When I arrived at the Cancer Center this morning there were a bunch of people standing around the machine where you pay for parking. If the weather is cold the machine is a bit glitchy and they do not always work well. In the past they use to put a cover over the machines to keep them warm. The person has said that last time they did not have to pay as the machine was broken. The screen starts blank and you need to press the buttons to wake it up. If it is cold it sometimes takes a couple of seconds to wake up. He did not have a card and wanted to pay with money but it only accepts coins. I offered to pay for him but he declined and said he would go get some coins from his wife. The max time on the machine is 5 hrs and if you need to stay longer you need to come out and pay again. I remember talking to my oncologist prior to starting treatment and never really thought much of this, but a lot of people need to travel to get treatment. As we live in the city it is not a big deal for us and appointment times and such is not as big of a deal. On the drive in today on the radio they were talking about privilege. This is something that I never really thought about with treatment. I am privileged because the disruption on my life is not as severe as some other people. I live in a city where we have a cancer center. If I had to go to Toronto or somewhere else then we would be paying for room and board and the comforts are not the same. I have privileges that others do not have because I worked here and have built a lot of relationships with friends that help me out. I am privileged that I have an amazing support system.
It is easy to take for granted things that are provided for you. You do not always see what privileges you have. G-Rant and Sherry K. were arguing about whether Sherry was privileged or not. As a kid you are not necessarily aware of what privileges you have. Even now you may not recognize it, but reflecting back over the last couple of weeks a lot of the people were filling out the travel grant forms to help offset the costs. We had filled one out and used it when we had to go to Sick Kids for a procedure with Xavier when he was young. I am not sure what experiences others have had with the Cancer center but I have always had exceptional care. You hear about people slipping through the cracks and the doctors and nurses themselves have told me it happens, so it is important to always advocate for yourself. I am lucky that I have a wife that works in the field and knows what is required to advocate and how to move through proper channels. I am grateful that when those channels do not provide the right information I have other methods to be informed. Not everyone has the same privileges as I do.
Yesterday I wanted to take a nap and kept on saying that I was going to, but I ended up working all day and every time I was about to take a nap something came up that I wanted to deal with. A lot of times it could have waited but I felt good enough to do it. Throughout school I always lived by the creed of it’s never too late when you procrastinate. Even during university I did that. To make things more fun in grad school, to make things more challenging I would do some work on the subway ride to the university the day of my classes. Was that a wise idea? Probably not, but all of the other students in the class were always struggling with the assignments and never completed them all. It was fairly easy for me and did not require much effort so I would do it on the 1 hr subway ride to class. The dietician just stopped by to chat and asked me how I was and I told her that everything was fine and no major changes. She asked about any nausea and I told her how I am coping with it. I just decide that I do not want any and it seems to be working. Mel says to manifest that I am fine and visualize myself getting better.
After I finished the session this morning I did not feel very comfortable. This was the first time that when I returned home I did not feel great. Mel made me some coffee and after I took a sip I did not feel great. I felt nauseous and my abdomen felt right. After a while the feeling went away and everything was fine. I managed to eat not too long afterwards so I have been able to maintain my eating schedule luckily. I have also managed to not take naps and soon I will be hitting my 7th wind and should be ok for the rest of the evening. The key is to just fight through it a bit and keep your mind active with things and it is then manageable. Christmas is approaching so there are a lot of things that I need to purchase for myself. When I am fatigued it takes a bit of effort to engage my mind and be creative. I think that once I am done treatment I am going to try and workout as much as I can. I will try and shovel the driveway if I can, as I do not think that Mel likes to do it. I always found it relaxing, but I need to make sure that I can do it. At the time of the day I do not think I could drive well, but in about 3 or 4 hours I will be much better and can finish the end of the day with quite a high level of energy. I think that it is encouraging that I have been able to maintain my eating schedule even when I did not feel the greatest. Hopefully week 2 will not be too bad. Today I had some things that I had to do in the afternoon and I had to be cognitively aware. In order to make sure that I was not too fatigued I rested for an hour prior and thought of calming thoughts. It seemed to work as I was fine for most of the afternoon. If needed to I can manage my energy levels sufficiently.
QHM