Today at 7:45 I drove into the hospital to get my bloodwork done along with my preassessment. I signed in at 8:05 and the proceeded to go to get my labwork done prior to the preassessment. I had paid for an hour and I until 8:58 to finish everything. Bloodwork was uneventful and I had the same girl as last week, we chatted a bit and then I was on my way. When I got to the cancer center my friend Chrissy was there and the regular booking clerk. I asked if I could move my appointment today and she said she would see what she could do. It is lovely what being friendly and knowing people can do, the other person said that there was nothing that they could do and the nurse said I should call the day before because of cancellations that happen. I tried calling yesterday at 3pm, but I was on hold for 20+ minutes and I was 8th in line. Today I found out that the person handling the phones was doing it by themselves and had no breaks because they are short-staffed. I ended up getting an appointment when I walked in to do pre-assessment, they canceled it and told me that as soon as my blood work came back I could go start treatment. I told them that I had to eat so I grabbed some food at Tim Horton. I also realized that I would be in no shape to drive home afterwords. I called Mel and we started making arrangements. She asked her parents if they could drive me home after treatment as there were two them. As soon as they found out that I might potentially need a drive, they booked a site in Manitoulin Island to go camping and left immediately and forgot to hook up the trailer and pack anything in their haste to get out the door to avoid coming to pick me up in a drunken state. That seems like the most likely scenario. Chatting with the nurses they told me that they put a rush on the lab work so I had an hour to 90 minutes so it would be fine. It is an 8 minute drive home, so Mel and I met at home and I changed and grabbed some things to take with me. Really though I do not need anything because I can not stay awake with his treatment. This treatment was only one drug and they told me it would be about an hour. They gave me the Benadryl arond 9:15 and they told me not to try and fight it. I put on my sleeping mask my headphones and then closed my eyes. I woke up when the drip was finishing and it was closer to 11:45. Their estimate was spot on with the 60 minutes if you go by island time. I had my flush and called Mel at 12:08 to see if she could come get me, and she could so she left. As soon a I got home I slept for 2 hours and woke up at 3:30. I can not believe how much it impacts me and makes me so tired. I am quite glad that I had this today instead of tomorrow when we would need to travel. We are going to spend two nights in North Bay now instead. The oral is supposed to not have as big of an impact but we will see next week. My taste buds are slightly impacted but not as bad as the other treatments. Besides me not sleeping tonight I think that the side effects will be quite manageable.
We also finally heard back from the doctor in Spain that reviewed eveything. They want to wait for a couple of completed cycles of my current treatment before we make a decision on what we should do, which I think is a wise idea. With this new treatment it is unclear what the impact will be as it is considered something more advanced and technically from the viewpoint of Cancer Canada, it is a bit of a new type of treatment. I think that we will end up going back, we just need to figure out what the timing of that looks like. I am not looking forward to going there when it is colder, but I do not think that they get much snow there, so it should not be much of an issue.
We are packing things up for tomorrow and I am going to bring different things. We let the team decide where they are all staying as there was a minimum of 2 nights stay with the booking sites. I chose a Marriott as I have lots of points and things there, but it was also one of the pricier hotel options, which is fine because we get points. I am not sure where everyone is staying. Xavier likes to rest for the games so it is not a big factor that he does not run around with the other kids. I also looked up coffee options as well as food options for when we are there. I keep on adding things for us to bring to hotels and I do not think that Mel is too impressed. I am bringing a container to heat up food for ramen in case I wanted to eat some ramen while i am in the arena. It is a small pot that heats up and keeps food warm. The only issue is that I can not always eat all of the ramen so I need to eat it in two stages, I can eat about half of it at a time. Today I am expecting a weight drop as my eating has sucked today. I spent most of the day sleeping. Yesterday I was at 143 lb, so I have nornal fluctations in everything. Hopefully I will find some time this weekend to post things quickly.
I think of what experiences that I am giving my kids now and what I got as a child. Something that people always tell you is that you remember experiences, but you do not always necessarily have the same attachments to physical gifts. I think that it was a bit different for my sister and I because we so rarely got physical things that we cherished it a lot more than others may. We got one gift at our birthday from our parents if anything as it would normally be money. Chinese New Year we would get money and at Christmas we would open 1 gift each if we were lucky, or a group gift for everyone. But for experiences we did not travel a lot, but we would visit family in Toronto and go there to restock on supplies. We would visit Eaton Center, but I do not remember us ever buying anything there. Yearly my parents would take us to Wonderland. My dad does not like heights so I think that I went on rides by myself. I do not remember going on rides with anyone. The smaller kid rides it would be my sister and I, but I do not think that she went on the big roller coasters with me. Most of my memories are about going to different restaurants and Chinatown. Our kids are ridiculously spoiled, not just by us buy by the grandparents and aunts. When Xavier was first born and there were no other grandchildren the love that he received was ridiculous. Some of the gifts that he received were crazy, from a Tiffany piggy bank to Swarovski crystal christmas ornaments. Now that there are more grandchilden it is not as bad. When both kids were young, whatever toys and things the kids wanted my parents would buy. Whatever they wanted for dinner, it was like a restuarant. Just ask and they would make it from scratch. Still to this day they can call order food and have it delivered to our house. We only find out when my parents show up at our door and we ask them what they are doing there. Needless to say my parents changed a lot from their time with us to now. This was also evident in Mel’s grandfather. His interaction with Xavier was quite different from his own children. The most memorable thing for me was when we went to the Hockey of Fame and he asked for a picture of him. The main difference i think was that Mel’s grandfather and my father grew up in a generation where the father’s worked hard all day and did not interact and play with the childen much when they got home. That is not to say that father’s do not work hard now, but there were distinct gender roles at play that no longer exist today. I always loved seeing them interact with our kids and you can see the affection. They missed out on parts of that in their lives and now they had the opportunity to live it. I think that this is why I also attach so much sentimental value to my super powered chicken. It is the physical representation of those experiences I had. I tend to keep a lot of small knick knacks like that, Mel calls it hoarding but it has a lot of emtoional meaning for me.
Q