112) Unfocused thoughts

I had been feeling somewhat better for a while, but I’ve had an excess amount of anxiety for the past couple of weeks. I feel like my attention and thoughts are unfocused, like a flat stone skipping across the surface of the water. I’ve wanted to write, but I only seem to think of a small amount of material before my brain moves on to something else. It shouldn’t matter how much, or how little I post, but lately it seems my output would be a number of posts, each only about 3 or 4 sentences long.

It’s Snow-vembrrrr here in Southern Onterrible. On Remembrance Day, the snow started falling, and we ended up with a little more than 10cm on the ground. Not too much, but it broke a record for that day, and it’s early for this part of the country. It also got pretty cold – last night it went down to -17°C. Not as cold as other parts of the country get, but again, colder than normal for this part of the country at this time of the year. Had to shovel, had to clean cars, and my washer fluid froze a bit because I hadn’t yet put the winter one in. A good long 1.5 hour sit on the 401 on the way home can do wonders for warming up the engine & thawing things out.

E’s had a cold for almost 8 weeks now. The poor little guy. He can’t catch a break. His nose has been constantly running, but luckily, no fevers. He’s dealing with a bit of a rash or eczema on his forehead, and we also think in his hair. It’s chemo related, and not too bad, but it’s noticeable, and it seems to bother him because we’ll see him scratching at it. For now, we’re treating it with a calming, moisturizing lotion recommended to us by our RN & nurse practitioner. He’s been so tired lately. Recently, he fell asleep at 4:30pm, and he’s had numerous nights of going to bed at 6:30pm. He’s had a cough for a while, but over the last several days, it’s developed into more of a wet sounding cough. I’ve been worried about it. I’m often worrying about pneumonia, because it is a somewhat common occurrence in cancer patients. We took him into clinic today, and his counts were fine, and his lungs sound clear. The lab seemed to have misplaced his blood sample today, because it was about 2.5 hours waiting for the results to come back. Usually it’s about 30 – 60 minutes. My wife & I were both starting to worry that they had found something, or there was going to be bad news which required them to test things more in-depth. All was fine though.

Two weeks ago, I sprung for some steelies & winter tires for my car. I had an oil change done as well. About a day after the oil change, I noticed a greasy/hot metal smell coming off the engine. I was worried, but I looked on Google & spoke to a few people who are knowledgeable about cars, and attributed it to some spilled oil during the change. It would burn off after a couple of days. The smell didn’t go completely away, but it diminished significantly, so I was in the clear. Or so I thought... Last week, while driving J to his playgroup in north Oshawa, a few electronic things in my car started randomly turning off. The car lurched a couple of times, and then the engine died. I coasted to the side of the road, pulling far onto the shoulder, and called a tow. $750 in repair bills later, I found out that what I was smelling was my alternator frying itself. I also needed a new battery, but the it was covered under warranty. That made it a little less painful.

A while back, E figured out how to undo the seatbelt in his highchair & climb out, so meals are a bit more difficult having a 3 year old perpetual motion machine in the house. The stroller is made by the same company as the highchair, so if we take him anywhere, he can get out and go on a toddler rampage. Until about 3 weeks ago, I was bringing him with me when I went grocery shopping. No more. I don’t know how he does it, but he can Houdini himself out of the shopping cart when the seatbelt is on tight enough so he shouldn’t be able to move. Then he’ll be running up & down the aisles, putting everything in the cart, trying to run away from me, or throwing himself on the floor in a tantrum when he doesn’t want to listen. Taking him out to visit is no better. When it’s time to leave he’ll shriek a glass-shattering scream, throw himself on the ground, or pull your hair/scratch your face/headbutt when you try to pick him up. These are probably fairly common toddler things, but they pile up. Especially with being under chronic stress.

With the early snow/cold, I haven’t had a chance to get my wife’s snow tires on her car. I’m thinking about that, and wanting to get it done. It’s probably going to be a wait now to get it in, because I haven’t been able to in the past couple of weeks. Not enough time in the day.

We also got E’s flu shot done today at the POGO clinic, after we found out the counts in his bloodwork were good. I went out to a local pharmacy after we got home, and had mine done. My wife is planning on getting hers tomorrow, and we’ll get J done on Friday or on the weekend.

If you don’t have a medical condition which prevents you from getting a flu shot, go out and get one. Please. You might think that you don’t need one, that you’re young & healthy, and can fight off germs. The flu is a serious illness, and if you have a weapon to protect yourself from it, you might as well use it. Plus, you’re contributing to herd immunity to help protect the vulnerable population of people with compromised immune systems, like my son. If you develop immunity, you won’t catch it, and more importantly, you won’t pass it on to someone else.

I don’t write about it much, if at all, but work has me worried a bit lately. Not the actual work, but potential changes down the road. Someone is trying to impose a change management system where we’d spending more time doing paperwork & red tape stuff than actually helping the client. I spoke to my boss about it, he agrees with me, assures me that it’s a ways off from being implemented, and insists management will not let it be implemented as it is currently proposed. It has me wondering what the point of everything is if administrative tasks inhibit my ability to provide service to the client. I mean, these people who approve the changes have no idea about what they’re approving, nor do they have any idea about what I actually do.

Our next SickKids visit is quickly approaching. I always feel a bit on edge before going. Whether it’s holding E, & trying to soothe him while he’s frightened as the medical team is about to administer his anaesthetic, waiting outside during the 5 – 10 minute procedure that seems to take forever, or trying to calm him down when he wakes up early. SickKids day gives you quite a bit to think about.

Halloween came & went for another year. I don’t know what it is, but I wasn’t feeling it this year. I love Halloween, but this year, I don’t know. The boys had fun at least.

Things have been a bit better for the past couple of weeks, but for a while in October, little E was feeling a lot of nausea & had numerous vomit sessions. He’ll tell us now “I feel sick”, or “tummy feel yucky”, and when he says that, we can give him ondansetron for the nausea. It’s difficult to see the nausea combined with his cough & stuffy nose. That combination was particularly bad 3 – 4 weeks ago when he’d start coughing to the point of making himself sick. This would mostly occur in the middle of the night, or right about the time we would wake up, and E would be asleep, or half-asleep. For the most part we could tell & we’d whip him into the bathroom to put him in the tub. It’s an awful feeling to rub your cancer patient son’s back to try and comfort him while he brings up bile.

I had an... umm... interesting? encounter this past weekend. I took J to his gymnastics class. During said class, he somehow managed to knee himself in the face, so he had a bruise under his eye. Already feeling anxious that people are going to be thinking the worst when they see me with a 5y/o who has a bruise on his face, I took him to a doughnut shop for a treat when the class was done. Long story short, some bible thumper tried to recruit me into his church? cult?, and followed us out to the car to give me his card. I’m sure he was harmless & there was no nefarious intentions, but it was weird. No thanks.

Earlier this year, there were some changes to E’s leukemia treatment protocol. I wrote about it before, but it basically boils down to getting vincristine & steroids once every twelve weeks instead of once every four weeks. I am half-waiting for the other proverbial shoe to drop, which is the extra year of treatment. Many hospitals are dropping the third year of treatment for boys. Girls do ~2.5 years of treatment, boys do ~3.5 years because past studies have shown that leukemia can hide in the testes, so they do an extra year to make sure they got it all. Now, the thinking is that the research which supported an extra year for boys was flawed & hospitals have been dropping the third year of treatment. It would be good in a way that he wouldn’t be getting more drugs that may be doing who-knows-what to him now, or setting him up for late & long term effects down the line. We’re past the 2.5 year mark, so if a decision is made, they could potentially call us one day & tell us to stop the meds, E is done treatment. There’s a whole bunch of thoughts/feelings about that: are they correct?, why change the rules in the middle of the game?, are you sure this won’t affect his outcome? Again, good if he has to take less drugs. Bad because it makes me worry. This last thought might be a bit selfish, but it would be anticlimactic. The whole counting-down-until-the-last-chemo-dose-and-hospital-visit would be taken away from us. Poof, you’re done. I feel like I might be a bad person for thinking that.

We recently got the ball rolling for E’s wish. He’ll get a wish from Make-A-Wish Canada, we won’t have to choose between two options, because Make-A-Wish Canada and The Children’s Wish Foundation Of Canada are merging into a single organization: Make-A-Wish Canada. I’ll ask him about what he wants for his wish, and he answers. 99 time out of 100 his reply is “Ummmm...dream come true”.

That’s a good place to end it, goodnight!