Tryouts are done and I have had messages from coaches and people asking how Xavier was after being cut. The thing is he does not care at all and neither do I. Our age group is interesting in the sense that the goalie positions have been locked up prior to tryouts and by the end of the first day of tryouts they have been chosen without any real evaluation. In the last couple of years I have heard people say that they kept on shooting into the chest of Xavier. Someone who was an actual goalie with experience told the people that it a skill that takes effort to make sure you are always in position. The reason why Xavier does not care where he plays is he does it for fun with the intent to get better. His litmus test is not if he is chosen by someone, but his own evaluation of is he improving or not. He has never needed or required external validation on whether he is a good goalie or not. Most people who have watched him acknowledge that he is good and he has a reputation for stealing games and giving his team an opportunity to win. His confidence stems from the work that he puts in and is derived from internal benchmarks. So not getting chosen for a team has no impact on him at all. He will play for fun and would never try and make a career of it because it is a dead end and he has other options. That is why he opted to not participate in the hockey program at school next year. He evaluated it as it took away 2 class slots where he could learn and advance. This year it took up physical education as well as an art credit. He would rather play hockey then take art, but next year it takes place of other courses. In the place of that he is taking an advanced class as well as an elective. I appreciate the messages from coaches trying to soften the blow and be delicate about it and want us to understand that they think he is good and hope it will not affect our friendship. It will not, because neither of us put much thought into the politics of hockey as he has no interest in making a career of it. He will play for the school team next year and play for fun with his friends. In the idle time he will spend skiing or participating in other school sports to help out his overall portfolio for when he applies for University.
I picked up my electric wheelchair today and tried it out in the store and it is pretty awesome. I am excited to use it as it provides me freedom to move around. I am capable of moving around in smaller stores and would not necessarily use it for a store like independent that is not so excessively large for me. I will test it out tonight when we go to Costco to pick up some groceries and things. Ideally I will be able to build up my strength so I am not reliant on it, but I know that I get fatigued much faster now due to all of the things that I have had to do and should err on the side of caution and not push myself too much. We took the electric wheelchair to Costco and it was great to use. It took a bit of adjustment to dial in what speed I needed, but by the end I was able to leave it at full speed and be able to fine control th speed. At the fastest it hits just shy of 6km/h, but most of the time I drive around 2km/h. While Mel was loading up the vehicle, I went to No Frills to pick up some things. I think this is something that will make things much easier for me.
IMy food intake has been excellent lately and I have been able to cook meals for the family which is nice. I am not too fatigued. I realized that I do struggle if I need to walk up stairs without any support. If there is not a railing or at least a wall then I seem to struggle a bit. As long as I have something to help support me I can manage just fine. This is due more to muscle atrophy and lack of strength as opposed to fatigue. I can feel my legs wanting to give out, so I think I will try and start doing more light workouts to help build out my muscles more. Chatting with Mel about what we had heard from the doctors in Spain we realized that the written reports and what the doctors told us may be a bit different. The medical coordinator said that we had preliminary results from the tissue biopsy and the full results should be available in a week. What that means is with the full tissue biopsy they may realize that the cancer is there. So that lack of clarity is interesting. They have sent out the medical report out for translation. Once that is done they will then send it back to us. I will need to monitor my blood pressure and I have been prescribed some pills to see if we can increase it. I need to take the pills three times a day and I will measure my blood pressure prior. The addition of the palliative supportive care team has been a God send. Our friend is quite proactive in making sure I am ok and the doctor responds to suggestions within hours. I am lucky that I have such awesome people in my life that can help out with all of this. When we get the translated report from Spain I will talk to the doctors about getting a PET scan done down south so we have additional information.
QHM