This weekend I have been a bit fatigued, and you can tell by my writing. My energy was conserved to write what was happening but it was difficult to articulate gratitude for everyone that has helped out. Simple things like twisting off the top of a jar feels difficult and you do not realize how much of your core is involved with it until you do it. It is more of engaging it for stabilization, but when you do it and you can feel it. I can get out of bed more easily now though. No more difficulties getting up from that, though it is a bit uncomfortable for me to use our microwave as I need to bend down now to use it. As I was changing out some of the outlets for the lights, I struggled a bit with screwing things as well as just hooking things up. Mel and her father took over for a lot of it and helped out quite a bit. The last time I went through cancer treatment, Xavier was rather young and our neighbor would mow our lawn as well as help shovel the snow in our driveway. With winter quickly approaching Xavier will shovel when he can, but he has hockey a lot of the evening and Mel will need to shovel as I should not be doing it until after the new year. I am grateful though that we have people that will help out with all of that. I try and help Mel with the dishes, but with the depth of the sink reaching down into strains my abdomen a bit and I can feel the tension, which results in me getting more fatigued.
Mel has painted all of the new doors that we ordered. She painted them white, but I wanted to paint them black to really stand out against all of the white and light colours that we have. Mel thought that it was a bit too dramatic to do that though, so we did not paint them black. At this point I think that our kitchen renovations are at about 80% done and once we get the fridge and freezer set up then the rest are just minor touchups. I still will not be able to help out with everything as when I do push myself It impacts me with fatigue for quite some time. Even now, when i start at 7am, by 2pm I am fatigued and need to make sure that in the afternoon I spent my time doing work that does not require a lot of cognitive load. This was similar to what happened before when I was going through treatment or recovering from things. The physical recovery is not as bad as the mental fatigue that you get from your body saving energy to heal. I am lucky that Mel has been a stabilizing force and takes up the slack for me. She also reminds me that I need to eat and take my vitamins. I am fortunate that I work with colleagues that are willing to pick up the slack for me as i recover from things.
I received some news today about the biopsy results. It indicated that there were cancer cells at the peripheral edges. When you extract the cancer there is something called margins and they test it to see if it is positive, clear or negative. My results did not indicate what the case was specifically except that there were cells on the peripheral edge. This would most likely indicate that the cancer was not fully removed and there are some microscopic cells still present. Once I had read this, it makes quite the impact on you mentally. I knew that it would most likely still be present, but we do not know what the next steps will be yet. It will depend on the pathology, but the fact that there was not much about the fluid. I know feel the anxiety in my stomach knowing that it is still there and not knowing what the next course of action is. I sent a text to my oncologist and he had said he did not look at the report yet, but once he did and figured out what we will do next he will contact me. Now I wonder if the fatigue was due to all of my activity or the presence of the cancer. My oncologist texted me and he told me he will talk to the surgeon tomorrow and figure out what the next steps are. Right now the options would be to perform a resection which would mean another surgery or use radiation to try and remove it. I think considering that he could not physically see it the last time they might opt for radiation as visually it is difficult to see at the moment. That is all for now.
Q