Clarity makes such a big difference to how I feel. Yesterday was a bit of a long day at the hospital and those seats are not super comfortable, but last night I slept well. A lot of the previous anxiety that I may have had went away after talking with the doctor. What we know is that there are remnants of the cancer still but we are unclear whether it has seeded somewhere as we do not necessarily have much evidence from that. I have been eating more and more each day and the last couple of days I have managed to eat between 7 and 8 times over the course of the day. Previously once I ate I would feel full for hours afterwards while now I feel that I can eat again after an hour. I need to watch how much I eat but it is much more manageable. I can eat at 9pm and then eat again at 10:30pm where before if I ate at 9pm I would not be capable of eating again that evening. My weight is also very slowly and steadily increasing which is a good sign.
Last night Olivier was asking Mel about cancer and he has apparently been doing some research on his own about stages of cancer. He had spoken to some of his friends about various things so he is aware of the stages and he asked Mel about me and we kind of just glossed over it and did not give him a direct answer. I am not sure that I want him to look up the stages and come to a conclusion about it. I am sure that Xavier knows as he has been present when I have spoken about it from others, and he has also heard how I am not a normal case. I think he is mature enough to understand the nuances of what the internet might say and my case. My doctors have said that the prognosis is normally not the greatest, but my oncologists are much more positive about the outcome and we will deal with this one day at a time. I have yet to hear back from the hospital about when I would start treatment so the start date of next Monday does not necessarily look super promising. Even if I started on the 3rd I would actually finish on New Year’s Eve. If that is the case I could still go to Ottawa for the tournament but I am not sure if I would want to actually go to the Sens game. The kids can go with Mel, but I am not sure if I will want to go sit in an arena for such a long time including travel to and from the arena. It is a zoo there and it not easy to get in and out of. The public transit system is much better, but i do not know if I could physically stand there on the bus or light rail and how do I justify that I need to sit on a crowded bus. We would most likely drive and be patient getting out of there. Once we know the actual start of treatment then I can count and see what the timeline is.
Yesterday our ridiculously expensive mini fridge arrived and we tested to see if it would fit into the space according to the measurements provided. I had read complaints that what was provided and reality were not aligned. They were right, it was slightly higher than what was documented so we had to remove the feet in order to make it fit into the space. It is an extremely tight fit, but it fits within the space that we had reserved for this. Once we get the door installed it is going to look great. Mel managed to move a lot of things over from the fridge yesterday to the newer fridge and we realized that we have a ridiculous amount of condiments. It is safe to say that right now probably 30-40% of our fridge is condiments. We have at least 10 different hot sauces. We will move the freeze stuff over today hopefully. I am grateful for all of the assistance that we have had in setting up the kitchen and from people providing gifts. Since we were at the hospital for so long yesterday we ordered food from Tony V’s as we had a gift card. I ordered a panzerotti and prior to cancer I could eat the whole thing with some appetizers. A couple of weeks ago I could probably only eat a quarter of it. Last night I was able to eat hald of it over the course or approximately 2 hours which is a huge improvement. I also ended up eating 2 more times after those two meals. I feel that I am getting better now and will be able to manage the radiation treatment. I was told that it will not be as rough on my system this time, I will just have a bad sunburn across my stomach. It is interesting how stress manifests itself and your body reacts. Remove some of the stress and it makes things so much easier.
I think that this helps reinforce the idea that you need to have a positive attitude when going through things like this. If you are not positive and you allow stress and anxiety to enter your mind, it makes recovery much more difficult. Yesterday while I was waiting for my scan there was a gentleman there who had been there since 10am, a couple of hours before me. They were trying to hydrate him so that he would be ready but he had been fasting for a portion of the day and was trying to control his intake. Prior to having to fast I make sure that in the days prior I spend a lot of time making sure that I am hydrated. It makes it easier for them to insert an IV and as much as I love getting poked and prodded, I have had numerous experiences where the person may not be super experienced so it is not always super pleasant. The last time I went in, it seemed that it went in fine, but when I was getting prepped for scans it was very uncomfortable and hurt my arm. They had to position my arm a certain way to reduce the pain. The gentleman was tired and he had been waiting for a lengthy period of time and they kept on delaying his scan because they did not think that he was ready. It may be his first time going through this and he might not be aware of small tips and tricks that no one actually tells you about. I am a seasoned pro at this now and will make sure that I include it in my memoir about surviving gastric cancer twice. Second edition. I figure at some point there will probably be a third edition, but hopefully by then with the way that medicine is advancing it will be super easy to treat and cure.
Quoc Hao