16 years ago today, the best man of the day spent his speech poking fun of the approximate 74,208 hr age difference between Mel and myself. As my best friend he had intimate knowledge of myself growing up and he attributed milestones in my life and compared it to what he thought Mel was doing. He took some liberties with some of the stories but it was a great speech highlighting the age gap between Mel and myself and some of the shenanigans that we had done. It was amusing to listen to some of the exaggerations and it was much aligned to something that I would do, so it is quite believable that I would do it and no one would question it. Our wedding anniversary is also something that Mel and I never remember, and it is my mother in law that will normally remind us when the day is. We rarely celebrate it, but I think that we plan on doing it this year. The plan is quite special for today. We are going to drop off Olivier with my parents as Xavier is driving to Quebec for camping. We will then go to Rona to pick up some grout sealer, return home and Mel may end up doing her favorite thing in the world. Clean the house in silence without the kids interrupting. The basement is a mess so we can not do much down there so we can not watch any movie. I had wanted to buy the Samsung frame for upstairs but it is extremely rare for us to want to watch something so it is hard to justify.
I am tired today as I drove myself to the hospital for the disconnect and have been in meetings or running around all day long. Eating has been great though along with my fluid intake. I am not sure if the drowsiness and tiredness is from the new drug that I am on today for my neuropathy. It is difficult to say whether it is effective or if it is getting better because of time. Taking things from the fridge is still not super comfortable. The fatigue right now is interesting as my whole body feels weakened. I am tired right to my bones so I think that I will most likely take a nap soon to recharge. After a quick nap I feel much better but I am still a bit on the tired side. I woke up to see that Canada is losing in the World Cup game. Last night I hit my target of 4 hours of sleep and came close to 5 hours. Mel’s alarm at 7:05am woke me up. I did quite a lot of work today and mentally this week I have done well I think. Right now I think that I have established what the new norm is. I can work fairly well if I take the steroid throughout. We will try and take the steroid as well this Sunday and then hope that things are ok on Monday. When I have treatment on Tuesday then my crash days are Saturday and Sunday which do not impact my work.
Earlier this week I had told some of the people that I would bring in treats today. So I went to Leinala’s to pick up some jelly pigs for registration and my cancer peeps. They did not have enough jelly pigs available so I had to get a mix. While I was purchasing I had noticed that on the payment machine that she had punched in the value wrong and she was going to charge me just $0.15 which is well off the mark for the amount that I purchased. I informed her that it was wrong and she admitted that she probably would not have noticed and let me walk out. I told her that it is bad karma and I go there too often to do that to a small local shop. We always try and support local and mistakes can happen. This would have benefited me but it defeats the idea of me doing a nice gesture of bringing treats to the hospital if it harms a local business. I know a lot of the girls in registration but I had a new one today and I did not feel comfortable giving the treats to her because she did not know who i was, next door was one of the clerks who knew me so I gave it to her and the 3 of us had a nice quick chat. They were appreciative of it and one thing that amuses me is that half of them know me and pull up my record without my health card quite quickly. It was rather empty there and I got through there and the disconnect fast. I also requested to have my appointments in July moved to Tuesday so that I can leave on Friday for hockey and they will try and accomodate me. The nurse disconnecting my port is one that I talk to a lot and she thanked me and I told her that she was one of my top 100 favorite nurses there. It is quite a feat. Her colleague laughed and said she should be honoured to make the list.
Mel and I decided to go to Verdicchio for dinner as they had starters that are tapa size and it is something that we like as it allows me to eat a lot of small things and I get some variety. We had carpaccio, because it is one of my favorites, ocotopus, marinated warm olives, some foccacia bread, and lamb. Mel had two drinks and we finished with a raspberry cheesecake. It was all delicious and I think that we are going to take the kids back here for my birthday in a month as they would like a lot of things on the menu and we are going to be celebrating my 50th birthday. We will have family over as well and since it is such a big birthday I think I have some things that I am going to try and convince Mel to let me do. I am going to keep everyone posted and updated. With the steroids it gives me a sense of false energy and a lot of the drugs that I am on are supposed to increasre my appetite. Today my legs feel like jello as I have refrained from using my electric wheel chair and I did quite a lot, topping over 3000 steps. It does not seem like much, but I am pretty sure that my legs have atrophied a bit and I need to start working them out. After we were done Verdicchio we went to Walmart to buy some things and get Xavier some mint. We went down quite a few aisles and we were out and about for a while, Mel could not drive and once we arrived home I wanted to take a shower but knew that I could not stand there and shower. We have a bench in there but I have no energy and the steam shower is not working. Last night I had made a delicious tuna salad and Mel had brought half of it to lunch so now I would not have enough for my 4am snack. I sat down at the island and made a double batch and that will hopefully last for 2 or 3 days. Xavier is not home so it is a bit safer as he can demolish so much food when he is here. I can create 4 servings with one small can for myself and when shared with the family they probably eat 3/4 of a can for each serving which is aligned withh my calculations of 1 to 3-4 ratio. Besides the physical fatigue I have not suffered much fuzziness or mental fatigue which is good. We ended up getting home late and Mel cleaned while I did all of that. I took a shower after as it is difficult with the port. I can not get that or my chest wet. My weight is increasing and was 135.2 today which is above the normal. I need to monitor this as it may be related to ascites build up if it continues to climb as opposed to normal weight gain. Once I hit 140 then it i time for a drain, or perhaps 139 so I can get it all drained in one day. åThe goal was to watch a movie in bed together and we will probably end up doing that but much later than we had anticipated. Mel and I tend to be workaholics whenever the kids are not home. For the first 5 years of our dating all we did was study and work and for breaks we would take short “dates” and then back to work. Mel informed me that we have been together for 21 years, more than 50% of her life, which is insane. I am quite fortunate to have met her and have her in my life. I can not think of anyone else that could put up with all of my quirks and stringent demands in life.
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