More Sad News

As the title of this blog suggests, there is some news to share but before I get into that, I will start by updating y’all on the last two weeks. BTW, sorry for being late in sending this post. It looks like a bunch of you were checking the site yesterday looking for an update.

The last few weeks have been busy on the home front. Last week, the girls started school. Unfortunately for them, it was not ready to greet them yet.  It is a brand new school and is still under construction. An entire wing of the school is not open which includes the gym. They are able to manage as, currently, the school is not at capacity as there are only grades 7-10 this year. Next year, the grade 10’s will move to grade 11 while the feeder schools will push their grade 6’ers into this school for grade 7. In two years, the school will have all its grades filled with students. Hopefully, the construction will be done by then! Because of this ongoing construction, there is a bit of chaos in the school. The first few days, there was no soap in the washrooms, Genevieve did not have a locker and gym class is currently being done at their old elementary school which is a 7 min walk away or in the parking lot. The school yard is still a construction zone and is full of mud so it cannot be used for gym class yet. The cafeteria is still not running so a caterer is delivering food everyday for kids that have ordered it in advance and all the kids are eating in the main foyer for now. The classrooms are sparsely setup but are functional. Genevieve has thrown her hat into the ring and is running for the first school council of this school. She is giving her first speech today with elections to happen tomorrow. We are all wishing her the best of luck. I think she can do great things, when given the opportunity.

Since this school board starts a week earlier than most (they start the week before Labour day), Genevieve missed a few days as she was participating in a high performance fencing camp that was hosted by the National coach. She was in school for its first two official days but was at the camp for the Monday, Thursday and Friday sessions. Funny, she did not seem to complain about missing school that week, hum? Cassandra finished the summer soccer season in first place in her division. This is both great and bad news as it means that her team was too strong for their division and should have played up to get more competition. In any event, her club will receive a banner for their accomplishments that they can hang in the clubhouse. I am proud of her and her team on what they achieved.

The family packed up for the Labour day weekend and headed north for a visit with Mom. It was a short one but it was good to go as it has been since the Family Feud in February since I have been back and even longer for the rest of them (I think it was Thanksgiving last year since they were last there). We arrived on Saturday morning and left late Sunday night. We did still squeeze in some visits to my aunt Rita and uncle Frank’s and to Colette and Scott’s cottage where we saw them along with Conrad and Nancy, and Rene and Marian. It was a short but tiring weekend. Add to this the fact that I worked on the deck on Monday. I did get a lot of help with painting it as the whole family was helping out to paint the first coat. We did not get the chance to put on the second coat yet as I was too tired and it has now rained so I will need to wait for it to dry thoroughly before I can paint again. After that, the only thing left will be to raise it so that I can fix its support columns as many have slid off their concrete pads.

On the activities front, I played my last baseball game of the regular season with the playoffs starting next week. My Thursday night summer hockey season was extended by two weeks with the last game being tonight (still have yet to score!) while my Tuesday morning league started this week (no goals here either). The Thursday winter session officially starts next week. I have new sticks that I tested this past Tuesday and they did not help me score. I have sharpened my skates to see if this will make a difference tonight. If not, I do not know what else I will need to do to score again. (Insert your own demeaning joke here where we can all laugh internally at my expense on our own time and in private!) The band did not practice last week but some of us did get together anyway. We will be back together tomorrow for a full practice.

Now for the moment you have all been waiting for (at least the 20 of you who hit the site yesterday). As you know, I had my appointment with my Besty yesterday. It was in the morning so I was hopeful that the delay would be short this time. To my surprise, it was so quick to get in that I only had time to read one section of my paper before being called. Not only that, he was the one to call me in where, normally, it is one of the clerks who calls out for the patients so this meant he was seeing us right away instead of waiting longer in the room. I was not sure what to expect to hear from him. I was both anxious and nervous even though I had the PET scan results so I should have known what to expect. It was an interesting morning up until that point which added to the stress I had up until that point. Cassandra had planned on making me breakfast before my appointment (would have been the first time). It was going to be a western sandwich but there were only 2 eggs in the house and she wanted them for herself so I had cereal. The drive to the appointment was difficult as there was a lot of heavy traffic and accidents along the way which made us late. Also, there was a line-up to check in once we got to the hospital parking and again in the clinic itself. It just seemed like it was going to be one of those rough mornings. However, all that changed once we were in the room with the doctor and the door closed. You could tell right away that he could not hold back his excitement when he told us the news. Are you ready for this? After a little more than 5 months, I am in remission and am almost cancer free! There are some potentially cancerous areas that were detected in the CT scan however the PET scan showed that there was no activity in them so all is good. My Besty was over the moon and we all were high fiving each other once the news broke. It certainly was great to hear this as it provided some much needed relief after all that I went through the last half year. I had never seen him so smiley and talkative in any of my previous appointments. We barely had time to get a word in during the entire time we were there. With that, he outlined the plan moving forward which will be that he continues to monitor my progress throughout the coming year with scheduled visits every two months. Here is a photo of me with my Besty.

Now for the sad news. Now that I am on the mend, it means that I will need to go back to work. The doctor figures that I could start work in about 6 weeks starting with part time hours (I think that I may be able to do it sooner than that but we will see how I feel). That means that my long summer vacation is almost over. No more reading my paper with my morning coffee for hours. No more watching TV all day sitting on my Lay-z-boy with Shelly (which means that I need to finish both the Breaking Bad and Sons of Anarchy series very soon). I will not be home to see my kids off to school nor be there when they come home. The grocery shopping will have to be done in the evenings or on weekends as I will not have time during the day to do this. Also, Mary Ann will need to start making dinners on her own during the week again (I can see her starting to stress out about this already). Because of the timing of the kids activities during the week, it may mean that I will not be able to have dinner with them as they will have eaten before I get home from work. Mary Ann is going to have the house to herself all day with Shelly again so she is going to need to greet her clients by herself once more.

As sad as all this sounds, I am more than willing to give it all up if it means that I am healthy and cancer free. It has been a long journey and I am thankful to all of you who supported me. This is a part of me now and I will never forget it. I have grown from this experience and hope it will help me make a difference in the world moving forward.

Before ending this post, I wanted to share a quick joke with you. What do you get when you combine Aaron (my uncle Richard’s son):

With their dog Stella (a golden doodle, like Shelly but only bigger)? You get:

Until next time!