My taste buds are coming back now and I can start tasting some nuances in the food. Textures still bother me a bit, but it is getting better. It seems that soft meats is what is triggering it. I feel that I want to buy some steak tomorrow and see how that works out. I had wanted to make a smokes brisket, but I have not bought one yet and it is 10-18 hours and I would want to start cooking it at 2am so it is ready for dinner time. I would start it at my first nightly feeding and have it ready for dinner time. I may try and do it on Tuesday before I go in for my treatment on Wednesday. I have been able to eat constantly today and drink quite a bit of liquids and managed to drink 2 boost drinks. I am glad that the water boil advisory is now over. The amount of food that i can eat is slowly decreasing slightly, but it is hard to quantify as it depends on what I am eating prior and the order of the food that I eat. I have more tofu from my parents and I can eat quite a bit of that as it is soft and easily digestable. Eating beans is fine as well because they are soft, but it leaves me fuller for a bit more time, so if I eat within an hour, the amount is decreased. The effects are cumulative so the impact is then for a couple of hours. I think I will need to add in soup during some of those periods to help offset the more solid foods.
Xavier went with Mel’s cousin to try out ninjitsu last night. He went into the teenage class and they were impressed with his athleticism and told him that he can sign up for the adult classes. He is quite strong for his age, as he is now bench pressing 195lbs, squatting 350lbs, deadlifting 325lbs and 750lb on leg press, he is well above his peers. They noticed his strength while they were doing strikes and said that he can move up to work with the adults instead of the younger kids. He seems to be enjoying it so we will go and see what the costs are and sign him up if he is interested in going with his godfather to train. I do not think that he would ever want to fight, but he will be prepared if he gets into a goalie fight on the ice now. He generally knows most of the other goalies and gets along well with everyone so I would be quite shocked if he ever got into a fight in hockey. Today he was gone all day for track and on the drive home he said that he does not actually like running. He likes hurdles, training and the social parts, but not the competitive racing itself. It might be because he is getting knee pain from it, but he has his sessions with his athletic therapist so hopefully he will be able to help him out with that.
Mother’s day is coming up and we do not really have anything planned this year. Mel wants a more quiet day without a lot of chaos, so I think that what she wants to do is have it just us and I will make us some breakfast. She already knows what she wants and it is relatively easy and simple and something that the kids love. We just need to make sure we have all of the ingredients. We take the frozen croissants from Costco that are raw and we throw them into the waffle maker and we get delicious waffles and we will eat them with some sausage and some fruit. I will also make her something delicious for dinner. I will get Olivier to help me out as he always has creative ideas on what to do and I will get him to help plate out Mel’s dish. His class did not do anything to prep for Mother’s day this year. I wonder if the kids will do anything for Mother’s day. I did not do much and have not planned anything for her. I am grateful for all of the extra tasks that Mel has had to take on in the last 8 months or so. As my condition has degraded and I am now significantly weaker a lot of the household tasks drain my energy pretty severely so Mel is doing it all. The kids are starting to help out more, but it is a lot and I try and help out as much as I can. I had to go for bloodwork today and managed to go on my own, but coming back I was quite tired. I have gone in several times today and the girls at registration know me and we were chatting today and I told them about the setbacks I had. She told me that she admired my positivity and how every time I come in regardless of whether things are going well or not that I am always nice with them, joke around and have a positive attitude. A lot of them know me well enough that i do not need to show my health card and they pull up all of my stuff without prompting. I forgot to contact our care coordinator in Spain and will need to remember to do it next week. I am not looking forward to Monday as last time I had the port inserted it took weeks before it felt comfortable. Any type of movement sucked, even now raising my right arm above my head it strains the muscles and it puts pressure on the port. They think that this time they will be inserting it on the left side of my body and the tube will be running across my chest to the right side. Because I am so skinny I can feel the tube right now on the right side, but the run distance is short. This time if it is on the left, it is going across my chest. Hopefully the skin does not erode, otherwise every 12 weeks or so they may need to keep on switching sides until I gain enough weight and mass so I am not so scrawny.
Q