A couple of nights ago, I went to bed early and Mel was already in bed reading with all of the lights on. When I was in the hospital I got use to using a sleeping mask as there is always light and now I have several at home. This evening I decided to use it along with my gloves. I had mantioned that Olivier and I seem to lose our gloves at night. Mel was awake this whole time and what she told me was that at one point I took off the sleeping mask with my eyes wide open and then went back to bed, even with the lights on fully. I removed my cap and removed my gloves as well. She thought that it was rather amusing because I had pondered what happened and was quite curious. That is her story and she seems to be sticking to it. What I suspect is happening is she is secretly taking our things off to moisturize our skin and she can not get the gloves back on. That seems far more likely than me taking off the gloves myself. I have absolutely no recollection of doing any of that, which makes it rather interesting. Right now I am no longer sleeping through the night and I am getting up in the middle of the night to use the washroom. On the bright side though is that I am actually waking up which might seem like such a simple thing.
There are a lot of side effects when it comes to Cancer treatment. The ascites is one of them and when I weighed myself today my weight was 2lbs lower. Now that might not be a huge difference but to me it is awesome news. It would suggest that even if there is some build up it is not accumulating at such a rate that I am always increasing weight, and the likelihood that i am not eating enough and the ascites is outpacing it is not that high considering that my food intake has not changed much over the last 2 weeks. When I first had the port inserted you could feel the tube underneath my skin and it was quite evident. I was always nervous to touch it because the first time the skin on the port became exposed and even now I always wonder if it will open up again. I do not think that it will happen as I ca barely feel the tubing now and you can not really see it, if you run your fingers along the proper spot you can feel it, but it is far more hidden now compared to before. A side effect that I had the first time through was my big toenail started falling off so I bandadged it off to go see the chiropodist. She removed the nail and taped it up and all was good. I think that she suggested that I amputate my foot to prevent nail issues but I told her that if I come in to get my nails trimmed by her it would be endless income. Earlier this year I had my toenails trimmed and when I was done they asked if I wanted to schedule a follow-up in 6 weeks. I declined and my nails have barely grown since then. My hands on the other hand are a totally different story. They will not grow at all and then all of a sudden there is a burst and they are super long. You can also feel an indent on them from when the treatment changed. It is a visible mark on my nails that is slowly growing out. The common side effects like nausea I do not have, nor do I have digestive issues. You could argue that I have fatigue but it is not consistent and may be self-induced as I keep on working full time. Vacation is for suckers. Unless it is for people who work for me or I work for. They need downtime to mentally recharge. Do as I say and not as I do. I tend to only take vacation when Melanie forces ne to. She tortures me until I am in tears and I submit. During my career I never took vacation and when people were not around you doubled down and worked harder. Needless to say, I suck at taking vacation. Nerve changes were bad but they are much better now and under control. It is no longer painful for me to take things out of the fridge. It is not pleasant since it is cold, but it is no longer painful. Another common side effect is cognitive impairment, known as chemo brain. My cognitive abilities have slowed down when I am under Chemo and Mel makes fun of me saying now I know what normal people feel like. Appetite has not been impacted, but taste and textures have. They change constantly and it is hard to say how it will be one day to another. Interestingly enough sexual dysfunction is another one with reduced libido. Right now I have a bit of body dysmorphia where I am not necessarily comfortable with my body because I was literally all bones. It kind of ruins any sort of mood for myself when I look like a skeleton. I think I just need to make a playlist of I am sexy and I know it from LMFAO and that should help things out. And there is the fact that my body is full of chemical residue from treatment and I get treatment frequently. The first time through we were hyper vigilant and the kids would not use the toilet in one of the washrooms and it was reserved solely for my use and after I used it I would double flush and wipe it down. Now I just double flush for the first 72 hours and that is it. I am pretty lucky that my side effects are pretty minimal.
My energy levels and ability to walk around seem to be improving considerably as I keep on pushing myself more to be active. I told Mel that I was going to ski at Tremblant this year. Xavier and her laughed at me for good reason. I am pretty sure that I wou;d struggle to ski down 10 meters let alone a hill or a mountain. I think that I will be able to walk around the village though without the need of the wheelchair. The wheelchair is not suitable for those conditions and I am not sure if I want to buy the trackchair as it is massive and I do not know where to store it. I woud alsoi want to mount Nerf Pro Gelfire or Rival guns and automate them so that I am an actual tank. It is not a good use of money, but who buys a trackchair without getting those. They are designed for real guns. I think that we will try and plan a trip because it will be fun, I just need to build up enough muscles so that I can do it, I still feel some weakness in my muscles at times, but that is due to muscle atrophy as opposed to energy levels at this point. That is easier to overcome by doing some physical exercise in moderation. We are slowly approaching the anniversary of when I first found out about the cancer and the memory of that day is not something that I really enjoy. Xavier had some dryland training and I had to drive him out and I was quite anti-social with parents as I was in no mood to chat with people. Even now I get asked a lot about how I am doing, and I do not mind talking about it, but I would prefer not to focus on any of that. I will answer all questions and I appreciate the concern, but there are just not a lot of answers right now so we are navigating this in the dark hoping for the best. The good side is that it keeps things fun with the chaos.
Quoc Hao Mach