Last night we had some friends come over for a quick visit. Over the last couple of months we have had people bring various religious books to our place. A friend of mine asked if I would read the Quran and I said I would read whatever people brought me. Yesterday I got the NIV version of the bible with passages that the family selected. It was interesting to read as it reflected each member of the families personality. So it made me think which passage reflects what I write. What I chose from the new testament was Matthew 6:34. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
“Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I think that this encompasses the way that I have gone through this whole journey. Focus on how do we get through today and do not take on the stresses of the future now. Last night I ended up taking some dilaudid and Tylenol to deal with the discomfort in my abdomen and in my port area. Once I took the medication I went to bed and had a peaceful night without too much trouble. I have said it before, but it is interesting how something so simple as getting in and out of bed can be made difficult by some minor procedures. I had to mentally brace myself for the discomfort of moving my body in and out of bed. This morning the area around my collar bone hurt significantly, where just breathing sent radiating pain into my body. I took some pills and that pain subsided. I have quite the collection of pain killers that I do not always take. There is no reason for me not to take them, but in my mind I think I believe that willpower is enough to sustain. We went into supportive care to get drained, but my blood pressure was too low, so we waited for a bit to see if it increased to safer levels once I drank some juice. Eventually it went up to my normal range and I was drained over a couple of hours. Today we moved only 1liter, so it increased by approximately 1 liter per week, which is not bad. When the tube was pulled out there was some residue stuck to part of the string portion, which made it a bit trickier to pull out. It is not a pleasant experience when it is pulled out as I feel the whole procedure. Mel and the nurse called me a princess, and referred to me the fairy tale the Princess and the pea as I am overly sensitive to any nuance involving my body. Once I had the tubing removed though, I felt much better and most of the discomfort in that area has gone away and getting up out of a chair is now more normalized. There was a bit of discomfort this afternoon as my internal organs shift and find a new balance with the newly freed of space.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I have treatment tomorrow and remembered that I had to get blood work the day before so we took this opportunity to get blood work so I did not need to come back. I had an interesting interaction when I went to get blood work. She introduced herself and was quite pleasant to deal with. She was quite young and I think she had recently just finished school. Out of all the needles that I have received in the last couple of weeks, she was by far the best. I told her that i could barely feel the needle when she inserted it and we chatted a bit about how I always let new people try things out and get better. I have seen some people ask for someone with more experience draw blood or give a needle because it is difficult. The thing with experience though is that you need to earn it via actually doing it. There may be growing pains associated with it, but you can not get better without actual real practice. It may be uncomfortable for the patient, but they are learning and hopefully they will get better over time. I have had some where it hurt a ridiculous amount, and I told them that I was in pain. They asked if I wanted them to get someone else and I told them no, they can practice on me and I would tell them why it hurt so much. People will make mistakes when they are learning, and that is ok. You need to have patience. Mel brings this up to me all of the time that I can have infinite patience with others and with my team and be very forgiving when they make mistakes. In my personal life I have no tolerance for mistakes, and it is something that I should adjust to.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Today was a prime example of me making some mistakes. My parents have tried to drop off food for us unsolicited and i have shot that down repeatedly. So they have stopped doing it because I have made it abundantly clear that if they bring food that i did not ask for that we will not take it and put it in our fridge or freezer. Earlier this week they had bought things for Mel’s parents and aunt and dropped it off at our place. It is annoying as they do not understand portion control and luckily we had room in our fridge, but they tend to be excessive. Today they brought things for Mel’s parents that they thought that they might want. Mel asked her mom about it and she had no clue why my parents bought it for them as they had not discussed it prior. I was annoyed because they literally filled our fridge with containers so that it could no longer fit it all and they still had some left over. This is stuff that they might not even want and they bought multiple boxes of them. I lost my patience with them and told them I do not care if they buy things for other people, but they can not store it at our place for people. The reason being that there is always a “sale” or some hugely discounted thing that they will find daily. I have been down this road before and they will bring things daily if you allow them to. The kids have learned to never tell my parents that they like something because they know what the consequences are. We still get 15 or so mangoes every other day and it is quite hard to stop them. I know that they are doing this out of kindness and i should not be so quick to anger, but after repeatedly not listening it gets onto my nerves. i should be more polite and decline them allowing to store anything, but it is difficult as they pull out 7 or 8 family size containers to store in our fridge to give to others. We have ended up throwing out some of the food after it sits there for 5 or 6 months.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I have treatment tomorrow and I am a bit nervous about it because the port has not really healed yet, so it will be a bit painful when they first use it. Right now lifting that arm is not comfortable. The nurse from the cancer center had called me today and asked me if they had put it on the other side and I said no. What they did was put it closer to the armpit. She said that they might need to stick it to the hair and I said that i did not care and would shave my armpits if it made things easier. I think waxing hurts, so tomorrow morning when i shower I will shave just my one armpit in anticipation that they will tape over it. They had originally called to see if i wanted to come in at 8 or 9am as they had cancellations. I would have accepted if they did not call so late in the day. The timing did not provide Mel or myself room for adjustments to our schedule. I will spend tonight preparing some different food for me to take into treatment tomorrow as well as some quick food that I can eat during the week.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
QHM<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Last night we had some friends come over for a quick visit. Over the last couple of months we have had people bring various religious books to our place. A friend of mine asked if I would read the Quran and I said I would read whatever people brought me. Yesterday I got the NIV…<\/p>\n