It's cold here today and yesterday it snowed a little, just enough to wet the streets but a harbinger of things to come.  There is a snowfall warning for tomorrow which means I should get outside and poop scoop today.  Winter feels like things are closing in, more time indoors, more darkness and more illnesses.  I feel like we're all stuck in limbo, waiting with little to look forward to.  

I know I' lucky.  I have a job, a home, I can pay my bills, the big guy and I are both relatively healthy and I know that winter will end and the pandemic will eventually peter out but I still feel down.  

I'm off today so I got to sleep in which helps.  I have time to putter in the kitchen and I may start making a quilt for my grandson.

Yesterday at work I had a patient, who is an older woman, in terrible pain.  She has multiple myeloma which is a type of bone cancer.  Multiple myeloma causes lytic lesions in the bones.  This is what they look like.

As you can imagine, it's painful.  There is no cure for multiple myeloma, only treatment and that eventually fails and patients die, "The most common cause of death related to multiple myeloma is infection, with pneumonia being the most common fatal infection. Other common causes of death are bleeding (from low platelet counts), complications of bone fractures, kidney failure, and blood clots in the lungs."

This woman was in a lot of pain and I contacted her nurse practioner who asked that I send the patient to her for a medication change.  The patient wanted to know why she was in so much pain so in the middle of the waiting room I had to explain why she was in so much pain.  She asked what they could do and I explained that only the chemo can help;  I didn't say that the chemo eventually becomes ineffective.  I sent my patient off for new meds, I hope and then I thought of my girlfriend with multiple myeloma and I saw her future and it broke my heart.  

A patient that we treated years ago is back.  I don't even know what kind of cancer she has but it's back.  She's a lovely woman, smart and serious and gentle.  And she's back with us, first a CT scan, then a biopsy and then more treatment.  Fuck I hate cancer!

The dumpster fire south of the border stresses me out but we have our own dumpster fire here, it's called the UCP party and they think they can fix Alberta with deep health care cuts.  The leader is a man who never graduated from university, he dropped out, and has worked as a politican his whole life.  He's a right wing POS and it makes me feel angry and sick to my stomach.  

I have to remember what I have control over, precious little really.  This will pass.  Right?