When I am not feeling well, my writing and thought process is so bad. I am glad that I have it documented as it shows the level of cognitive decline when my energy reserves are low. I need to make sure that I do not get to those levels and make sure that I monitor things a bit more closely. You start to take things for granted at times, like today I did not take the drugs for my neuropathy and I can really tell right now. My hands do not hurt, but the distinctive tingling is there. We made some smoked ribs tonight and last night I noticed that my taste buds started to go as the tongue feels a certain way. Olivier and Mel are baking some Ghiradhelli brownies tonight and hopefully I will be able to taste it with some vanilla ice cream. Xavier helped out with dinner and Olivier is helping out with dessert as Mel passed off that task to him. I think that it wll be fun to get the kids to cook dinner for the family this year. It will be an interesting adventure. I have not eaten as much today as I should have, as I had a bit of an aversion to eating after yesterday and my body did not feel that great. It is much better now, but it seems that energy conservation is the key to some of this. I have not read what I posted yesterday but I did notice a lot of repetition and poorly structured ideas. I went to bed almost immediately last night when we got home and did not really check my messages too much or do much. This morning I drove Xavier to hockey, prepped the meats for dinner and watched the F1 race on our TV. It was a nice relaxing day for the most part and with tomorrow being a holiday I will do a bit of tasks around the house after I male some crepes for breakfast. I have had a craving for crepes for quite some time and I will make some tomorrow. I like to have mine very plain with butter, sugar and some cinnamon and occasionally with maple syrup. What I was craving though was banana slices with chocolate fudge, peanuts and vanilla ice cream. It is the breakfast of champions.
This new treatment plan has a completely different pattern that I need to properly map out. Mel thought that I had struggled a bit last weekend as well and it is possible as the other treatment the effects lasted days. I think that I would want to go through another cycle to better understand the effects. Originally I did not really understand why the doctors in Spain said I should go through 2 or 3 cycles, but I get it much more now. There are small nuances that do not show up right away and when you think that things are peachy life tells you otherwise. As soon as I think that I have things figured out, something new comes up. The kids start school on Tuesday so I will be alone in the house and will need to make sure that I do no do something too foolish as they will not be around to help me out if I need something. Right now if I needed a drink or something I could hollar for one of them and they would come help me out. I have many co-workers, colleagues and friends whom have offered to help, but they are not as quick as my kids. If I ask for a glass that is 5 feet away it is quicker or me to get it myself then wait for someone to arrive at my place. Service you get these days is not as good as the good old days.
For all of the struggles that I have had for the last 24 hours I have a lot to be appreciative of. Mel for cleaning up the messes as I go through the kitchen and washing all of the dishes. Both of the kids for their unconditional agreement to always help out. I never get any attitude from either of them. I could call them and ask them to bring me something within reach and they would do it without hestitation or any type of resentment. I appreciate that they are willing to care for me now when they are so young. That is something that was always taught to me as an Asian, that it was my responsibiity to take care of both sets of family when I get older. My cousins kids did it with their grandparents and they did it happiy. My cousin’s daughter had said that they will not be with us forever so we should enjoy the time that we spend with them. This always amused me because she was in her early 20’s when she said this and would voluntarily give up her time on the weekends to help out. I feel that my kids are similar right now, where they recognize that I might need help and will assist. If the grandparents need assistance or other people., they will for the most part not really complain too much about it and go help out. I tink that Mel and I have done a good job of instilling some of these values in the kids and it has been very helpful through this slightly extended illness I have. I just tried to eat some brownie and ice cream and it did not go over so well. I can not taste it at all and the texture is quite off-putting. Describing it to Mel and Olivier I said the texture to me is like pkaydough and it is flavourless. I gave my bowl to Mel to finish as I dislike eating something where it is unpleasant. It is always quite the unknown whether I can taste things or not. I was not expecting to able to taste the ribs, but that worked. I have not really figured out what flavour profiles work and what does not as the goal posts change too frequently. The only consistent thing seems to be tofu and that is probably because I am Asian.
Quoc Hao