel and asked her where is my money. Implying that he knew about the tooth fairy. He was waiting for when he should disclose that he knew. We then had a discussion about how they figured everything out. They said they always knew with us going into their rooms. And I did not realize this, but when Xavier was 9 he had asked for a video game. When he woke up the game was on the PS5. What gave it away was the last profile was mine and it said it was purchased by me. I did not think that he would have caught that. I did not even think that I should do that. Foolish me. If he never told me about it I would have never known that. They gave some other examples of us slipping up. Our kids are smarter than we realize sometimes. Which is why I do not believe in trying to hide or sugar coat what I am going through. The kids know that I have cancer and that I am going through treatment. They are smart enough to figure it out on their own and I would rather welcome open discussions about this rather than them finding things out through veiled conversations.