Last night was a bit rough as Olivier was not feeling great yesterday and he woke up at 3:30am and was throwing up for an hour. The hotel we stayed at is fine, except it has some design flaws that came to light yesterday. The toilet is in a separate room as is the shower. The issue is that the doors for both are frosted glass, so when you go into them they light up the bedroom with brightness which make sleeping a bit difficult. After we got him all settled we realized that we were not going to be able to go to dim sum with my sister. We asked him if he wanted to delay it and go and he said no. I sent my sister at message at 5am and she was up and we had a quick chat. When I am not feeling well I like to try and handle it myself and sheer will power overcome things. It is interesting because Olivier is not like that and he gets so down on how he is feeling and as a patient he wants a lot of pampering and care. He just focuses a lot on the negative aspects. It was just him and I tonight and when I went into his room and he was telling me about how bad he felt. I tried to cheer him up by telling him that he only had 3 weeks of school left. I tried to convince him that it was June 1st and he was dreaming about everything that happened. I asked him if he was hallucinating and I was making him laugh and his demeanor perked up and after a couple of minutes of banter back and forth I left him alone. He came out of his room and did some things. When we were traveling home last night, Mel and I told him that he needs to change his perspective on things as that will impact his outcome if he is not feeling well. We used myself as an example, but I am not sure if he understands it or not.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The new plan for was for me to go to the Lebanese grocery store and bakery in the morning and then I would head back, pick up Mel. We would then go to another bakery by our place and then hit he road. I drove myself 30 minutes to the grocery store and got everything I needed. I did not use my wheelchair at this store and then proceeed to go to the bakery which was jam packed with people. There must have been at least 20 people ahead of me to get things from the bakery section of the store. I went to this store because they were supposed to have the best custard tarts in the city and I know someone that loves custard tarts and I wantd to get them some to these ones out. This whole adventure ther and back to the hotel took me about 2 hours. I am so glad that we have google maps now, as the road I would have taken had an accident where they stopped all traffic and were not letting people progress. As it was the highway it is difficult to get out of that section if you manage to get stuck on it. I had seen it so knew how to adjust, but that would be diffifuclt if you did not know. Mel had called down the the front desk and we had a late checkout so it was not too big of a deal. We probably got out of the hotel a little after 11am and went to the next bakery that had a huge line out the door and again probably had 20 people in front of us. When we finally ordered we mentioned that we were from Sudbury and he told us that he was from the Donovan area and scoffed at us when we said we were from the South End. We spent over $200 in treats from the two bakeries, though it was not all for us and we shared a lot of the things we bought with family and friends. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
I drove all of the way home which was quite the feat. Five weeks ago I drove about an hour from Sudbury to the Esso off the highway and I was tired. This time I drove the whole time and it felt more like normal. Mel was in the passenger seat looking up things and it was a nice comfort as she organized things and provided snacks to everyone. She is much better with distribution and organization of all the treats than I am. The key this weekend is that I felt far more normal than I had in the past. I was able to tolerate eating cold things and took advantage of it and drank or ate as many cold things as I could, as I have 2 more days of this and then I will have chemotherapy again that will impact my ability to drink or hold cold again. The neuropathy is better today, but it is still there, I was able to grab a cold drink out of the fridge without pain, but it is not comfortable for me to continue holding it to drink. I need gloves to drink still, but it is not a bad thing at all. I will take that any day. I have been able to eat fairly well throughout this, but at times I can eat more and then sometimes I feel more full. Mel and I both had gravlax at Ikea and I ate all of mine and I thought Mel would have wanted more but she had said she was full as well. I then had an Ikea ice cream waffle cone, but only managed to eat 3\/4 before I had to give to Mel. We have decided on what we want to do with our office now and on the drive home Mel spent time thinking of things which is what she likes to do. Xavier had called a couple of times and he got me a gift. People asked why he was buying that as a gift and he understands me which I love. He bought me a candle with angles on it. It is pure awesomeness. It is hideous and I love it and put it right by my chair in the bedroom so I always have an angel overlooking me. He drew me a picture and wrote a story about it as well. I am going to keep that candle forever. I think that this weekend was one of the most normal ones we have had in a while and when we look at our upcoming treatment schedule it lines up well that I should be ok with the trip to Ottawa and then I will have some more treatments and if we take a month off the tournaments in July and August should be fine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We drove home and arriving in Sudbury there was a torrential downpour. Earlier this week I had put our internet and router on a battery backup, which was a fantastic idea because we got notification from our smart devices that they switched to battery, so we will now know when our power goes out at our house and when it comes back online. The internet on the battery backup will last for approximately 2-3 hours before it shuts down. Our yard flooded pretty significantly but our neighbour took video and cleared it. This happens with every rainfall now, when years ago we were told by the city that this was a once in a hundred year occurence. I am not sure who they are relying on for their analysis, but they suck. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
I have sessions with a social worker where i am creating a legacy document to leave behind. I think an addition that I want to add are stories and writing about my life from when I was in Vietnam till now. I will get some stories and things from my friends to include as well because I am sure that I am not going to remember all of the ridiculous fun that we have had over the years or stupid things that I have said. Sometimes someone relates a shared story and I laugh because it was not something that I remembered, but after hearing about it, it brings back the memories of how much of a troublemaker I was when I was younger. I will compile that as an autobiography and compile it as a book with the parts of the document that she is getting me to work on as well as my blog. The way things are going now as things are getting better with a lot of my results, I should have ample time to document my life stories. I will share some of it here, or summarize parts of it. There are a lot of stories about my time in Vietnam and in Malayasia that I will share. I always found it tough to hear some of those stories, but my parents told Mel and myself as she was curious and had asked questions. They answered them and shared it with us, but I did not always want to remember or know what my parents had to go through to get us here. It makes me regret how difficult I could be as a child and I am ashamed of my lack of respect that I had now that I am older and have kids of my own. I never rebeled or acted out towards my parents, but I understand a lot of the nuances of their decisions now and why they said or did what they did. As a child you do not always understand the logic of some choices. Even now I do not know if I could make the decisions that they did, and I was never in the same situation or circumstances, but I will share some of the stories that I heard and give my perspective on some of it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The next two days I am going to see how much I can push myself and I think it will shed some light to how much I am improving or whether it is sustainable or not. I am a bit surprised at how well this week went, besides those 2 rough days, so I need to see how much I have learned and whether I can replicate this or not. Is this week the new normal that I understand or is this a blip in the pattern.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Dr. Mach<\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Last night was a bit rough as Olivier was not feeling great yesterday and he woke up at 3:30am and was throwing up for an hour. The hotel we stayed at is fine, except it has some design flaws that came to light yesterday. The toilet is in a separate room as is the shower….<\/p>\n