I wanted to give everyone a quick update on this week’s chemo treatment. Also, it appears that some of my hockey buddies try to read up before my Thursday game to see where I am at so as to reduce the number of questions they want to ask me. Thanks Tom for letting me know this.
This week started off nice. I had lunch on Monday with my work wife, Shari Anne, from my old company. I had not seen her since I told her I had cancer back in March so it was good to see her and catch up. We shared some great memories together with all the crazy travel we did and the amazing customers. From driving through a blizzard from Vermont to Ottawa in a cargo van, to flying from Munich at 3:30 AM to Berlin for an all day meeting to then fly to London, UK, arriving at 10:00 PM with no sleep and unable to work my phone to call a colleague, to talking to our airline steward on places to shop in Munich and somehow then getting free business class cheese trays and the wine to go with it (with refills I might add). I had missed her a lot so it was good to catch up.
Tuesday was chemo day, but not just any chemo day. This as round #4 so I am more than half done. To celebrate this, I started the day by playing hockey at 7:30 AM. As we were short two goalies, I had to step in reluctantly and needed to bring my spare set along with my regular set. For some reason, it is hard to get goalies to wake up early to play during the week. One of the guys, a former goalie, strapped on my old pads and I put on my new ones. I was worried about playing as I did not want to get hit too hard with the puck and get cut or be bruised as I am very vulnerable now with my platelet counts so low. I played a good game considering as I had not played nets since mid March (I think the boys may have taken it easy on me 🙂 thanks! Much appreciated.)
After hockey, I rushed home to unpack the gear, eat quickly so that I can take my first shot of prednisone (yay :() before running to the hospital for a 10:00 AM chemo. As I suspected, we did not need to hurry as they did not take us until closer to 11:00 AM. This time though, instead of being in the ward, we had our own room, with its own bathroom. We lucked out this time. I just realized while writing this that I forgot to wear my Sens jersey to my treatment. If you remember, my company got me a Chris Neil Senators jersey for my fight. I have been wearing it to all my treatments as my fighting uniform and to remind me why I am doing this but I forgot this time around. It slipped my mind with all the rushing I was doing that morning. The treatment went relatively smoothly. I did not need to stop to take nausea drugs but it was still long. We did not finish until 3:00 PM. I was getting nauseous and tired when leaving the hospital so MA drove home.
Lately, on treatment days, one of MA’s soccer friends treats us to a meal so that we do not need to deal with making dinner. This time around it was the kids treating us. I guess I am doing too well now so I do not need as much help anymore. Before we got home they started to prepare the fixings for nachos. All MA needed to do was cook the ground beef. It was a nice meal and I was thankful they made it for us. Dinner was early as the family had tickets to see the women’s international soccer, Canada vs. Brazil. I stayed home and slept for a bit. Gen was to go with them but did not feel up to it. I needed this rest as I was planning to go play baseball later in the evening. Ball was at 9:30 PM so I knew I could rest before so as to allow me to play. I am glad I went to the game because we would have been short otherwise. I played back catcher thinking it would be an easier, more relaxing position but it was not. My arm is sore and tired from throwing all the balls back. Those damn hitters were not hitting the one that were balls, only the strikes and, even at that, they would miss them too! Though we did not win, I felt like I did win given my day. It was one of those days where I can truly say “Fuck You Cancer!”
I was not too tired on Wednesday but could have used a bit more rest. I will take it easy today (Thursday) in preparation for my game tonight. Hopefully I will score my hat trick that I missed last week.
On a side note, I am sad to say that I have some bad news. I have needed to purchase reading glasses. It was becoming apparent when I needed to turn on the lights to read my paper in the morning even though there was enough light coming in from outside. I wish I could blame the cancer/chemo for this but I can’t. So not only am I fighting cancer and losing my hair, I now have to wear reading glasses. What is next? Wearing my pants up to my ribs, waving my fist to all those young punks on the street or losing my hearing? I am too young for all this (except the seniors discounts would be nice :)).
There is not much scheduled for this weekend. Gen has a piano recital on Sunday and I have band practice on Friday. There is only two weeks left before the kids finish school and leave this school to go to a new one closer to us in the fall. They will be home with me all day along with MA for the whole summer. I think this will be the longest time that we will be all together under one roof. Anyone able to help me build a noise proof manroom in the basement with a wet bar, washroom and a lock?
Good stuff as usual. See you tomorrow morning, Steve