I just got off the phone with my oncologist and everything happened as I had expected. The surgeon was not too keen to do surgery and I do not really blame him as we do not really know too much of where it is. What we do know that there was a tumour and that it has spread into the omentum, the fat within the stomach. The options as I mentioned before were going in blindly and cutting it out or radiation. What we will be doing is radiation for 5 weeks, Monday to Friday. I remember what it was like before and it was not super fun, but it might be a bit different this time as I will not be going through chemo at the same time. I will have gone through all of the different combinations now, chemotherapy by itself, the combination of chemo and radiation and now radiation on its own. I should be getting a phone call in the next day or two to schedule going in to get things prepped and I will most likely start treatment next week I am assuming.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I do not think that I am looking forward to 5 weeks of treatment over Christmas but I will get to start the new year off fresh. I am not sure exactly what to think at the moment, even though I knew that this is where things were going to end up. The first thing Mel mentioned to me when I spoke with her was that we will most likely not be going to the Christmas market now in Paris for the month of December. A concern that the oncologist had was whether I would be able to eat or not, but lately I have been eating fine. I just need to make sure that I can maintain that as I can not really afford to lose anymore weight now. The mental aspect of things has such an impact. I had eaten this morning and did not have much issues, but now that I have spoken to my oncologist I feel more anxiety within my stomach and it feels more uncomfortable. I think some of my anxiety comes from the memory of how weak I was. The impact of the radiation is cumulative and by the 5th week it is super tough and just continues for a couple of weeks afterwards. Looking at the timing of things now, it seems that I may be going in the week of Christmas, so I am not sure exactly how that will work. I need some time to adjust and get my thoughts around all of this still. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
I know that people have told me that I should take time off and take care of myself. One of the reasons why I probably do not take time off is because it is a steady reminder that i am not well and that there are things that I can not do. It is acceptance that this is the new normal and it is something that I do not want to be the new normal. If I accept what is normal, then I am no longer necessarily in control of the situation and I will follow the projected pathway, and the prognosis is not something that I am willing to just accept. There will be days later on during treatment where I will be quite fatigued but as it is around the holidays there will not be too much work at the time anyway so things will work out fine I think. The most important thing of working though is that it provides me with purpose. Even if I can not do all of the work, I can provide coaching and guidance to people as we work. Knowledge is still transferable when I am tired.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I am grateful for all of the help that we have and I am sure that in the next 5 weeks we will be leaning on our circle even more. We have had a lot of offers for help from people, and people do not know how to help out. Hopefully Mel will get people to help out with things. My in-laws will probably end up driving Xavier to some hockey events while my parents will bring food. I may need transportation to treatment as I can not remember how tired I will be when I am undergoing treatment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Q<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I just got off the phone with my oncologist and everything happened as I had expected. The surgeon was not too keen to do surgery and I do not really blame him as we do not really know too much of where it is. What we do know that there was a tumour and that…<\/p>\n