It's snowing, again.  It snows, it melts, it snows, in a seemingly endless springtime loop.  The dogs don't mind though.

Jack came home from his mom's on Monday at suppertime.  He was horrible, yelling, hitting, anxious.  The next day, after a good night's sleep, he was back to his old self.  Makes me wonder how he is with his mom. 

I worked three days in a row, something I haven't done since December, and I was beat last night.  I barely had the energy to eat supper and then crawled into bed at 8:15pm.  Sleep was lovely and I feel like a human being again.

We had enough staff yesterday, because I switched my days off and a good thing.  We had one very non compliant lung biopsy patient who kept crawling out of bed to go for a smoke outside.  The young nurse who worked in emerg for years, said the guy looked like he was going to go into delerium tremens on us, pale, sweaty and shaky.  Fortunately for us, he left before his time was up and just walked out while nobody was looking, before he could go into withdrawal.  He even left with his IV in place.  He also had a small pneumothorax.  As the same young nurse always says, "You do you."  We're not the police.  I don't sweat it anymore, they're all adults.  The worst part of the whole thing, he was an old nurse.

Then another patient had a twelve minute long seizure in the MRI scanner.  She had a GBM, removed last October and has light triggered seizures.  To be honest, it was the worst seizure I've ever seen and it took four of us to prevent her from hurting herself. The hardest part was keeping her from banging her head and arms on the MRI bed which has some hard, plastic parts to it.  When it was over and she'd been seen by her oncologist, and rested, she left with her son.  She was fine.  She'd also crawled over the bedrails, gotten dressed and was waiting for me when I returned with a wheelchair.  She didn't need the wheelchair.  I was so thankful to see her looking so well.

We also had a retirement luncheon for the CT manager, all of this mixed in with what felt like hundreds of tough IV starts.  The woman retiring asked me to sign her canvas photos for her, which touched me.  I will miss her.  She was a lovely, calm, hard working woman and a good manager.  

That's life this week.  This weekend, the big guy and I are heading to Jasper with the dogs for one night.  Everything has been arranged with Jack's other family, fingers crossed, they follow through.  The big guy and I haven't been to the mountains by ourselves in years and I can't wait to take some photos again.  Even better, it's supposed to be 8C and sunny.  

Life is messy, so is my kitchen island.  I pretty much clean it off everyday and still things accumulate.  Right now the seed pots and grow lights will be a permanent fixture until May when I can plant things outside.

We had rain on Tuesday and I stepped out on the back deck to wipe off Charlie's muddy feet and almost landed on my ass.  I caught myself on the door and have a lovely bruise on my arm.  Then yesterday I went for a haircut and slipped on some ice under the snow.  Fortunately I didn't break anything and two lovely women helped me get up.  I don't even pretend to be young anymore and just accept help now.  My right shoulder and back are sore today.  I didn't wear my non slip boots yesterday out of vanity, serves me right.

I had the week off, time for myself.  Monday I worked because we were so short staffed.  Tuesday I cleaned but I did manage to take both dogs for a walk which was good.  Tuesday night, Jack had a high fever and vomited, so he stayed home Wednesday and I did laundry on Wednesday.  Nobody got much sleep Tuesday night, we were all bagged.  Thursday I had to take my quilt to the laundromat, it's too big to fit in my machine, and washed it.  Then the haircut and fall.  Today, more cleaning and then pick up Jack for his psychologist appointment.  My week off, not so much:)  Could be worse, I could have broken something.  My mum had osteoporosis and had a lot of broken bones.  I'm very thankful I lifted weights in my twenties and thirties.

Other than that, not much going on.  I yell at the dogs on a regular basis to get out of my fucking garden because they keep digging holes.  Not sure what that's about.  Are they bored?  Tired of winter too?  Just assholes?  All of the above:)

The CT manager is retiring in just over a month.  For her retirement gift she asked for two of my photos on canvas.  I was flattered and more than happy to share the photos.  I'm not paying for anything, just providing the photo file.  She and her husband bought an acreage for their retirement and these photos will hang in their new farmhouse.  

Tangle Creek Falls

View from the forest floor, on Vancouver Island, Roberts Memorial Provincial Park.

In the words of Porky Pig, "Th-th-that's all folks".

Two weeks ago, we lost a colleauge, Jenny, to pancreatic cancer, she was only forty-six.  She not only touched all of her patient's lives, but those of her co-workers as well.  I did not know her well, only in passing to say hi, but she visited us often in diagnostic imaging during the course of her treatment and we would talk briefly.  I also posted funnies for her on instagram because I do believe that laughter is the best medicine and she told me that she enjoyed them.

I just finished reading "Hello Beautiful" by Ann Napolitano, a book I would highly recommend.  It's beautiful and sad and hopeful.  I read this paragraph last night, near the end of the book and it made me think of Jenny.

"When an old person dies," Kent said, "even if that person is wonderful, he or she is still somewhat ready, and so are the people who loved them.  They're like old trees, whose roots have loosened in the ground.  They fall gently.  But when someone like your aunt Sylvie dies - before her time - her roots get pulled out and the ground is ripped up.  Everyone nearby is in danger of being knocked over."

Jenny's death, even though we knew it was coming, knocked us all over a little.

We had a cold snap which was unpleasant but it's warming up now.  I was early to pick up hubby yesterday, so I went for a short walk down by the river.  There were three kids there with their dad, toboganing down a small hill, having a great time.  This is a view of Groat Bridge, and the buildings on the right are part of the University of Alberta.  

It feels like I spent the week taking Katie to appointments but that's not true.  I booked her for an ECG online, the chat bot took care of it, except it booked her for an echocardiogram and not an ECG.  That was Wednesday.  My fault.  I looked online, again, and decided to take her to Tawa Centre but it said you couldn't book an appointment for an ECG,  but you could I realized this morning as we waited.  My fault.  We waited for forty mintues this morning and Katie did surprisingly well in the waiting room.  Nobody would sit near us though, like her disability is contagious, sigh.  She also did a good job of lying still for her ECG.  A lovely women, wearing a hijab, did the ECG; I know she has three kids, because Katie always asks about children.  The tech was charmed by Katie.  As I got Katie off and on the examination table, I wondered how long I'll be able to do this, physically help her.

I'm driving a different vehicle this week, a van, because our car is in for repairs.  Everything is unfamiliar in that vehicle and it doesn't have winter tires, so it was slippery driving, in unfamiliar parts of the city, with Katie trying to get my attention the whole time.  I felt quite old this week, unable to deal with booking things online and driving an unfamilair vehicle. 

I still have such a hard time reconciling my actual age with my mental age.  I look in the mirror and I look my actual age but when I work with the young nurses, I don't feel old, until they don't get my pop culture references.  When these nurses are my age, I'll probably be dead.  It's just weird.

Jack's behavior is still off, not his usual self.  Plus he's constipated, poor guy.  Last night he explained that his poop had spikey parts and it hurt his bum.  Then we talked about poop for awhile.  He seems concerned that it won't come out, I assured him that the poop will come out, eventually.  

I've made an appointment for him to go back to see the child pyschologist.  He's anxious and like everyone when they're anxious, he's not at his best.  He's gotten yelled at this week by us, which is unusual.  Gracie's mother and sister continue to lie to her, not telling Gracie when they take Jack for a night or a day, because they don't want to spend time with her.  Eventually the shit will hit the fan.

In the mean time, life goes on:)

 

As I was lying in bed this morning, listening to Jack explain to his poppa how the door had locked itself and he couldn't get out, I realized that one of my greatest luxuries is lying in bed, awake.  

I thought about yesterday and my patient with the worst case of conjunctivitis I've ever seen and how much better she felt when I cleaned it up her eyes for her.  My coworker contacted her oncologist about the patient's severe skin reaction to the immunotherapy and got her a prescription for doxycycline for the skin reaction.  We did good.

I thought about what I was going to do today, swimming lessons for Jack and an evening by ourselves.  

I thought about the summertime and the walks and hikes I can take with Jack, as well as a one night camping trip with Jack to Elk Island National Park.

I daydreamed about taking him to the mountains when he's older.

I stretched and just enjoyed lying there, lovely and warm.  

What is your greatest luxury?