We had the family photoshoot today and then a lunch for my mother in law. Luckily we had help with a lot of it and i had prepped a lot last night. Xavier last nght helped out a lot with the prep work and he cooked all of the chicken today and helped out with the rice and the potatoes. We had made the appropriate amount of food and did not have a crazy amount of left overs. As the house is in a bit of shambles we ate outside and it turned out fairly well. Everyone had sat near under the shade and things were good. The pig roast falls on the weekend right before my treatment which is generally the weekend that I am doing my best. When we go down to Nottawasaga for the hockey tournament, that weekend is actually my worse as it is coming right off of treatment. I may need to take the steroids all weekend, but luckily I will have my nurse with me that weekend and my pharmacist. After the photos and lunch I rested for a bit and then had to do some prep for dinner and I did not realize how much that would tire me out. Going up and down stairs was tiring an I had just made something simple this time. We had some burgers and fries and i carmelized some onions in the cast iron pan. This time Olivier wanted to help me out and he put a couple of burgers on the grill and flipped them. Mel mentioned that soon we could get the two boys to cook for us. I think that we are almost ready for that stage. Both of them make their own meals, so it should not be too hard to make a bit more for the whole family.
Today I was fatigued, but I think that I did quite a lot today and in the grand scheme of things it was not too bad. Eating was ok, but I struggled a bit with eating some foods liks bread at dinner. I should know better at this point and avoid eating that. Lunch was fine and I did not struggle too much there. I was also about to eat and drink cold beverages. I had an ice cream sandwich as my snack tonight, but had to eat it with gloves on. Today and tomorrow it is going to be difficult to think cognitively as I feel tired. I have my ultrasound tomorrow and need to go get Xavier’s skates sharpened at some point as well. Tomorrow will be a bit of a busy day. Xavier has his athletic therapy, followed by ice time. Mel has a chiropractor appointment. I will need to figure out with Mel how all of this will happen. We will also need to pack and get ready for the tournament this weekend. It is interesting because right now they have been releasing the schedule one day at a time and most of our games are in the afternoon right now.
Every year from grade 2 to grade 8 we had to give a speech at school that we had to memorize. I remember sitting in my best friend’s dining room table writing out what we were going to talk about. Every year he had to come up with something new and every year I took the easy way out and just talked about my journey from Vietnam. No one ever said that I could not do the same thing over and over. The version that i had was a page long and took 2 minutes to recite. I do not remember all of the details of it, but I will relate some of it here over the course of the next two days and fill in more details then what i shared when I was a kid. As a kid I never knew that my father was almost killed, or he had the option to leave with the US Navy and start a fresh life if he was willing to abandon his family. When we left Vietnam, the part that shocks everyone in this part of the globe is that our boat was sunken by pirates. They boarded our ship and took all valuables that they could and sunk our boat. I am not sure how we all survived or how long it actually took the boat to sink but we were rescued by an American Oil tanker that brought everyone on board and then took us to Malayasia. Parts of that story I did not find out until later on. While we were on the boats and traveling across the sea, my parents would not eat and would make sure that all of the food went to my cousins and myself. I can see that nd it is something that I would do now. I would happily give any food that I have to my kids regardless of the situation. Now with my cancer and my need to eat frequently I will share my food with the kids and let them try things and I eat so little that they know that if we are out that they will get some food. Once we were on the oil tanker one of the workers had seen that my mother was giving the food away to the kids. He went and got more and told my mom that she needed to eat in order to make milk for my sister and stayed and made sure that she ate. Hearing this story stuck with me because he gave up his own portion to help out my mother and made sure that she was ok and was taking care of herself. The kindness of others is something that has happened throughout my life and you need to believe that people are good at their core. I think this i why I also always try and help out other people whenever we can. Growing up from when I was little I have always had people offering to help me out without expecting anything else in return. I think it is important to pay it forward and hopefully I will be able to in the future.
Q