I was here last weekend, Lake Louise.  Very beautiful.  What you can't see in the photo is the huge hotel behind me that overlooks the lake. 

It's been a busy week.  This morning we had a patient come down for a line and he looked like death when he arrived.  When we laid him flat he stirred and then became very anxious, hallucinating, crying, moaning.  It broke my heart.  We never did the procedure.  The tech and I decided he wouldn't be able to withstand the procedure.  But we took about an hour and a half out of his life.  Shortly after we took him back upstairs, he died.  He was two years older than me. 

Last Thursday I had a young man, only twenty-two, with metastatic cancer everywhere.  The kind of cancer old people get, not young people.  His mom talked to me, told me that she was going to make sure that whatever time he had left would be good time.  She was going to cook all his favourite meals.  He was diagnosed in December.  It broke my heart.

A favourite patient of mine, I baked him a cake last week when he came in, came in to tell me that his news was not good.  His cancer had spread to the bones in his hips, his ribs, his spine and his skull.  He cried and I hugged him.  I was honoured that he would go out of his way to come and tell me.

There's been a fair bit of this breaking of my heart this week, good things as well.  Patients I haven't seen in awhile showing up for scans, and they're not dead.

Things I'm grateful for tonight.

Bed.
The sun getting higher in the sky everyday, we drive home in daylight now.
Homemade spring rolls for supper.
Bed.
Dishwashers.
Washers and dryers.
Katie is safe and well cared for.
My son and daughter are happy, going to college and living with loving partners.
Hugs from the big guy.
Friends.  Good friends.

What are you thankful for tonight?