March 3rd – Chemo Treatment Day 1

I got off to a bit of a rough start today. We started the day with me forgetting my phone at home and Mel having to go back home to go get it. Luckily we live close by and she was able to go get it for me. Unfortunately Mel did not know where to go whehn she arrived back and she had no way to contact me. I had tried to call her on Discord as I kept my tablet but alas Mel probably thought that I was one of the kids and ignored the call. She is poor at answering Discord messages as her phone is on silent most of the time. She is not aware that volume buttons exist on phones and she does not necessarily check her watch. On a side note, blood pressure cuffs severely impact typing ability. When the cuff is pressurized the amount of typing mistakes that I make increases significantly. I brought my tablet as well as my mechnical keyboard so I can write out my entries while I am in the chair. Mel came with me today and it is lovely having someone here with me except I put my head phones on and I am actively ignoring her. She seems to be working as well so it is not the end of the world. I ate two snacks already, some seaweed and my overnight oats that seemed to be more blueberries than oats. I also made myself a charcuterie board for myself that I will have in a couple of hours. The schedule for today is I am getting whatever drug they are giving me right now for 2 hours and then a quick pump and then I go home with another drug that will take 46 hours to go through. So this will align relatively well for when we need to go to Timmins for TOC. We went through all of the intake information and discussed everything that may happen and not much has changed in regards to that. Hopefully I will react will to this treatment. I need tio make sure that I do not eat too much while I am here because of the recline of the seat is not super duper comfortable. They give you a blanket that you can choose and take home. The blanke that I chose is red and white. It seems that people also do not work while going through treatment. It seems like it is a lost opportunity as i tend to not get too bothered here. 

The port is nothing like I expected at all. The port is completely under the skin and what happens is the nurse will poke a needle into your skin to access it. She told me it feels like a bee sting. I guess that it might, it is not painful but it is not pleasant either. I also unfortunately can always feel the liquid entering my body, so I can feel the slight pressure and it is also impacting my typing a bit. Mel is diligently working away on her work cell phone as well. The volunteers and everyone here are wonderful and it is nice having conversations with them. So far I feel fine, but the thing that concerns me a bit is keeping food down in this situation. I need to eat, but it is a fine balance between eating too much and not eating enough. So far I erred on the side of safety and made sure that I did not eat too much food. I am going to try and eat a bit more food at noon as opposed to 1pm. If I take a couple of bites at a time I think that I can manage.

I do find it interesting watching the interactions with people and patients. The nurses mentioned that I am an easy patient and they can have a bit of fun with me as I am not too serious and demanding. Something that all of the nurses have told me is that they are surprised that I have a port as it is only done once a week and people have to wait a long time for for. Most of the people here have PICC and do not have ports yet I got one quite quickly. I am going to need to thank the doctors and everyone who have made that possible. I should also thank God in this speech for giving me my natural God given abilities. I think that is what most athletes say. I am a cancer athlete and going through this super fun experience. Since this has turned into a bit of gratitude, this morning Mel and I told Olivier that we appreciated some of his communication. Whenever we tell him instructions or communicate with him something that he does which is awesome is provide confirmation. He will always reply, “Got it” so we know that he heard us. He says it with authority so you do not question whether it is fake or not. Xavier does not respond and when you tell him again he gets mad because he will then reply, “I know! I heard you” Typical teenager behaviour, just confirm that you heard us. I appreciate Mel taking the day off to come here with me as she can answer stuff for the nurses so I do not need to and she will generally make sure that we do not forget things. I also forgot to bring my drugs to the appointment and will pack them in the bag for the future. This is like a date night for us as we get to spend quality time together.

Last night I was talking to a friend of mine that lives in the US asking her about City of Hope and whether she knows anyone there. She said no but she could reach out. I told her that it was all right and she did not have to. I had told her that I was looking into the Mayo clinic and City of Hope for clinical trials as well as Spain. She does not have much faith in the healthcare system in the US and said that I would be better off going to Spain. They are known for their cancer research and treatments. The only downside with Spain is the cost of it, but we will get to decide in a bit. Travel to the US is much cheaper and I think it is a bit preferred for costs if the Mayo clinic gets back to me. She is Asian as well and has a kid that plays competitive sports. I told her about how after winning the championship Xavier showed no emotion and looked serious and how he replied, “That was expected, I was just doing my job.” Her son is the same. He hit a walk off home run to win the game and he did not think it was a big deal. Typical Asian boys. I do like the fact that he does not celebrate like crazy though. My personality would be act like you have been there before and it is not a big deal. I think that he would celebrate more if it was another goalie and they played well and won. He would be genuinely happy for the other kid. He is not the type of kid that cares about being in the spotlight and getting credit or not. From his point of view the purpose of the goalie is to carry the team and win it for them.

Q