Did a lot of work today, and am very happy with progress, but the best part of the day was the 15 seconds I got to pet a golden retriever
James Petrosky: His (her?) name is Sadie and I've been trying to pet them for years, but they've always preferred to play with the poodles, and honestly I can't blame them
It's hard when you're condition makes you need to lie down so much that lying down itself is uncomfortable
James Petrosky: Starting with chemo, I've spent 12 days mostly in bed (including one night in a gurney that was really bad). But I just don't have energy
Moved into my new apartment! Lots of unpacking done! It's a very nice place, except there are no overhead lights and my phone charge socket is switched.
I'm at a hotel in Sudbury, my destination for the day. A few things:
Thomasin is enjoying exploring the hotel room, I also let her out on the car while I was taking bathroom breaks and she loved exploring there, too. She's only left my apartment once since I adopted her, so today is a very big day
There is a pagent going on in the hotel for adult women. I didn't know those were a thing. It's pretty cool. I chatted with someone I assumed was a judge but who was actually a really enthusiastic participant
A lot of the tv stations I can receive are American. I will never, ever get used to drug ads. But they're a price I'll pay for The Fifth Element, which is easily the best thing I've ever seen in a hotel
Kate Lux: Yeah, there are "Mrs ___" pageants (25-40, I think) and I think ones for seniors too.
James Petrosky: Kate Lux the world can be a strange and beautiful place. It does explain the women my age in prom dresses I saw when I arrived, though. James Petrosky: Even in a strange place like Sudbury, you don't have weddings on a Thursday. Which was the only reason I could think of
We're on the move!
James Petrosky: *Thomasin is in a carrier when we're actually on the move
**Stefanie Culp: What a solid navigator!
Sarah Marie Yurkiw: I hope it all goes very well.
Tu Biederman: Thomasin is SO CUTE I want to cry
Beverley Singer: She looks like she’s enjoying the ride.
James Petrosky: Beverley Singer she's traveling much better than I expected
Brennan Moline: So much trust in you ❤️
Ryan McGill: This is a GORGEOUS picture.
I'm pretty excited about moving, but Thomasin? She doesn't like change. She had an anxious day today, and her week is only going to get worse. Her anxious behaviour is cuddling, so I do okay
I've been discharged, I'm home. We're pretty much where we were on Monday. I've got instructions on how to manage this new condition, but managing is all there is to do. There is no cure, no further treatment. This is just another part of my life now.
Not sure if I'm more tired of the pain or being extremely high all the time.
James Petrosky: Someone in the room has decided that we would all love to hear their country music. I made sure to pack multiple pairs of headphones so I wouldn't accidentally expose anyone to dinosaur podcasts. I'm extremely frustrated but unable to do anything about it
Not sure if I'm more tired of the pain or being extremely high all the time.
James Petrosky: Someone in the room has decided that we would all love to hear their country music. I made sure to pack multiple pairs of headphones so I wouldn't accidentally expose anyone to dinosaur podcasts. I'm extremely frustrated but unable to do anything about it
I made a pizza and Thomasin sat on me and now my pizza is cold and still largely uneaten. Cat law can be cruel
James Petrosky: It doesn't make sense, it was Hawaiian, and lots of people may not like it, but it's her favourite. Normally the play would be to jump on me and steal a whole slice from the plate
James Petrosky: I can't even call her a criminal, she's being a law abiding citizen
I'm home from the cancer centre. While I still have the bottle for the rest of the week, this is the end of this treatment series. It's the last time I'll visit the cancer centre. I have one final followup appointment before I transfer to a new oncologist.
I thought about ringing the bell as I left, and absolutely would have been welcome to, but it didn't feel like treatment was over, because it'll never be over, and couldn't do it. If I get another break, I hope I'll take my chance.
I'm a sentimental person. I cannot describe the confusion of emotions I'm feeling. The cancer nurses are some of the kindest people I've ever met, I hate that my health necessitated our meeting, last year I was so ready to say my goodbyes and never see any of them again because I was going to live, and now, after another very hard round of chemo, a much more bittersweet goodbye, with the promise of a new chemo centre and more difficult rounds of treatment.
James Petrosky: I very rarely think about the R word (not that one, but I guess also that one), but I am today, and it isn't easy. I wish I could articulate it all better. But it's impossible.
James Petrosky: Frankly I'm being dramatic for the fun of it, the word remission has no special power.
Holly Kay: Love you cousin!
Rebecca Liddle Blair: In the work I do, I am often meeting people on not their best days or times; still, I am grateful for the experience and the time together. I’m guessing the nurses and care professionals that worked with you probably feel that way about working with you as well. It’s a different kind of relationship with complicated feelings to go along with it.
Brennan Moline: I am also a deeply sentimental person, despite my best efforts to avoid it. My parents still tease me about how I cried when they got rid of our old fridge or old car. When I left for college, I cried in the bathroom, hard. Sentimentality always felt like a curse.
Brennan Moline:I don't know that it is, anymore. I don't know how you feel about sentimental moments, but the fact that human connection can be so strong that we can miss it before it's gone feels both deeply beautiful and deeply sad.
Brennan Moline:I'm sorry I made this about me (part of me wants to delete this comment), but I feel what you're saying
James Petrosky: Brennan Moline my new experience is ending an interaction with a friend, both knowing it's the last time. My knew surreal experience is knowing that this is a skill, and one I'm going to get fairly good at fairly quickly. So long as I'm only a little awkward about it, I hope we can focus on the beauty in a strange and terrible situation.
James Petrosky: The way society handles grief and related emotions has never really worked for me. And I didn't outright say it, but this is all partially about grief. And for me, talking about grief in a personal and largely secular/nonreligious way is very important. Which may not have been your intent, but it's how it was taken.
Brennan Moline: James Petrosky Absolutely agree.
Successfully found some medication! But now I'm at the hospital all day
James Petrosky: Complication! Somehow my refill disappeared, even though the order couldn't have come in late if there wasn't a refill, this morning there is nothing to transfer. So here's hoping my oncologist is picking up today
My pharmacy didn't get my magic nausea medicine in on time. I am not having a great day.
James Petrosky: Considering delaying treatment if we can't find any. I have no desire to spend a week throwing up.
Trying to arrange four days of hydration (which I usually refuse, but my oncologist wants me to do this time) but they've changed how its done since I got it in January.
James Petrosky: It used to be all homecare, but now I have to go into a clinic once a day and disconnect it myself at the end of the day. And presumably make a second trip to the clinic Sunday for them to take out the connection to my port.
James Petrosky: Friends, this is the only part of my care where I directly receive care from a private medical company. It's always the most frustrating and least human part of my treatment
A day of adventure! But uncharacteristically, I didn't take a lot of photos. The adventuring was centred around Goderich, Ontario (which is a pretty town with a beautiful Lake Huron waterfront, a roundabout at the centre of town with a courthouse in the centre, and some pretty waterfront industry (to my eyes), also a lighthouse which was on the todo list).
I met a friend for lunch in Fordwich (a tiny town I didn't know existed until yesterday). Then traveled to Goderich, then up to Kincardine where I met another lighthouse and experienced the sublime beauty of the world waiting for possibly the worst hot chocolate I've ever had. Finally I traveled to Hanover for dinner, which I had at a casino, so I guess I also visited my first casino today. I won by not playing.
Much more importantly, I saw so many cows (with their poodle sized calf), dozens of sheep with their little lambs, a field full of mini goats (a highlight of the day), many dogs and, a kilometer from home, a cute tabby cat. I regret to inform you all that I still have not met a corgi.
I know there's no controlling when you're going to be struck by the beauty of the world and the finality of our mortality, but a Tim Hortons in Kincardine with a knock off Nickelback song playing is a touch ridiculous
(We later figured out the song must be That Song by Big Wreck)
James Petrosky: I spent half an hour looking out over Lake Huron (main body, not Georgian Bay) for over half an hour, but of course things come over me in the dumbest and least interesting place I've been all day
Ëmmy Smäll: first of all I love all of this, second of all Huron is the only Great Lake I haven’t seen yet but lakes always put me in a place I couldn’t attempt to explain but I get it
James Petrosky: Ëmmy Smäll I was out in that part of the province to have lunch with a friend I hadn't seen in a while, and the beach spot was specifically recommended. It was worth an hour trip out of my way
James Petrosky: But then I wanted to see a lighthouse and ended up further out of my way in Kincardine
James Petrosky: So anyways I can check off "have a good cry in a Tim Hortons parking lot" from my list of required Canadian experiences
Carolyn Coney: James Petrosky an incredibly Canadian moment (tm)
Someday I'll remember that just because all choices are bad, it doesn't mean some can't be much worse.
This is a post about Taco Bell
James Petrosky: This is not a political post, but you're forgiven for thinking that.
Christianne Manzano: This post is VERY disrespectful to the Steak Chalupa Supreme.
Forgetting to eat a couple meals and then consuming an enormous amount of caffeine leaves me feeling high and uncomfortable and cold. 0/10 just get regular high
Apparently yesterday was some sort of bipolar disorder awareness day. I was pretty busy with a full day of scheduled existential crisis about mortality to notice.
All I've got to say is that we're fucking human, and you can get hyperfucked if you're still writing us like we're magic weirdos with intense mood swings. Especially if it's for a dumb meme, that dangerous misinformation will spread for years.
We're human. I'd love to have a conversation about what depression or hypomania feels like if you're curious, but all you alls simply must stop spreading medical misinformation first.
James Petrosky: This sounds like a very specific call out. If is not. I didn't see any of my friends posting stuff like this. I did see lots of stuff like this in groups some of you frequent, though, and that's more than a little bit suspect
James Petrosky: bout me, though, and my mental health.
I don't talk about depression so much anymore. I still experience it, am still medicated and still speak to someone regularly about it. From a medical and quality of life point of view, I absolutely still experience it. But philosophically, is it still disordered if it's about an extremely real thing? Is it still depression when you are surrounded by proof of your impending mortality? Of the failure of all treatment options to accomplish anything beyond the bare minimum?
I don't know, and if you want to have a conversation about it you can find me at a bar outside the University of Waterloo most Wednesdays 2006-2009, because that's the time in my life for such discussions. Today whether it is or isn't depression doesn't matter (and I really mean that, I'm not looking for validation either), today is one of my extremely finite days, and I should make something of it regardless how I feel (although what is dependent on how pretty strongly).
James Petrosky: I've had some hypomania this treatment cycle. It's weird feeling so motivated to do things, and having the feeling of having energy, only to have it all come crashing down when the reality of a body ravaged by months of chemo becomes unavoidable. I still spent a week not sleeping, with a mind that wouldn't stop (only about 25% thoughts of death, so could be worse). Hypomania is only good in fiction, although it can be briefly enjoyable.
I was fantasizing about going out for bacon and eggs for breakfast until I remembered I can't risk runny eggs for another week into my chemo cycle