Day 20 - Upbeat ...

It's been a week since my mom left to return back to Trinidad and amazingly I'm settling down quite nicely.  On Sunday I made my first meal in years!  I cooked enough food for Sunday and two other days - both for Gabby and myself.  The menu was macaroni and cheese, stew beef and bar-bar-que fish!  Tasted rather nice and amazingly enough I managed to cook another meal last night for today (Wednesday) and tomorrow.  This time it's potato salad with some Chinese style beef (with peppers and onions) - yum, yum - cannot wait to eat it when I reach into the office.  I'm actually enjoying keeping house and just like both our moms - I'm making sure to clean up as soon as I make a mess - so that way it does not build up and become a huge chore, e.g. the dishes in the kitchen.

It's also great to spend more time with Arielle - and although she is still a mommy's girl - I think daddy is slowly coming (back) into her life.  The thing that amazes me is that she is so into the computer now - so whenever I'm doing work - she is one the home computer - next to me - playing games on Disney or Noggin.  What I need to do now is get some pre-K CDs so her learning can continue - but it's great to see her do her matching, colors, and learn about letters.  I'm really proud that both my kids are into computer technology so much and it's amazing at three years old that Arielle is a master at the mouse.  Jonathan is a master at the three types of mice we have - the regular mouse, the trackball and the touch sensitive pad on my laptop!

I'm actually looking forward to Arielle starting Sunday school - on the 2nd of October - and one of the prerequisites was for her to be potty trained!  I think with Arielle and I getting in a pattern / routine - it's making it easier for her and although she can pee pee in the potty very well - we still have a long way to go for her pooping.  The good thing is that the nun in charge gave us an extra month to get her potty train - so hopefully by beginning of November things would be cool.

The last couple of days have been quite interesting.  On Friday, Gabby and I had a big blow-up, as Jonathan care puts a severe strain on our relationship, but fortunately we were able to meet with our therapist on Friday afternoon so it allowed us, especially me : ) to calm down a couple of notches.  We still have a long way to go and I'm curious to see how we manage it.  I've also met with my therapist on Saturday and with my primary doctor on Monday and they both - generally - agree that I don't have to go back on my anti-depressants.  What's interesting, and something that I should have figured out, was my frustration with the resident doctors could have been dealt with differently by just suggesting or asking the residents that if they don't know about an issue, that it's okay.  I've learnt that I was expecting too much from the system and unfairly placing high demands on it, coupled with a discussion I had with an attending doctor, has brought me down a lot of notches with my anger with dealing with the medical staff.

Now, I can safely say that I would not be getting as angry as I used to, but as my primary doctor says, I should not aim at getting rid of my anger but on channeling it to utilizing it better.  I fully agrees and I know as we come closer to Jonathan's radiation therapy, I'll definitely have to do more channeling : ) because we are starting to hit some issues I don't see eye to eye with the radiation medical team!

As for Jonathan, he is still plodding along.  The new thing is that Gabby thinks Jonathan is depressed and this is concerning to me.  I've always placed Jonathan's well being and psyche more important that his physical self because if a person loses the will to fight then nothing else matters.  So this has us thinking about how to fix this issue and it's interesting how we are formulating a strategy.  I have had this issue in the past - after Jonathan's surgery was a good example - and I got his next chemotherapy cycle delayed because of it.

So, after a rough couple of days, things are looking a bit more positive and I'm hoping it stays that way.