We talked with the social worker yesterday and we are going to have individual sessions for everyone. The social worker wants me to unpack my feelings. We told her that I write about everything daily but I think that they are concerned that I am not feeling any sorrow or sadness. The concern is that I am not allowing myself to look at all of this properly. This is where perspective plays a large role in all of this. The social worker thought that I was quite analytical and that I was not taking the effort to allow myself any emotionality to this which would be a concern to most if they look at things with too much positivity and do not acknowledge any negative aspects. Positive toxicity. This is why I think I am a bit different however as I see this as a data point to the extent that I will worry about what I can control and everything else I will not worry about. I have cancer and I do not deny it nor do I pretend that everything is going to be ok. What I will examine however is how do I control what I can as best as I can. It is unfortunate that this is happening but it is an opportunity to build resilience and to understand how i cope with hardships. I am in a privileged situation where we are fortunate enough that I have flexibility at work and I have a lot of caring people around me. I am not sad or remorseful because the way that I view this is that no matter how tough I have it, there are so many people that have it worse. I am not going to worry about what I am missing out or what I might struggle with. I will focus on the positives of the moment and the small wins. I learned resilience growing up in the jungles of Vietnam and remembered having to dodge falling mortars as a baby. I learned how to disarm booby traps at 3 years old so going through cancer treatment is easy with no pressure. Going through challenges like this builds capability. You hear stories all of the time about people transitioning from high school to college/university who struggle because they never had a work ethic because every thing came easy for them. Academics came easy for me, but growing up we were not privileged and had to deal with things. My parents could not afford to give us a lot of things that other kids had but we did not care. We appreciated what we got. Christmas was 1 gift and nothing from Santa. We never worried about what others had compared to us. I remember asking my mother for something one time and I argued with them. They said no so I dropped it. My mom came to me afterwards to explain things but it did not really bother me because I understood. My parents did not let me play organized sports growing up because it was an unnecessary expense. I probably over compensate for my kids and give them the world. We are in a financial situation where we can. I know that if my parents could at the time they would as well. The trials and tribulations that you face help shape who you are. You need to go through some tough times to build resilience and capability. Cancer is a growth opportunity where you can choose to make the best of it or you can think life is not fair. I do not dwell on the difficulties I face but the opportunity to scowl at my kids for their imperfections. This will be fun chatting with them.
On the drive to the ski hill today I made sure that I erred on the side of under eating as opposed to having a bite too much. If I am a bit hungry I can get more food. If I eat too much I will throw up. It seems like an easy enough choice. Everyone else is on the slopes and I am sitting in the chalet by myself. I did this last time and I found that the time flew by. We came here Adam family but everyone is doing their own thing. Xavier has a friend and he is going through the terrain park taking jumps. Olivier is at his private lesson and Mel is meandering at her own pace. I sometimes like the solitude and can process my thoughts for writing. It is more difficult on the weekend when we have a busy day. We are going to plan to go to a resort in the next couple of weeks, once we figure out what the hockey schedule is like. I would like to go to Tremblant but it might be too much for Mel and Olivier. The sessions might be too hard and it would cost us $2500 to go plus travel and food. We might want to wait a bit for that. I am not sure if I will be able to ski or not next year but it would be nice if I can do that.
We have a lot of hockey coming up and we won our game last night. In the last 2 regular season games we have 2 shutouts. Next weekend we have playoffs and play Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday. I chatted with the nurse and she seems to think that I will be fine for travel. I am also going to send a message to all of the hockey teams and see if they can take it easy this weekend because I would prefer not to get my heart rate too elevated. Maybe some blowouts from our team with shutouts would help make things easier for me. It is a reasonable request.
QHM