Lately, I felt as though life was getting busy. Not surprisingly, when I look at my calendar, it was busy for a little while with many appointments and events that took all my time an energy.
In the last couple weeks, I have had the full gambit of things going on.. 3 full days in a theatre at NAIT being told about life after the military (not as exciting as it sounds, but some key educational tidbits of information), short trip to Calgary, Doctors appointments, and a PET/CT Scan. My wife also left me unsupervised for a week, and I survived… why are wives surprised by that?
The PET scan was the most interesting – haven’t had one quite like that before. Like many of the procedures, the prep in advance is more trouble than the actual event. Due to timing of the day, it wasn’t as easy as get up in the morning and go in without breakfast. I was a late afternoon appointment, which meant have a quick breakfast, no coffee early in the morning, then only water for most of the day. The day before seemed like an Atkins diet day – no carbs, alcohol, sugars etc, but lots of protein and fat.
Not sure what to expect I show up and get whisked into a small chamber… my phone lost signal… odd. I noticed that the room only had a chair. Some standard paperwork in triplicate, then I was hooked up to an IV that had multiple ports. Shortly thereafter, a cart gets wheeled in with a large lead box on top, from which a syringe that is also wrapped in lead is removed. That syringe, and another with saline (I think) get hooked up and both pumped into my arm. I get told that the reactive agent will be given in about 30 minutes or so, and to just sit quietly. When I am left alone, a large 4 inch think portable steel wall is put between me and the door.
When I go into the room with the machine, I am told it will take about 15-20 minutes, lie down like so, arms over your head.. breathe but don’t move. The machine was just like the CT scanners that I have been in before, but this one was bigger – a CT scan machine looks like a big doughnut and you got through the hole… well, this one was like 3 doughnuts and I am sure that there were times that the only part of me that might have been visible out the end was my hands at one end, and my feet at the other.
No weird feelings or sensations, other than really, really, hungry (which is normal for me, but at 1600 hrs, and have only eaten 1 thing since 8 pm night before) and a little dehydrated – I felt as normal as can be.
I am still working away on my ride goals, overall the weather has co-operated and I have gotten some good rides in with some new riding friends. I have discovered my video edit skillz are not what I had hoped they would be… partially(mostly really) because my video recording skillz are not very good. So, I will be putting together a video of my bloopers ….. I mean… my lessons in recording and editing. This has helped me realize that I could be outsourcing some of my video needs – so check out the YouTube pages that I have made cameo appearances… DARTH RAM and AMSS. I will still try to produce some video for my channels, eventually.
Military paperwork continues, without a determined decision on my future. I hope to start asking tougher questions, which may force some answers, whether I like the results or not. Now that I have a 2 year treatment plan, it tells me that there is a window of when I can start getting my life back – provided that I make it through the next 2 years where there is an 80% recurrence rate. I did the 3 days of “Second Career Assistance Network”. I have done those seminars before, more for educational purposes, but this time it was different as I was very much realizing that I would need to take advantage of a number of the programs – biggest challenge will be my capacity and capability to take advantage of them. I have decided that all military related posts will be posted in a year or 2… that way I have content down the road. If I tell you everything now, I won’t know want to tell you next year if things stay quiet.
THINGS COMING UP:
Cancer related – still awaiting dates for my next 3 BCG treatments, and my next Cystoscopy.
Motorcycle related – 2 charity rides in the next couple weeks – rain or shine.
Wheels for our Wounded is this saturday in Edmonton
Emily’s Memorial ride is the week after.
I still have tentative big ride plans ready, but without knowing my BCG dates, I can’t actually confirm attendance.
Website related – I am going to play around with website navigation, landing page, and a couple other things in the week to come. I have been trying to decide how I want to post the newsletters, as I have had 2 different ideas that both could be viable.
That is about it for now.
Off to Canadian Tire to buy some stuff for my next video project attempt… see what happens before it rains.
Thanks for hanging out with me for this journey.
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