Monday, August 24, 2015


I need to remember that this place exists always.  This is one of my favorite places.  Early in the morning it's quiet and a mist comes up off the lake.  Sometimes there's a loon.  It's peaceful and big and it will exist long after I have gone.  I think that's why I like it so much.  It puts me in my place.

Friday, August 21, 2015



It's been a tough week.  I'm still not feeling good.  So tired.  Some tough patients too. 

One young woman, twenty-six I think, with three small kids, the youngest two months old.  Diagnosed with gastric cancer.

An older women came to us yesterday, an inpatient, with a query bowel perforation.  It was a gastric perforation.  She was transferred to the U but died before they could operate.  Her husband was in shock.

A very young woman with lymphoma, a ten month old baby and an obvious pregnancy, denying she was pregnant.  Too much stress I'm thinking, leading directly to denial.

My very sick patient from two weeks ago died after only four days.  His wife was in shock when they left us for the U.

On the upside I have a new heckler.  When I first started working at the cancer clinic I had a patient who heckled me.  He heckled me while I started his IV and he continued from the waiting room as I started IVs for other patients.  He was my heckler for 3.5 years.  We became friends and I would make cake for him when he came in for scans.  Sadly he died in March.  But today I had a patient who heckled me in front at the reception desk.  It's was all about diarrhea, something only nurses would find funny.  She gave me a hard time and made me laugh.  I needed a patient like that today. 

It's cold outside, snow in the mountains today.  I have my jammies on and I'm going to bed early. 

Saturday, August 15, 2015

The big guy and I got back from our holidays yesterday.  We're both sick and dragging our butts around, looking woebegone. The photo is where we were last Wednesday.  We hiked to Bow Glacier Falls.  It was amazing. Beautiful and away from the world. 

I wasn't feeling great on the Thursday so we ended up driving more than walking which was okay.  It gave us a chance to talk.  We talked about relationships and what makes a relationship good. 

When I met my ex-husband I was young.  He was eight years older than me and a pilot.  I was a single mother with a three year old son.  My ex swept me off my feet.  He was good with my son and that was the most important thing to me at that time.  I looked up to him.  And then I grew up and stopped worshipping him.  I don't think he ever forgave me for that. 

I love the big guy but I don't worship him.  I have a rather accurate idea of who he is and I love him, just the way he is.  I don't want him to change.  He's stubborn and patient.  He really does look at the big picture.  He has also been badly hurt in the past and has a hard time letting others in.  He is also a tender, kind, thoughtful man who has one of the biggest hearts of anyone I've ever met. 

And he loves me as I am;  weepy, soft hearted, compassionate, stubborn, impatient me.  He doesn't want me to change, in fact he loves that I feel so deeply.  Neither one of us is perfect but we balance each other.  He gives me affection and attention and I give him tenderness and stability.  And he doesn't tie his affection and attention to sex as other men, cough (my ex husband) cough, did.  He doesn't love me because of sex and that means a lot to me, more than I realized.  It's strange the things that work themselves out of my head when I write things down.

But most of all, we respect each other.  He has gently told me when I have hurt him and I now work hard at not doing those things, although I slip up at times.  I don't want to hurt him.  And I have told him when things hurt me and he doesn't do those things anymore.  We both struggle with communication but that is a work in progress.  I hate conflict and struggle with that.  He asks me what I want and expects me to tell him what I want, not what I think he wants to hear.  I'm getting better at that, slowly. 

I trust him not to hurt me and he trusts me to do the same.  This is love. 

This is how I feel about him.

i carry your heart with me

 i carry your heart with me(i carry it in
my heart)i am never without it(anywhere
i go you go, my dear;and whatever is done
by only me is your doing,my darling)
                                                        i fear
no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want
no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)
and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows
higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

 i carry your heart with me(i carry it in my heart)

ee cummings

Friday, August 7, 2015


Things I'm thankful for today.

Flowers.
Holidays.
Mountains.
Homemade cookies.
My very sick, renal failure and liver failure, patient survived today.
Did I mention holidays?
I'm tired and ready for a rest, a change, a break, mountains and fresh air.
A new macro lens for flowers!

What are you thankful for today?

Sunday, August 2, 2015



I did an online quiz this morning, because we all know how accurate and legitimate these quizzes are.  Except this one seemed to hit the nail on the head.  It was about emotional pain. 

"By ‘Pain-Body’, Tolle means emotional pain. Apprehension, hatred, self-pity, remorse, rage, depression, envy etc. are all manifestations of the Pain-Body. All emotional pains suffered by the individual during their life, remain a part of the unconscious of the individual for the rest of their life. All negative emotions, emotional suffering that the individual refuses to face, leave a mark in their unconscious. It is particularly difficult to face with, and to treat powerful negative emotions in childhood. Such unprocessed emotional pains constitute the foundations of Pain-Body. In the collective unconscious, every individual carries their own share of collective human pain that also belongs to the Pain-Body." Frank M. Wanderer

I took the quiz and it didn't surprise me but it did make me think about my childhood.  I have a lot of fears and I am what some people call "too emotional".  Sometimes it feels like I'm just along for the ride and my emotions just drag me along behind them.  I don't want to be a cold person but I do want to be able to speak my mind and deal with conflict without my heart pounding and the pricking of tears in my eyes and nose.  Even as I write this sentence I can feel the tears forming in my eyes.  Fuck.

My childhood was not awful but it was for me.  I could always feel the tension in our house.  We all walked on eggshells, trying not to upset my father because he was often angry.  When he was angry he would yell and stomp and threaten to leave and grab his car keys and drive away in a spray of gravel as he pulled out of the driveway.  Which left my mother, my brother and me shocked and wondering what had just happened.  My mother would cry and start wringing her hands.  What will become of us?  Who will take care of us?  What if he really leaves this time?  What if he doesn't?  It was awful and this is what I remember of growing up.  I don't remember kindness from my father, although I'm sure there must have been, I'm hoping, nor do I remember having a conversation with him.  He was a tyrant, a furious, shaking tyrant.

And today when faced with anger or conflict, all of the emotions I felt as a child come flooding back and it does feel like flash flood.  I am overwhelmed and drowning in emotions of fear.  My breathing increases, my heart starts pounding and I become unable to think rationally.  I am only feeling.  I am five years old again.

I don't want to be five years old still.