Thursday, June 24, 2021




I've been busy at work and with Jack.  I took the dogs for a walk last weekend and came across this tree, standing in a small patch of grass and sunlight.

The cat has been enjoying the long days of sunshine.  She has plumped up in the last few years, like me.




I was talking to one of the oncologists yesterday at work and he said he was worried how much busier we were going to be once the pandemic is over.  Breast screening and colon screening have gone down during the pandemic so people will be further along in their disease process by the time they get to us.  I'm guessing cancer deaths will bump up for the next few years until the backlog of people have cleared the system.  

My brother is in town and I talked to him on Tuesday.  It was nice to catch up and he's coming over for a BBQ tonight with his daughter and her boyfriend.  It's been eight years.  We got older and maybe a little wiser.  I guess time will tell.

He is also visiting a childhood friend in Red Deer this weekend.  His friend has colon cancer and the doctor just told him that he only has weeks left.  I'm glad they'll get a chance to say goodbye to each other.  

I'm so tired of cancer.  I had a young woman with breast cancer the other day and we poked her seven times trying to start an IV.  She was crying and I ended up crying too.  I told another patient who has been coming to us for eight or nine years that most of the time I just try to imagine that my patients get better when I don't see them anymore, even though I know it's a lie.  He's a sweet guy.  His doctor told him he had months to live when he first saw him, so he's quite pleased to have proved the doc wrong.

It's hot here and going to get a lot hotter.  The forecast for the weekend and next week is in the 30Cs, up to 36C (96F), which is bloody hot when you don't have AC.  It will pass but it will be unpleasant too.  

Miss Katie gets her second vaccination today which means her life will get back to more normal, maybe going out and her father has said he'll come out to see her next month.  I'm waiting to see if that really happens before I tell her that.  She hasn't seen him in a year and a half and I don't want her to be disappointed.

Our lockdown is coming to an end this week which will be interesting.  No more following arrows on the aisles:)










 

4 comments:

  1. A part of me wonders if there will be a resurgence of covid in the fall, because things were pretty improved last summer as well, and we thought we might be coming out of it, only to get slammed in the fall and winter. I really hope the vaccinations will make all the difference, even with the large numbers of people refusing it, and those who dont yet have access to it. Re cancer prognoses, my mother in law was told she had months to live, and she lived another nineteen years. She had no grandchildren when she got her prognosis, and when she died she had five, all in their teens. Life does what it will. I am glad there is you.

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  2. I love Rosemarie's story about her mother in law.
    I have lost two dear friends to cancer and one to a horrible neurological disease. I remember when my friend Kathleen was diagnosed and given the news that she did not have that much time to live she said to me, "Oh Mary! I wanted to be your friend with cancer that did not die." I will never forget that. And honestly, she did outlive all the predictions. She found an amazing, young doctor who was honest and kind and funny and smarter than hell and he cared.
    I hope all goes well with your brother.

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  3. I love that picture at the end... I needed that laugh!
    I hope Katie does well getting her 2nd shot and, I hope all goes well for your brother, as well! Have a good visit with him!

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  4. Ha! We don't have directional shopping aisles here -- the store is too small. We did have restricted entry for a long time, keeping the numbers down, but I think it's pretty much back to normal now, for better or worse.

    It's scary to think about the ramifications of Covid in terms of delayed or missed opportunities to diagnose and treat other illnesses.

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