I begin this blog by reassuring everyone on my psychological shape. My morale is excellent and no doubts haunts my mind. I hope that everyone feel reassured. I think some believe that my morale is low because of some circumstances in recent days. The past weekend I had invited my two younger brothers to come watch football in high definition on our big screen TV. The same day my step-sister Sandrine had the good idea to confirm that everything was well for the visit. Everything was fine except she told me on the telephone that the PITCHOUNETTE (Clara) had a cold. So I hesitated before taking a decision but I had to resign myself to postpone this visit. Sandrine was wondeful because she left me no doubt that she understood very well my position and that it was not a problem. The reason we have postponed this football afternoon is, as you all know, my immune system is affected by chemotherapy. For me getting a cold means an hospital visit. So as much as I wanted to hang out with my brothers I did not want to catch PITCHOUNETTE's cold. Furthermore if it was not me it could have been one of my children who could have caught this cold, which would have forced me to wear a mask at home for a while and avoid contact with my kids. I hear you say: "Yeah, but your children go to school, they can catch it anyway." Yes, but it is certainly easier to postpone a visit from family then to not send my children to school. We manage risks the best we can. Speaking of my immune system, I'll give you details on the reaction of my body. As I said I had an allergic reaction during the eighth treatment. In the ninth treatment they gave me Benadryl in prevention but I still, at the end of treatment, had an allergic reaction (less powerful than the first but still). This can be problematic or maybe not, we will know next week when we talk to Dr. L. He certainly has several options from which to choose. Discontinuation is not the only one and certainly not desirable. The other element that worries me a bit (I say a bit) is my bleeding nose. Since the eighth treatment I have nasal concerns. My nose is very dry and I get a good congestion during the night. The morning when I'm undisciplined and I blow my nose without preparation, I disturb my nasal walls (I bust a vein) and my nose begins to bleed quite heavily. OK, I have seen other people bleed more than that but for me it is very unusual. After the ninth treatment I began to bleed just because I contacted my abdomen to evacuate my bowels. In addition, compared to the post 8th, this time it took 6 days to calm down. The source of this problem can be multiple and even combined (home drier due to heating, Avastin, low numbers of platelets), but it is certainly something I will discuss with Dr L.
Change of topic, I shoveled the entry yesterday ... twice. The first time it was about 15:30, the children were back from school. They all helped me according to their capacity. Tristan really impressed me. He's only 11 years old but you can feel the teenager, the man growing in him. He showed great strength and determination in the removal of the snow. When Marie-Josee came home around 19:00, it was as if we had not done a thing. This time I decided to try to start the snowblower. Don't you worry I have not exerted any force, it is equipped with an electric starter. So a few strokes of thumb on the siphon, a few strokes of the thumb on the starter and it finally went Zoom Zoom. So I redid the full car path for a second time. I was very proud to have the strength to do it but like any good macho, I was keen on doing my favorite neighbor's entry before he was back from work. I couldn't finish before he arrived. I still helped him a bit since he opted to make his entry with his shovel. I was pleased to give him a hand with my old snowblower. I was so absorbed by the task that I lost sense of time and when I finally got back in my house, it was 22:00. The whole family was in bed.
It is not only the strength that I was glad to have to remove the snow, there is also the fact that I managed to dress in an adequate manner to prevent my fingers and face to sting ( side effect of the chemo). It gave me hope that I can go skiing and do other winter sports as far as I am well dressed. It is not that easy, you know, especially for the nose. It is a problem because I can not completely hide it without suffocating or creating a icy zone on the hood. Still, my combination of polar hood and fur hat with ears worked well last night.
Thank you for your continued readership and have a great day!
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