The Wednesday Wellness threads are meant to encourage users to ask for and provide advice and motivation to improve their lives. It isn't intended as a 'containment thread' and any content which could go here could instead be posted in its own thread. You could post:
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Requests for advice and / or encouragement. On basically any topic and for any scale of problem.
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Updates to let us know how you are doing. This provides valuable feedback on past advice / encouragement and will hopefully make people feel a little more motivated to follow through. If you want to be reminded to post your update, see the post titled 'update reminders', below.
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Advice. This can be in response to a request for advice or just something that you think could be generally useful for many people here.
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Encouragement. Probably best directed at specific users, but if you feel like just encouraging people in general I don't think anyone is going to object. I don't think I really need to say this, but just to be clear; encouragement should have a generally positive tone and not shame people (if people feel that shame might be an effective tool for motivating people, please discuss this so we can form a group consensus on how to use it rather than just trying it).
Jump in the discussion.
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Notes -
Once again, I'm sitting here with my father as he takes a nap. The chemo seems to be going reasonably well - the symptoms aren't too severe, and the pleural effusion that put him in the hospital last December hasn't recurred since he started treatment. We're all holding on to hope that that means the chemotherapy is working - that the tumor that blocked lymphatic drainage has shrunk enough to get out of the way. It's still difficult to hear as I sit here. He tries very hard to put up a facade of being hale, but it's clear when he sleeps that something is very wrong.
The chemo and the drugs are having cognitive effects. He's increasingly frustrated by this. He's always been a sharp guy throughout his life, and now he's having difficulty finishing crossword puzzles. I've taken to doing more difficult ones (NYT/WaPo) together with him when I'm down so the gap isn't as frustrating.
More than anything, I this treatment buys him the time he wants to have. My youngest brother graduates from high school in a year and a half, and he really wants to see him walk across the stage. He's a smart kid, and might end up first in his class if he keeps it up. He's been tightly compartmentalizing and I worry that he's going to go into a tailspin when the worst finally happens. I don't know what, if anything, I can do. The age gap between us is enormous, and I've been more of the "weird but cool uncle" than a brother to him for his whole life.
I don't know if I have any real point to writing this down.
But if you're reading this, spend time with your family. Let them know how you feel. If you have a rocky relationship, try to patch things up while you can. No matter what you think now, you won't realize what they mean to you until they might be gone.
Keep doing what you're doing.
I've never had to go through a drawn out situation like yours, but like any other in life I guess you can just do the best you can with what you have.
All the best.
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