I met with my oncologist today to discuss my treatments. He said that I looked well and that it seems that the ascites is not building up as fast as before and the last time I was drained there was not too much. It is approximately 1kg for every 1 L that they find, so it is rather easy to determine when there is a spike. My weight has been pretty stable for the last while and my bowel movements seem to be regular now like they were last year, which is a good sign. My eating is a bit off compared to earlier this year as I am struggling a bit with certain textures and feeling full. We ate at my parents this evening and it was a bit hard to eat some of the food as the texture of the meat was off-putting. Some other food that I enjoy I could not even taste such as the ginger and scallion sauce with chicken. It normally has a wonderful fairly strong flavour and I could not taste it at all. Right now it seems that sweetness is something that I struggle with in some foods. I can eat chocolate pudding and I can taste the sweetness there, but I can not taste it in a cookie, nor can I taste it in anything that is solid. Pudding or tofu with the sweetened ginger I can though. I am a bit surprised because things should be getting better as I have been off treatment now for close to 2 weeks. What the oncologist has said is that I will have treatment this week, have next week off and then we will start cycle 2 with 3 weeks on and then 1 week off. It is rather amusing that he asks me about Spain and wants to actively work with them to ensure that I get the best care possible. We said that they want me to go throuh 2 or 3 cycles before we see if we want to go with the PIPAC treatment again. After my next CT scan we will send the information to them and then get their input. This should suit Mel just fine because we would be going there for the Christmas market and we could do all of our Christmas shopping then. I was surprised that my oncologist does not work full time at the hospital and he has some side work that he does. He uses and AI transcription service that he is not 100% happy with, so I might get him to try out the one that we are developing and get him to get on board with our EMR system for his own practice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I was talking to my sister about the CNE this weekend and she is up for going. My parents seem to be going back and forth about it as well. I had asked Mel if she wanted to attend the Argos game at night and she declined, so I will ask her if she wants to go to the Ed Sheeran concert that night instead. If she says yes then I can get tickets for her and Olivier for that and Xavier and I can “accidentally” wander off and attend the Argos game as the two of them are at the same time. Tickets for the concert are not that bad actually ranging from $149 up to $226 for fairly good seats. More than 4 times the ticket price for Xavier and I to attend a game. My dad seems to think that the kids will want to go on all of the rides. I told him we are just going to go for the food really and told him what the plan was. The thing is that it is calling for rain on Saturday right now. We will decide on Wednesday what will happen. I am not sure how well the wheelchair operates if it gets wet. My wheelchair is not designed for rugged environments and for fun I just looked up some that could handle things like that. They have some that are designed for trails and off-roading and the cost is astronomical. They are 27k and weigh over 400lbs. I could see how that would be useful for people but I think in a situation like that I would just try and walk or use a manual wheelchair instead that has no motor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Time flies by so quick and it is remarkable how as much as you do not want to, you follow traits and personality quirks from your parents. My dad is a trouble maker and he used to do things to throw off my sister and myself with gifts. My sister and I use to carefully open our gifts and tape them back up and we thought that my parents did not notice. It is hard to say if they did or did not, but my father would wrap up decoys with things that he took from us or random food in the house. I remember one time that I had unwrapped something and it was some books that I was looking for and he just laughed and told me he needed them for some weight. I was a prolific reader as a child and would stay up all night reading. My parents never really gave us a set bedtime and we would go to bed whenever. When I moved my bedroom to the basement, there were times where I thought that I was hearing things downstairs like someone walking on the carpet. I would turn on the light and obviously there was nothing there, but it spooked me so much that I would keep the lights on and just read until the sun came up and then sleep for a couple of hours before I had to go to school or if it was the summer get up to start my day. I had a sleepover once and my friend had heard it as well and we tried to figure out what the noise was but we could not. It was not all of the time, but it would happen occasionally and as soon as I turned on the lights I would not be able to hear the sounds anymore. Occasionally Olivier will want to sleep downstairs because he thinks it is cozy and it is much colder down there. We always asked him if he was scared or not and he said no. I was never scared to stay at home alone at night, but sometimes if everyone was gone and I was home alone I was always a bit nervous at night and would wait to go to sleep when I was completely exhausted. Sometimes it seems like just yesterday I was living with my parents and now another school semester is about to start and Xavier is starting grade 10 and Olivier is in grade 8 I think. Xavier is super excited for his brother to graduate as he wants to represent the family. I do not think that Olivier will get the accolades that Xavier got. As the eldest I never had to live up to others expectations. In elementary school I always had a good reputation for being a bright student. My sister had to follow in my footsteps and she was known as Quoc Hao’s little sister. The difference between her and me though is that she cared about her grades and always gave maximum effort. She did extremely well in school and outshone me. Tim then had to follow in the footsteps of both my sister and myself. By the time Tim was born, my parents were not as strict with him as they were with my sister and myself. I do not think that he ever got a bamboo stick lashing. My sister and I never did either, but I imagine that would be a fitting punishment for Asian kids that did not meet standards. Or the dreaded slipper slap. I wanted to bring it back for our kids but corporal punishment is frowned upon so I give them emotional damage by looking them in disgust with a scowl on my face. I try to not actually get involved in their school work and grades because I am foolish and do not want to say the wrong thing. As fully Asian I abide by the Asian grading scale where A is average. When they get a mark below that it annoys me and I do not think that it is reasonable, so I remove myself from looking and Mel will talk to them about their performance. Being oblivious is bliss and then I can be pleasantly surprised like I was at Xavier’s graduation. He just needs to follow in my sister’s footsteps and win the Governer General Bronze medal now. It should be easy, if he struggles he just needs to turn on his Asian superpowers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Dr. Q.H. Mach<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I met with my oncologist today to discuss my treatments. He said that I looked well and that it seems that the ascites is not building up as fast as before and the last time I was drained there was not too much. It is approximately 1kg for every 1 L that they find, so…<\/p>\n