My sleeping was a bit better yesterday. I have also noticed that some side effects are gone while some got worse this time. I have not had any lock jaw, nor have i lost any taste sensation. The neuropathy is a bit of a concern but today it seems to be getting a bit better as the day progresses. As long as my hands are not too cold then things are great. I have a ton of gloves throughout the house to help out with it and I have a method to deal with it all. I ordered more gloves and Mel does not like my gold thermal gloves. I thought they were black but they are gold and Mel thinks they are Michael Jackson like. I would have probably still ordered them if I knew they were gold if Mel would not like them. It would have been the perfect reason to get them. I have been able to eat well still which is a good sign. I have received several phone calls today for appointments. One was to book a CT in late August or early September. I told them no as it was to scan for my ascites build up and there was no point in getting it done then so I declined and contacted my nurses to tell them about it. They then contacted them back and I should hear from them tomorrow. CT had called to schedule me but we will be in Ottawa so I had to decline and I am not sure if we would be back on time on Sunday. I am now booked for when I have chemo on the same day so that will be interesting. I will have my bottle hooked up so they will not be using my port but putting a needle in me which sucks. I am not looking forward to that. Hopefully it will be ok.
A friend of mine has a brother that loves knives and I am pretty sure he is forcing his brother to sharpen a couple of my knives for me, which I appreciate as I have not had them hand sharpened for while. I need to find them as with our renovations I am not sure where my knife roll is at the moment. He wants some photos so he can probably bring the proper supplies which i appreciate. I have not had too much fatigue even with my lack of sleep which is nice. I do notice that at times cognitively I am not as creative when I am tired, like tonight but as I have some structure in things that I want to write about it helps. Today we had the contractors come in to clean up a bit and they kept on setting off the smoke alarm downstairs. They opened up the windows but the smell came through out the house. The vent over the stove helped to clear out a lot of the smell and smoke. When they came they did not ring the doorbell but were knocking on the door which was a bit annoying as i just happened to be working in the living room without headphones on, otherwise no one would have known that they were here. They had not told us before that they were going to be coming today so it was a bit of a surprise. They also left the front door wide open for an hour which annoyed me. I am not sure if he did that because I told him to ring the doorbell next time because we would not hear him, especially when he comes unannounced.
I think that I have shared this story about my childhood in the past. My father was part of the Vietnamese Navy and I was not aware of this, but we had asked my parents about this. The documentary had showed that at the end of the war, the US had given the soldiers the option of immigrating to US. My father was in the Navy and he had the option of staying on the boat and going over to the US at that time. My parents were not married at this time and he opted to stay and go into re-education camps where they were forced to do manual labour. They would get released on a schedule and be forced to go back and do manual labour. My uncle ended up being stuck there for over 15 years or so and he was the parent of my cousin that died in December of stomach cancer. He is my dad’s brother, while his wife is my mom’s sister, so genetically we are like siblings. I think that is quite the difficult decision to make, to go back without knowing what will happen in order to stay with the person you love. When I hear all of the stories of what my parents went through I am not sure if I would have the strength to make all of the same decisions. Some of them were quite risky with very little odds of success. I think that is why I think that this cancer battle is not that bad. Looking at the initial stages of my life, my family continually beat the odds and even when we came here we overcame a lot of obstacles. I am going to document these stories into my legacy document so that the kids will be aware of it. I am not sure if my brother and sister know all of the stories, as it is not something that I really wanted to listen to because I thought that a lot of it was a bit sad. I heard about them because Mel had asked about them and I was there to hear the stories. We survived a lot of the ordeals because we had help from people. You do not always realize the amount of help you get at times. Even now we get a lot of help. Mel’s dad is going to come help me put up some of the security cameras on Sunday as I am not sure how comfortable I am climbing a ladder. He is always willing to help out everyone regardless of how much he has going on, and probably spreads himself a bit thin as he will never turn down helping someone out. I use to be able to reciprocate and would go help out but I am pretty useless now. Mel and Xavier are going to help him out this weekend. I think that this is something that is important to instill in our kids. Always help out when you can, even if it might be a slight inconvenience to you.
Q