Hello from Nearly Two Weeks Into 2025. I wrote last entry that my new battery of tests would have started by now but I was wrong. I had a checkup entry on my phone’s calendar, but there was nothing in the Noona app about it, and when I called to confirm they said it had been cancelled. Good thing we found out before driving an hour-and-a-half to the big city. It’s been rescheduled, so my checkups and imaging will actually start on the 20th now.
It seems I’ve never mentioned Noona! Way back in May — less than a year ago but also ages, somehow — I was encouraged to install the Noona app on my phone after one of our first visits. It’s what CancerCare uses to keep patients on top of upcoming appointments, and it also has a built-in messaging system so that you can reach out easily if you have questions about treatments, side effects, what have you. It isn’t perfect but it has been pretty valuable throughout this journey. Actually, what’s sort of funny is that the Radiation techs told me to turn off notifications from the app; in summer it was pinging me multiple times per day, because radiation appointments shift forward and back by small increments of time on a regular basis. Eventually, CancerCare just disabled notifications for everybody, because the pings were getting so exhausting for patients that it was a hindrance rather than a help. They’re still not back on.
Anyway, if you were curious, that’s just one of the tools that you’re given as a cancer patient in Manitoba!
I had a virtual interview with Laura from the CancerCare Manitoba Foundation on Friday. I’ll be featured as part of a fundraising push for World Cancer Day (Tuesday, February 4th), so we talked about an overview of my journey thus far and how my diagnosis has affected my life. This will help put human faces to the work that the Foundation does, and I figured, if I can do anything to raise some funds so that the next patient’s journey is a little easier, I’m gonna do it.
One thing she asked was about my future goals, or rather, was there something in particular that has been driving me to get through the difficulties of treatment and so on. I cited my kids; they had already come up several times in our conversation, and I’ve been telling everyone since last year that I’ll do whatever it takes to be there for the milestones in their lives. That hasn’t changed! But I also added: my goal is to get an air fryer.
I alluded to it in my very first journal post, but one thing that this unexpected journey did was upend our house renovation plans. After years of debate and hemming & hawing, Lori and I were on the cusp — the very brink! — of engaging a contractor to renovate our kitchen and dining area. We had the plans drawn up and were just waiting to hear back from our chosen contractor about when they could start. The air fryer comes into play here because we don’t currently have available countertop or storage space to keep one, and I’m pretty sure I would use one of those bad boys every single day. So before my diagnosis, my joke during our planning stages was that we were renovating the house just to fit an air fryer in.
Well. When we got the news of my diagnosis, one of the first things we agreed on was that it probably wasn’t wise to tear the house apart while also trying to deal with treatments and appointments and the things of that nature. So with much sadness, I called the contractor back and said that everything’s on hold for the foreseeable future. We’ve held on to the hope that our plan can still go ahead one day. Lori often looks wistfully around the kitchen and sighs about how much better it’s going to be. Unfortunately, we still know very little about the prospect of surgery and associated recovery times. But we still have the plans, and the funding, and we have to keep hoping things will become more normal and it’ll work. Because I was this close to getting my air fryer, and I still want it.
(I’ll be surprised if the CCMBF puts any of this in my donation biography.)
