Edmonton, early 1900's.

I'm feeling worn out this week.  Katie is doing fine but I feel tired.  I worry about her.  I haven't heard the results of the US yet, or what will happen next, but that's probably what's bothering me. When I woke up this morning, I remembered what I always told patients, if it was something awful, you would have had the results right away.  That helped my brain to stop catastrophizing.

One of the things I worry about is how I will be able to care for Katie as I get older, and even worse, who will go with her to appointments and to the hospital when I die.  Katie doesn't live with us but I take her to all of her appointments.  I am her voice and her advocate.  Who will speak for her when I'm gone?

The weather has warmed up and I'll be walking the dogs later today, maybe even meeting up with another pottery lady at the off leash park.  A walk in the trees will do my brain good.

While I type I can hear Jack upstairs "getting dressed", which involved jumping off the bed and talking to himself:)  Twenty minutes after he went upstairs, he's still not dressed, which is why I give him half an hour to get dressed.  Sometimes he's done in 3 minutes, sometimes he's down to the wire.

Yesterday he and I went out to wait for the bus and after ten minutes, the bus never showed up.  Our bus driver is never late.  We went back to the house and I told Jack that I would drive him to school.  When I did, there were no cars at the school and no kids waiting to go in.  We drove home and I looked at the school calendar, which I had not transferred to the new kitchen calendar.  Yesterday was a professional education day for the teachers.  Sigh.  Jack and I had a good day though.  Grocery shopping and "Bluey" with popcorn.  Then we went shopping for Pokemon cards which were nowhere to be found.  He bought a facemask instead and when we got home we had a bullet gun fight.  Nana is an excellent shot:)

I did find a little time to work with some clay.  Clay relaxes me so much.  It also irritates me.  This mug was originally going to be a coil made vase.  Clay doesn't always turn out the way you want it to, much like life.  I'm happy with the mug though.  I continue to improve with my mugs and that makes me feel good too.

 Miss Katie has had some difficulties these past two years.  Her behavior deteriorated and then improved, a couple of times.  Yesterday when I picked her up for lunch, she was agitated.  It was like she was being pushed from the inside.  We got to the mall, I ordered some subway for us and then she started crying, just sobbing.  I put our lunch in her backpack and we headed to my house.

When we got there, she seemed okay but didn't eat much.  Then she wanted to go back to her house, so I bundled her back into my car and drove her home.  When we got there, she just sat and cried again, sobbing.  Her urine smelt awful and I wondered if she had a UTI.  I went home and tried calling some pharmacies to see if they could help, nope.  One pharmacist suggested Katie should see her family doctor who not only doesn't work weekends but usually has a two week wait to see anyone.  Plus she was in pain now.

I checked Emerg wait times and decided on the Grey Nuns Hospital because it was close to her house and had a relatively short wait time, 3 hours.  Last month a man died in the same emergency room after waiting for 8 hours to be seen by a doctor and I was actually nervous about taking her there.  Katie seemed okay in the waiting room, trying to engage everyone she could see.  She had bloodwork done which caused a lot of screaming (her) and crying (both of us).  I had even thought to bring some water so I kept getting her to drink and I managed to get a urine sample for them.

The wait wasn't too bad, about 3 hours and we were taken in to see a doc.  Katie started crying when we got to the room, she was no longer distracted (which I only figured out later).  The doc checked Katie over, she cried a lot and was screaming, ordered gravol, toradol, and a CT scan.  The doc said Katie's urine sample was fine, so they were going to check her abdomen.  So the nurses started an IV, more screaming and crying, more bloodwork because one of the vials clotted.  I was surprised to see that the meds worked, Katie settled down and I felt guilty because I hadn't realized that Katie was in that much pain.  Then the nurses gave Katie some ativan for the CT scan and Katie relaxed even more.  

She had her scan, laying still for the scan, which shocked me.  The results, Katie has an ovarian cyst and I wonder if it has been bothering her for awhile which would explain the behavioral issues which come up once in awhile.  She was in pain and didn't know what was going on or how to tell us, which takes me back to all behavior is communication.  When I took her home she was like a drunk poor girl, unsteady on her feet from the ativan.  I helped get her ready for bed and left her with her caregivers.

She has an appointment for an US this week and some pain meds.  We'll see what the US shows and she may need an MRI which would require a lot more sedation.  I had an ovarian cyst in my forties that required surgery to remove, so I guess we'll see what happens.

Update.  Katie is okay and I'm taking her for her US scan this morning.  When I called her house yesterday, she was crying again.  Apparently she had been fine, telling her caregiver her story of what happened, but when a new caregiver came, Katie told the story all over again and started crying.  I feel quite bad that I didn't realize what was going on with her.  I had no way of knowing, but I still feel like I failed her somehow.

Edmonton river valley looking south.  It's cold today, really cold, and I'm grumpy.  I've always thought that January is far too long and dark.  I imagine that people have felt the same way about winter for thousands and thousands of years.  Nothing new here.  I have it pretty easy compared to the people that lived in Alberta 11,000 years ago, even 100 years ago.  I have central heating, groceries, running hot and cold water, vaccines to prevent diseases, medications, and a vehicle with heated seats, but I still hate the cold and feel stuck.  I always feel stuck in January.  

This is my back yard and the poor sun trying to drag it's ass over the horizon, half an hour after I put Jack on the bus.  Heidi is a hardy soul and can stand the cold much better than Charlie.

I'll live.  Or as mum used to always say, "Fool 'em and live."  I have no idea where she first heard that.

So today will be working on the quilt.  I'm almost done the top cover for it, then I'll choose a backing fabric for it and send it off to the quilters.  I would like to give it to my other grandson, as Jack's doesn't seem interested in it and I've not made anything for my other grandson, ever.  He'll be five this summer, Jack will be seven in April.  The interesting thing about getting older is that you can look back over such a long period of time.  You can see patterns that have formed, and you know that things always change.  Nothing is forever.

I had another x-ray done on the lump on my clavicle and it's nothing, so I'm glad about that.  I think that's been bothering me.  I worry about dying before Jack has finished growing up.  My blood pressure is up, mum had hypertension and I have it too.  The doctor sent me home with instructions to measure my blood pressure four times a day to see if it's time to put me on anti-hypertensives.  All of the anti-hypertensives have side effects which I would prefer to avoid, but a rock and a hard place.

I went to pottery yesterday and enjoyed myself as always.  I worked on a casserole dish but I'm not satisfied with it and may make another one.  I'll decide next week.  I also made a delicate little vase.  I'm not sure it'll hold up to firing and glazing.  Practice.  Practice failing.  

Jack wants to know why he has to read everyday after school and I told him because we all need to practice things if we want to get better at them.  His reading is amazing compared to where he was in September but he is still learning.  He's doing very well in math and he gets lots of opportunities to practice dealing with his anger on the bus and the on the playground.  He gives me lots of opportunities to practice with my own anger as well.  

I think I've known I have ADHD since my son was diagnosed more than thirty years ago, but I didn't realize how much ADHD had affected my own life.  I didn't understand how distracted and distractable I was, or how easily I became overwhelmed and angry, or why I couldn't stick to anything.  I felt a lot of shame.  I thought if I could just figure something out, then I would be fine.  I read a lot of self help books looking for answers, a lot.  I went to counsellors and even tried hypnosis. Nothing helped.  Medication might have helped but it was never offered and I didn't understand why it would have helped.  I wanted so badly to be a good person, a calm person, a better person.  I was ashamed of how easily I became overwhelmed and didn't even understand that I was overwhelmed.  I thought I was deficient because I couldn't do what others seemed to be able to do so easily and so much better.  I didn't understand why I was so contrary and I hated being that way, even as I continued to be like that.

There is a lot of self hate and shame that goes along with ADHD and I don't want Jack to feel like that for the rest of his life.  And even as I write this, I know how many times a day I tell him to slow down, to focus, to stop being who he is because he is so exhausting to me and once again I feel shame and a sense of failure.  Having ADHD and parenting someone with ADHD is an endless circle of anger, regret, and shame.  

The course we took in the fall helped with those feelings.  It was good to hear from other parents who felt the same way and I think I might reach out to a couple of those moms.  We all need support.

It's done!

Update.  For some reason blogger won't let me reply to comments.  Bah!

An old photo from Vancouver Island, but it makes me feel hopeful that winter will end, the snow will melt, and the trees will leaf out again.  

Sadly the news does not make me hopeful.  trump fuckery continues.  Now he wants Greenland.  He is like a greedy toddler who is never satisfied with what he has.  In Buddhist terms he is a hungry ghost, with an insatiable need for more due to his greed and attachment to life (or in my opinion, his fear of death).

I'm tense and my muscles know it.  Jack knows it too.  He is a very empathetic child, but like children often do, he attributes my tension to his actions.  It's not just him either, I do the same, and so does Katie.  I can feel the anger, the irritation, the fear in others but I usually don't know what causes it.  Sometimes it is easy to figure out, someone has cancer = fear, anger, grief, sadness.  Someone has just lost someone = fear, anger, grief, sadness.  Those are the much easier ones to understand but humans grieve so many things, loss of health, loss of independence, loss of a job, loss of our own values, loss of friendships, loss of autonomy, loss of dreams, or loss of meaningful work.  The list is endless and it's anyone's guess what is causing the anger, or the irritation, or the fear in others.  But it's there and it's palpable.  I see it in how someone moves their body, in their facial expressions, in their words, and in the tone of their voice.  I can feel it all around me right now.

I think it's the tension that's making me so tired too, again, I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one.  "Fatigue makes cowards of us all", which is what an authoritarian leader depends on.  Keep the pressure on, make life so chaotic and unpredictable that people are too tired and worn out to respond.  Grind them down for so long that people are no longer able to fight back and then do as you please.  It's not just happening in the US, it's happening in Alberta as well, and it definitely happened in Gaza.  The best way to bring a society to it's knees is to starve them.  

I guess I should be thankful that I grew up in such peaceful times, because these times right now, they're hard to deal with.  I wonder how my parents coped.  

On that bright note, here's some funnies to lighten the mood.

My life is so exciting, especially in January.  At night, I'm darning my socks while we watch tv.

The dogs don't understand why I won't take them for a walk as soon as Jack has gone to school.  The sun doesn't rise until 8:42 this morning and I came across this coyote scat the other day.  I'm not walking in the woods, in the dark, with coyotes nearby.  They don't scare me but I do respect their space.

It's been nice enough the last couple of weeks to take Jack to the dog park with me and Heidi.  It's good exercise for him and lots of fresh air.  I picked him up from school on Wednesday for early dismissal which means there is enough time and light to go for a walk.  He couldn't stay out of the snow, wasn't wearing a coat, and ended up wet and cold, (no coat because it was 13C). He had a warm bath while I made supper.  Question, are all boys drawn to deep snow?  Or is it all kids? 

  

Yesterday I had a bad day, crying, angry, and then just sad.  The world fuckery got to me all at once.  Today is good again thankfully and tomorrow the pottery ladies are coming for book club.  We read "The Spoon Stealer" by Lesley Crewe and I quite enjoyed it.  I'm so looking forward to spending the evening with them.

The weather here has been strangely warm and the snow is melting fast, turning into ice and making everything slippery as hell.  I felt better yesterday and got both dogs walked.  I no longer feel like there is a piano tied to my ass, which is nice.  My husband stayed home yesterday, still not feeling good.  He's back to work today but I imagine he will be beat by the time he gets home.  Jack has early dismissal so I'm going to pick him up and we'll take Heidi with us to the dog park.

I finally had all of the required forms signed and notarized for me to head downtown and drop everything off at the Office of Public Guardian and Trustee.  It took me longer to find a parking spot than the amount of time I is was in the office.  I'm sure we've done something wrong because government forms seem to be designed to make your question your intellect, your decision making ability, and your will to live.  Now that I think about it, my ex-husband did the same:)

I haven't been down by the Law Courts for years and things have changed.  Construction everywhere and even a whole new Royal Alberta Museum that I've never been to.  I just checked online and the museum has been open for the last eight years.  Sigh.  I don't get out much.

Yesterday I also had to do hard math, trying to figure out how much fabric I needed to finish up the quilt.  I finally got a number that seemed to work and set off into Edmonton to buy the fabric. I got half way there and realized I didn't have the fabric with me to match the colour.  Drove back home, picked up the fabric swatch and then thought I would try in Sherwood Park.  They had the fabric, in the right colour, but not four metres of it.  I went back to Edmonton.  Fabricland didn't have the right colour, so I drove to Marshall's and they had the right colour and I was able to get four metres of it.  So I'll either have too much fabric, not enough fabric, or just the right amount of fabric.  It's really anyone's guess:)

We were watching "Suits" again last night and somebody said something which seemed profound and I thought, wouldn't it be nice to have a team of writers providing you with material when you're in the middle of conflict and can't think straight. Or when you want to tell someone how you feel about them. No wonder we like entertainment, it's life 2.0.  People have the answers, the conflict is manufactured, they don't clean their homes, never pee or poop, don't get sick (usually), and don't have to decide what to make for supper every fucking night.  That's my rant for today.  

I'm happy and healthy.  The sun is shining and we're having pizza for supper tonight.  Job done.

 This seems accurate and made me laugh too.

I was supposed to be driving to Saskatoon today.  My husband and Jack are both sick and I'm not feeling all that great, so no driving today and my visit with Stubblejumpers will have to be postponed.  Jack told me on Friday that his teacher was sick last week, so not really a surprise that he's got a fever.  I'm tired and have a horrible headache so I leave you with these.

 The county plowed the streets yesterday, now we wait for the windrow removal, which will happen in time.  A very nice plow operator cleared my sidewalk as well which had ice up to three inches thick.  I was outside, chipping away at the ice and thanked him.  I don't think we give plow operators enough credit, they are highly skilled at their job.

I'm still working on a quilt and forced myself to work on it for a couple of hours this morning.  It's tedious, fussy work and I don't enjoy it, but it needs to be done.  I want it done and off to the quilters so I can enjoy my pottery course without feeling badly that the quilt pieces continue to sit on my dining room table.  I like quilting but eventually I'm tired of it.  Smaller quilts would probably be a good idea.  This particular quilt was started for Jack but he's not overly fond of the fabric, so I think I'll give it to my other grandson.

My husband and I have been watching "Suits" in the evenings after Jack goes to bed.  It's an older series, from 2011, with Meghan Markle in it.  The premise of the show is a young man, a genius with a photographic memory, is hired as a lawyer without attending law school or passing the bar.  It's entertaining and the whole show is about secrets, lies, forgiveness, and loyalty.  What amazes me how much the lawyers on the show fight, but are willing to forgive each other, and even trust again.

One of my favorite characters is Louis Litt.  Today he would be identified as neurodivergent, but not fifteen years ago.  He's a sweet asshole, if that makes any sense, and he only wants to be liked.  He has a very difficult time understanding how his actions make others feel.

As I type this I'm reminded of my dad.  I don't think my poor dad was able to see himself and his own actions very clearly.  Or maybe he did see himself clearly but just didn't know how to do things any differently.  Change is hard and requires a willingness to bare your belly and make yourself vulnerable, not things most people want to do, in my opinion.  It requires work to truly see yourself, even the unsavory bits that we would prefer not to have.  Acceptance of these parts is even harder.  The unsavory bits are like a callous, there's a reason that they're there, to protect something, so removing the callous requires work, and trust that you'll be strong enough, even when you're vulnerable and exposed.

Life is hard, but it's also beautiful at times.

We had a lot of snow last month and I just heard the snowplow go by the house.  Driving up our road has been interesting, even the heavy school buses are struggling.  The delivery drivers are especially interesting to watch as they slide around.

The weather has warmed up enough to take the dogs for walks and we are all enjoying that, Charlie maybe too much:)  Heidi and I did make it to the dog park which was heaven.

Ms. Moon wondered how we dressed for the cold and the snow, good boots, a long down coat, toque, and mitts.  If it's any colder than that amount of winter gear to keep me warm, the dogs feet get too cold anyway and we stay home.  In the winter when it's really cold, I make sure I have a toque and mittens for everyone in the car, should we get stuck on the highway or freeway.  You also get used to the cold over the course of the winter.  There's always a blanket in the back of my car as well.  When it's colder than -20C I stand at the door while the dogs are outside, to remind them to hurry up and pee or poop and get back inside, otherwise their feet get too cold.

I couldn't fall asleep last night until after midnight.  Jack was awake at 11pm, wanting a drink of milk, and then again at 2am, to go to the bathroom and he wanted to go downstairs.  No.  Then he wanted some more milk.  No.  I got a few hours of sleep but today will be an ass dragging kind of day.  I'm thankful I'm retired because I sure couldn't put in an eight hour work day today.

I'm going to Saskatoon next week for one night, to visit a friend and fellow blogger, Stubblejumper.  I've booked the hotel so now I wait for Jack to come down with the flu.  Isn't that how it goes?  My husband's aunt and uncle have been sick with the flu since Christmas Eve.  They're both diabetic.  His aunt has had a stroke and his uncle has had bowel cancer, and they didn't bother to get the flu vaccine.  Why????

I saw the news yesterday about the ICE shooting in Minneapolis.  It's unbelievable and yet here we are.  The irony is that the young woman, shot in the head by ICE, her last name was Good, which kind of says all you need to know about the trump universe.  Apparently it's also okay to just go into a foreign country, when they have what you want, kidnap their president, and just take their oil. I have no more fucks to give.  

  

We all need some sweet and funny today.

I haven't taken any photos the last couple of days so here is a small town in Newfoundland, I couldn't even tell you the name of the town but it was lovely.

Nothing much seems to change.  trump fuckery continues.  I wonder when someone will have had enough and send in their special forces and kidnap him.  I guess we live in interesting times.  My grandmother lived through two world wars and I have no desire to match that.  She also survived a divorce in the 1940's and three pregnant unmarried daughters.  I wonder which was the most distressing for her.  I'll never know.

It's cold here, still, so a day of housework and laundry, maybe some quilting, and definitely some groceries.  Jack woke up this morning eager to go to school and I am at loose ends.  

My son continues to do well, doing what he says he's going to do and showing up when he says he will show up.  I'm thankful he's sober and I'm hopeful he stays sober, for him and for his sons who need him.

Katie is back to normal.  Part of her issue has to do with her house I think.  Before Christmas workmen arrived to tear up the rugs in the house and started installing flooring.  Then they stopped over Christmas and all of her stuff was now in the living room.  After Christmas they arrived again, strange men in her house, and they continue to install the new flooring.  Katie is not a fan of different, or strangers in her house.  Who can blame her?  None of us really like disruption in our lives, but we cope.  Katie acts out.  

I'm reading "Entangled Life" by Merlin Sheldrake, a book read by Mr. Pudding after he found a copy of the book while out hiking.  The book is a fascinating read about fungi and how they interact with the world and with us.  During the writing of the book the author tried psilocybin from magic mushrooms and he writes about the experience and how it is being used to treat depression.  The following excerpt is from Wikipedia.

"Research using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) has shown that psilocybin acutely reduces activity in the DMN, temporarily disrupting its connectivity patterns. This disruption is associated with a breakdown of rigid, maladaptive patterns of thought often observed in mood disorders. Subsequent restoration of DMN connectivity has been correlated with improved clinical outcomes, suggesting a potential neural mechanism underlying the therapeutic effects of psilocybin."

I know I have patterns of thought when bad things happen, I start thinking of all of the bad things that have happened, not only in the past, but also in the present.  I round them up and surround myself with them, which does me no good, but it's what my brain does.  I know it's even worse when I'm feeling overwhelmed.  I can manage one bad thing at a time (sort of), but find it difficult to cope when I'm tired, feeling unwell, feeling isolated, or feeling like a bad person.  I wonder if psilocybin therapy would break that pattern and I wonder if I am brave enough to try something like that.  Something to ponder.

 

It's been a busy few days and I will be thankful when school restarts on Monday and life returns to normal, complete with schedules.  On Wednesday,  (New Year's Eve), Jack played soccer at Millennium place with a bunch of other kids.  On New Year's day we went bowling and I pulled a muscle in my back and my poor husband was just in pain all over.  Today we went to Clip and Climb which was lots of fun.  I did some climbing too, which I haven't done in years so I will be sore as hell tomorrow.  I'm thinking Jack will be sore too.

Things I learned this past week.  Bowling is more strenuous than you think.  I knew climbing was strenuous but the part that made my back hurt, again, was clipping and unclipping Jack's belay rope.  Mind you, I can wake up with a sore neck these days, just from how I sleep on my pillow.  Don't even get me started on how painful it is for me to try and sit down on the toilet.  Getting up is fine, but sitting down hurts.  I could go on, but I don't feel like showing off too much.  I'm getting older:)

I am hoping for far less life lessons this year.  And I don't need anymore of the what doesn't kill you, makes you stronger.  I need, we all need, more kindness this year.