Every year I have random students that I help out with things so I need to make sure that I set aside time to help them out. A lot of times they are kids of my friends or people close to my. friends. I do not believe in charging them as I do not believe in charging friends for things where you can help them, especially when it involves their kids. So far this semester I have 2 students and a young professional that I am providing guidance to. It is something that I enjoy doing and I get a lot back from the kids as well. I have a lot of disdain on the way that mathematics is taught and a lot of times the kids have been told that they are not good or they just lack. confidence. I think that it is important to teach them why it is important to know some of the math that is taught and some real world examples of things. A friend dropped by for a visit today and Mel was sharing that this is a common habit of mine and they both said I am a good teacher. I am trying to teach more leadership skills to those that work for me so that they can understand how to build strategy and manage people for success. When I see potential in people and their desire to learn it helps me out a lot in the sense that when I help them It refreshes me. I like to see them succeed and cgain confidence. A couple of years ago there was a kid of Xavier’s hockey team and I would give him tips on how to score on goalies based on what I had seen. He would go out and execute and score and be super happy. This year he is playing on a different team but I gave him some tips and it worked. I appreciate kids who are willing to listen and apply what they have learned. We are not on the same team this year so it is more difficult to give him tips on what to do.
I had a lot of work this morning and had a bit of time this afternoon where I made dinner. Originally I had wanted to make spaghetti and meatballs, but Mel prefers a meat sauce and Olivier prefer penne over spagehetti which makes dinner a bit more complicated. I made a meat sauce and then combined all the ingredients and rolled out 24 meatballs to cook and the cleaned up the kitchen. I had to take some breaks throughout as I was getting physically tired, but I do enjoy cooking. It was a bit difficult as I could not taste everything and had to go on instincts. I always cook a bit of the meat to sample the seasoning and I realized that I could barely taste it. When dinner time came, we decided to cook protein pasta which I do not like. We made 3 different types of pasta for everyone; and I think that I took a bit more than I should have, but Xavier finished my bowl. The impact though is that pasta sits heavy and then it is more difficult for me to eat more meals later on in the evening. I am still full nearly 4 hours later, but I pushed myself to the max at dinner because it was delicious. When I showered this evening my weight had dropped from 149 to 142. My scale made me confirm that it was me as that much of a drop in weight over a couple of days is abnormal. I also stopped drinking coffee in the evening to see if that would help with sleep at night, as the last couple of nights I slept through it without waking up.
Tomorrow morning we are meeting with the oncologist and Mel wants to bring up the alcohol and the drugs. Mel relayed her theories to our mutual friend who was over at dinner and he agreed with Mel’s logic and the two of them spent some time going throuigh the math and looking up the drug and the suspension. What it comes out to is that with the dosage that I am getting, it is equivalent to drinking a glass of wine or beer. The first time I had treatment, the infusion was at a slower rate and it had less of an impact on me compared to now where they have sped it up. My body does not break down alcohol well, so this would have quite the impact on me. Mel is going to bring it up with the doctors again as they had said that they will ask the pharmacists and we are not sure if they got a response or not yet. i have friends who are pharmacists so I am going to follow up with them to see what their thoughts are on this. The issue is that if this is the cause of my symptoms we need to argue to get the alcohol free version of the drug that is more expensive. They generally only give it if you react to it while in the chair, but we will see what we can argue. Mel is brilliant in how well she can connect the dots for things and come up with possible reasons on why things are not working. She was always strong in neuropharmacology and it is helping out a bit now. My friend interestingly enough was looking at using the drug that I am on to research neuropathic pain so he is familiar with it. It is nice having smart friends that you can bounce ideas off of. If the oncologists can not figure out how to cure me, I will do it myself.
Dr. Q.H. Mach