Wrinkles

This Past Week…

…was relatively uneventful. I worked at my job, I did some family stuff. My side effects are sort of holding steady now; not really improving anymore. Bathroom trips are unpleasant and uncomfortable but mostly not painful anymore, which I’ll certainly take. And! The frequency of my trips has backed off somewhat — I was able to go for a decent-length walk with Cassidy and our dog yesterday.

My little boy was sick starting Friday night and throughout Saturday, throwing up everything he had, and then some. He’s doing better today, but the initial going was intensely stressful, even with Lori here to share the load. As I realized when emailing back and forth with a cousin (hi Joel!), a big part of my frustration and stress comes from the repeating wish that things could just…stop happening for a minute. But underneath that is the belief that I’m the only one that’s allowed to be sick right now. In the cold light of day I know that’s not reasonable to expect, or fair to my family. I wish I could have caught the thought sooner. Maybe the next Event will be easier to handle.

One sort of interesting wrinkle this week was a phone call from my mother’s cousin, a medical doctor with a strong interest in something called Lynch Syndrome. This is a genetic condition that increases the chances of getting certain kinds of cancer, and he’s been working with another doctor on tracing it specifically within my family tree on my mother’s side. He said I’d probably get a genetic workup as part of my treatments, and with my consent they were quite interested to get the results for their research. I said yes, of course. If I can contribute to something that helps early detection and removal in somebody else, I’m all for it. So! If anything more comes of this I’ll probably put it here.

One last quick thing, and it might seem silly, and it is! But I wanted to note it here. Today is the 19th anniversary of They’re Taking The Hobbits To Isengard.

After showing my kids and jamming out, I went into the comments on YouTube and noticed a lot of people saying RIP to the original creator Erwin Beekveld. On digging further it turned out he died of cancer two years ago. Reader, I don’t mind telling you this was something of a gut punch. An unwelcome surprise, one that made me tear up for a moment.

Again, I don’t have a wider point to make here, I just wanted to note this. And say that it won’t be me.

Looking Ahead

My counselling session was postponed, so not much to tell there, yet.

More unnerving is the appointment with my chemotherapy doc this Wednesday. I’ve had almost a month to recuperate from the first round of treatments, but I feel like I’m not physically or emotionally ready to feel worse again.