It’s been 10 months since the start of the chaos that is the Brain Cancer Journey and the last month has been exceptionally hard. I can completely understand now why relationships collapse as part of the cancer journey, oh we are fine, but there are times…which lead to very emotional conversations.
It’s exceptionally hard to get motivated when your body doesn’t respond the way it used to, your strength is a quarter of what you remember, and you just don’t feel like yourself. This even impacts what you can eat, how much you sleep, and everything else. Having someone else try to motivate you only makes it worse and creates much frustration from both parties, particularly when that person is your wife.
I never expected to be the primary motivator for both my children and husband. Children – yes, husband – sometimes and for some things. Being the person to constantly be reminding, cajoling, harassing, nagging, etc gets really tiring very quickly, especially when you are doing it to another adult. It gets even more challenging when that adult is your spouse, someone that you expected to be your partner in life.
Since our last update Dave had been sleeping up to 18hrs per day or more. While when you are healing this wouldn’t be an issue, but we were seeing additional problems with health due to the lack of movement. Lack of movement really impacts a lot of the human system processes, especially your gastrointestinal process. And we all know how miserable people are when gastrointestinal processes aren’t functioning properly. It is also sometimes surprising how much activity impacts these same processes.
This has gotten better since the last chemotherapy ended within the first week of June, but still has been hard to get people moving. We also have employed a strategy recommended by the counselor that we have been talking with every four weeks. We had expressed concern over how Dave had been acting, not eating properly, sleeping a lot, disengaged from the happenings in the family, etc.
The goals list helps, but it’s still hard when things don’t function how you remember them.
The kids wrapped up school at the end of June with report cards showing improvements for both children even in the challenges of online schooling. Now we wait and see what is going to happen for the fall. I suspect, instinct is telling me, that they will be expected to go back as per normal. I have a whole lot of anxiety and disappointment in the school system for not taking advantage of learning something new. I was exceptionally disappointed that our school board didn’t see this as an opportunity to change the way in which we access learning, but that is a whole other rant.
We have started to extend the circle of in person connections over the last few weeks, for which the kids are happy. Especially Seth, who is now allowed to play more freely with one of his good friends. This not being able to connect with friends has been hard on him. It’s different being six compared to ten.
Though I could really do with the rain slowing down a bit. We have been lucky to avoid any of the really nasty weather issues that have hit Calgary. I have enjoyed a few of the storms for the light and noise, quite entertaining. We have also had an experience with wildlife – birds in particular.
Robins decided to nest in the Lilac bushes behind the house. The nest was very small and I think there were two eggs, both hatched, but one baby got kicked out of the nest. It is now roaming our yard, pooping everywhere, but surviving just fine. Dax found another birds nest in our Mayday Tree, but I haven’t figured out what kind of bird yet.
I’ve heard that having birds nest in your yard is supposed to be a good omen. Here’s to hoping.
The Adams-Schlag Family 