Yesterday I received a text message from a friend of mine who works at the hospital. She asked me if I was in the building as the dietician was free to see me if I was there right then. Weirdly enough I was not hanging around the hospital waiting for potential openings. I am sure that if I would have tried that tactic then perhaps I would have had my surgery already. I have a meeting scheduled with the dietician today and I will probably end up updating this post after I have that meeting. I realized that I think that I have figured out some things that trigger me to vomit and will try and prevent myself from eating that. We always have frozen shrimp in the fridge, and my parents bought us trays of cocktail shrimp because it was on sale. I can not remember how much they got it for, I did not ask for any and told them that we did not have freezer space, so obviously I got 2. They came, checked our our space and determined that I was wrong and they should get me some. The freezer had space, but we are trying to clear space for the frozen pizza kits we bought from the school as a fundraiser. We will need to store it in our freezer until we can give them out to people.
My appointment with the surgeon next week is when Xavier is running NOSSA Cross-country. He has a game the night before so he was not going to be able to travel with the team and the idea was that I was going to drive him the morning of the event. We told him last night that it would not be possible as we had the appointment. He called his grandmother to convince her to take him. Like any grandparent, she readily agreed and then he told her where she had to go. She declined. She was not comfortable driving that far. I think she is going to end up convincing Rob to take the day off and go on a road trip to drive him. I do not even know if he cares if he goes or not, but he just wants to convince them to take him. If he had a shot of winning I think we would put more effort in trying to get him to go. I have a lot of gratitude for everything that both sets of parents do for us and our kids. A running joke was last year when we had said that Xavier needed new pads….like he does every year she had offered to pay for them. The intent was awesome as she had no idea how expensive his stuff actually is. Once she found out the price than she declined. As someone who did not grow up with kids playing hockey she would not have been aware the cost of regular goalie equipment, let alone Xavier’s gear. Needless to say, she declined to pay. Now Xavier will ask her to pay for ridiculous things and say it is only $XXXX. He says it facetiously and does not expect her to pay and I am sure that he would decline if she actually tried. He is fine with spending our money but is more hesitant to get others to buy random things. If he can, he will also spend his own money as opposed to our money.
The dichotomy of our kids is amusing. Xavier had hockey earlier this week and we were driving home down the street and I noticed someone that looked like Olivier outside in the yard waiting to cross. I asked Xavier, is that Olivier? He replied did you not recognize him because he is outside? I said that I did not recognize him because I did not expect him to be out playing outside with other kids. Olivier will seek out friends to play with, Xavier rarely does. Though if someone seeks out Xavier he will almost always go. Olivier it is very dependent upon his mood. Xavier is very predictable and as soon as he gets home he will empty his lunch and do everything he has to do before he relaxes. As a proper Asian as soon as he enters the house or sees me the first question is, what is for dinner, followed by what plans does he have that evening. Olivier will come home, say he is hungry and start making some sort of snack and will be oblivious to anything else and be in his own world.
When I first moved to where my parents live, it was the beginning of my relationship with one of my closest friends. We do not talk as much as we did when we were younger, and interestingly enough I probably talk to his cousins more over the course of a year than with him, but whenever I need him he is always there. We were chatting and like everyone does he asked me how I was doing. He knows me well as we have grown up together where we spent most of our waking hours together from when we were in kindergarden until we went off to University. The discussion came around to the amount of pressure that is on the people trying to support people going through illness. In the evening this topic came up again when we had people renovating the home. They had someone who had gone through a lot of hardship as well and the parents were called into a meeting with some counsellors where they were asked how their relationship was with each other. The intent was they wanted them to be aware of the amount of pressure that this has on people and that it was quite common for relationships to fracture because of all the stress that occurs. I am grateful for being surrounded by people who understand this and will hopefully provide support to Mel through all of this. I know that my close friends and colleagues all have Mel’s number and would reach out to assist her if they could. I am grateful for the community that I have surrounding me. They have helped out Mel at various times and they are things that always stick out in my head. Persinger giving Mel a pep talk while she was writing her thesis. My work colleagues contacting Mel when I am not doing well. People always answering Mel and seeing what assistance she needs when she randomly accidentally calls them.
After my appointment with the dietician, I will provide recipes and ideas for what people can make me to eat. We mentioned last night that once I start treatment that Mel does 90% of the household work, while I do 10%. Mel joked that I better still do all of the cooking. If I can get people to do that last 10% I can sit in my chair like an old man yelling at kids to get off my lawn.
Q