This morning I woke up to quite the surprise on how quickly the GoFundMe had spread. Mel wants to write a joint post outlining our appreciation for people. I have told her that I have written about things like that repeatedly, but tomorrow morning we will write a joint post thanking people for it. What surprises me is the amount of money people are contributing towards this and people that I have only had passing interactions with have been quite generous. The amount of money that people giving is not what is impressive, but the amount of people that have cared enough to share the information and get this message out there. The amount of love and support from people is astounding. A lot of people were not aware of everything that I was going through in the last couple of months. I have not spoken to everyone and when they had seen me in passing they thought that everything was ok. I have tried not to let all of this define who I am and have a positive outlook on things, but there were days where things were tough and instead of socializing with parents I would end up going to the arena, watching the game and then having to go rest in the vehicle immediately after the game.
Today I had an appointment with a social worker and to document some things. It was an interesting experience as she wanted me to talk about things that were important to me. Mel says I have no emotions, but I actually cried briefly at one point and made a comment about Mel would be amused. When I came home and told Mel about that she was surprised and laughed, so I was right. The part that got me emotional was when she asked me what do I want my family to remember about me. That was tough because it was a stark reminder of my mortality. Regardless of what will happen at some point I will most likely die before Mel and the kids. What is important to me that I want them to know. I had some tears stream down my face before I could answer that. I think what I had said was do not accept something because someone says so. You need to have the perspective that you can overcome things. Appreciate what you have in the moment and focus on what is in your control and do it worry about the rest. It was interesting because at the end of the 2hr long session, what she had mentioned to me was that you have two groups of people. Those that focus on the negative and what they are missing out on. And the ones that appreciate what they have. The ones that are positive and appreciative tend to have better outcomes. She said it was clear that I had a great support network and that I was in the positive group. The amount of people who have reached out with support and well wishes reinforces this quite a bit.
When these friends whom I have not spoken to in awhile reach out they ask how am I doing. Some have seen me out and about throughout the city so they may not know about everything that is going on. I choose not to focus on the cancer and try andice my life as normal as possible. This involves me making life as difficult as possible for Mel. Though I have listened to her about the wheelchair situation. The boys and myself will need to think of something to prank her. Today has been an awesome day where I have had high energy levels throughout and have eaten quite a bit. At the session we had spoken about energy conservation and how to best manage it. I must confess that I really suck at it and will push until the very end when I do not have much left.
Things with Spain are moving along well. The consult with the anesthesiologist went well and she confirmed some things about drugs that I should not take as well as fasting requirements. Things are progressing well and there does not seem to be any barriers to any of this so far. She went through all of the standard information and it seemed to take much longer than required to get through everything. We had a translator present to help out with some of the information exchange. Looking out the window of her office, the area looked beautiful. The session took an hour, but I feel that it could have been completed in 15 minutes. A lot was confirmation of what we had sent previously. I will start treatment again next week and hopefully the side effects will be minimal. So far all of them have been quite manageable.
QHM