I was here last weekend, Lake Louise.  Very beautiful.  What you can't see in the photo is the huge hotel behind me that overlooks the lake. 

It's been a busy week.  This morning we had a patient come down for a line and he looked like death when he arrived.  When we laid him flat he stirred and then became very anxious, hallucinating, crying, moaning.  It broke my heart.  We never did the procedure.  The tech and I decided he wouldn't be able to withstand the procedure.  But we took about an hour and a half out of his life.  Shortly after we took him back upstairs, he died.  He was two years older than me. 

Last Thursday I had a young man, only twenty-two, with metastatic cancer everywhere.  The kind of cancer old people get, not young people.  His mom talked to me, told me that she was going to make sure that whatever time he had left would be good time.  She was going to cook all his favourite meals.  He was diagnosed in December.  It broke my heart.

A favourite patient of mine, I baked him a cake last week when he came in, came in to tell me that his news was not good.  His cancer had spread to the bones in his hips, his ribs, his spine and his skull.  He cried and I hugged him.  I was honoured that he would go out of his way to come and tell me.

There's been a fair bit of this breaking of my heart this week, good things as well.  Patients I haven't seen in awhile showing up for scans, and they're not dead.

Things I'm grateful for tonight.

Bed.
The sun getting higher in the sky everyday, we drive home in daylight now.
Homemade spring rolls for supper.
Bed.
Dishwashers.
Washers and dryers.
Katie is safe and well cared for.
My son and daughter are happy, going to college and living with loving partners.
Hugs from the big guy.
Friends.  Good friends.

What are you thankful for tonight?

I went to Miss KT's yesterday morning to pick up coats that she had destroyed.  Two staff were there but not her regular staff yet.  When I walked in I could smell poop and when I asked the ladies, they said Katie was up but still in her room.

I went up to her room and said good morning.  I took her to the bathroom to clean her up;  she still likes to poop in her diaper.  As I cleaned her up, she asked for a bath.  I had time, didn't have to start work for over an hour so I ran a bath for her and gave her a bath.

I can't believe how much I enjoyed bathing my daughter.  I washed her hair, washed her body, checked to see if she was too thin or just regular thin and sang her songs.  She's not too thin, just regular thin.  Her favorite song is Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer but she also likes the Wheels on the Bus and O Canada.  I dried her off and helped her get dressed.  I remembered to give her two choices and made her choose.  She ended up with orange jeans, a turquoise t-shirt and a red sweatshirt.

We went back downstairs and I brushed her hair out and gave her morning pills to her.  Then when it was time for me to leave, I strapped her into her wheelchair, to keep the two ladies safe.  Just as I was ready to leave, her regular caregiver, Joseph, came in.

It was such a simply thing, bathing KT but I felt reconnected to her.  She hasn't lived with me in almost four years and there are things I miss.  I don't feel like her mum sometimes but rather an administrator.  She's still my baby girl, even at twenty-one.

When her and her roommate were evicted in June they ended up moving much closer to my hospital.  I see her more often now, can just pop in before or after work without having to drive across the city.  I think I'll make an effort to stop by and give her a bath when I work the late shift.  I need to touch people for them to be real to me.  I spent sixteen years bathing, dressing and feeding KT, it's part of how we connect to each other.  I want that back.

Things I'm thankful for today.

Helped out a patient yesterday, didn't make him feel stupid for doing what he did (even though it was a stupid thing to do), saved him hours in emergency at a different hospital.  He's dying, he has better things to do than ricochet between hospitals.

Tried to practice my assertiveness skills with my co-worker but was only marginally successful.  But I did try and I protected my patient which was the important part.

Spoke with another young patient, a nurse, just diagnosed with metastatic breast cancer.  We spoke about the randomness of life.  I couldn't have faced my own death with such equanimity when I was her age.

Our lovely fall weather continues to hold.  The windows are all open and I can hear a magpie talking outside.

Homemade Thai coconut curry chicken soup.  OMG!

Hugs from the big guy.

The week, a rather difficult week, is over. 

Read a wonderful book, "The Signature of All Things" by Elizabeth Gilbert.  I enjoyed it immensely.

Slept for eleven hours last night.  I do love to sleep.

Get to see Miss KT tomorrow.

What are you thankful for today?

I saw this on Denise's blog today and it made me want to weep and pray.

Pray for Peace

Pray to whomever you kneel down to:
Jesus nailed to his wooden or plastic cross,
his suffering face bent to kiss you,
Buddha still under the bo tree in scorching heat,
Adonai, Allah. Raise your arms to Mary
that she may lay her palm on our brows,
to Shekhina, Queen of Heaven and Earth,
to Inanna in her stripped descent.

Then pray to the bus driver who takes you to work.
On the bus, pray for everyone riding that bus,
for everyone riding buses all over the world.
Drop some silver and pray.

Waiting in line for the movies, for the ATM,
for your latte and croissant, offer your plea.
Make your eating and drinking a supplication.
Make your slicing of carrots a holy act,
each translucent layer of the onion, a deeper prayer.

To Hawk or Wolf, or the Great Whale, pray.
Bow down to terriers and shepherds and Siamese cats.
Fields of artichokes and elegant strawberries.

Make the brushing of your hair
a prayer, every strand its own voice,
singing in the choir on your head.
As you wash your face, the water slipping
through your fingers, a prayer: Water,
softest thing on earth, gentleness
that wears away rock.

Making love, of course, is already prayer.
Skin, and open mouths worshipping that skin,
the fragile cases we are poured into.

If you’re hungry, pray. If you’re tired.
Pray to Gandhi and Dorothy Day.
Shakespeare. Sappho. Sojourner Truth.

When you walk to your car, to the mailbox,
to the video store, let each step
be a prayer that we all keep our legs,
that we do not blow off anyone else’s legs.
Or crush their skulls.
And if you are riding on a bicycle
or a skateboard, in a wheelchair, each revolution
of the wheels a prayer as the earth revolves:
less harm, less harm, less harm.

And as you work, typing with a new manicure,
a tiny palm tree painted on one pearlescent nail
or delivering soda or drawing good blood
into rubber-capped vials, writing on a blackboard
with yellow chalk, twirling pizzas–

With each breath in, take in the faith of those
who have believed when belief seemed foolish,
who persevered. With each breath out, cherish.

Pull weeds for peace, turn over in your sleep for peace,
feed the birds, each shiny seed
that spills onto the earth, another second of peace.
Wash your dishes, call your mother, drink wine.

Shovel leaves or snow or trash from your sidewalk.
Make a path. Fold a photo of a dead child
around your VISA card. Scoop your holy water
from the gutter. Gnaw your crust.
Mumble along like a crazy person, stumbling
your prayer through the streets.

By Ellen Bass

My mother would be horrified by my previous post.  I know my mum loved me and I loved my mum.  She was deeply imperfect, as am I.  For all of the negatives, there were positives as well.  It seems I forget that so easily, part of my nature sadly, or just part of being human. 

My mother taught me to laugh and to find humor in most everything.  When she was child she was often sent out of the room for laughing.

She was the black sheep of the family, leaving England to follow a Canadian she fell in love with.  She didn't fit in anymore after she left England.  In Canada, she was English and in England, she was Canadian.   We have that in common, being the misfit in our families.

She loved animals, especially dogs and had a dog until she couldn't live in her own home anymore.

She taught me not just to garden but to love gardening.  I never did love roses the way she did though.  I think they reminded her of home in England and to me they're just thorny bushes, although I do love the smell of rugosa roses.

Mum taught me to love walking as well, probably part of being English as well.  She was a great believer in the health benefits of fresh air and walks.  She hated not being able to walk like she used to. 

Mum also taught me that family is everything, that you take care of each other.    All of mum's kids moved back home at some time in our adult lives, sometimes bringing with us children, husbands or girlfriends.  When Mum was my age she had a thirteen year old and an eleven year old at home as well as her grown daughter and her three year old grandson.  She wanted to keep her family close to her, maybe because her own family was so far away.

Mum taught me to bake, to knit, to sew and to can.  I helped her make jams, jellies, pickled beets and pickled onions.  I could never knit as well as she could.  When I was a child I thought that all women could knit like my mother but I was wrong.  She was an amazing knitter.  When she died she still had a toque on her needles that I finished up for her. 

So she gave me the good with the bad, that's how it works I guess.  It's like our own bodies.  Our cells have the ability to mutate, which is a good thing because that has allowed human beings to evolve over time.  However, the ability to mutate also means that cancer cells can form.  But we can't have it both ways, one comes with the other.  The good with bad, inseparable, human, imperfect, loving and lovable. 

I am always in awe while in the mountains.  Water falls everywhere, rushing downhill towards the sea. The very same sea that we scattered my parents ashes in only two weeks ago.  It feels like the end of a chapter in my life.  Both of my parents are now dead, my duty towards them fulfilled.  And now?

Last week I walked beside a river and thought about my life.  I am more than mid-way through it which brought to mind a book I had read, although not finished, awhile ago.  "Finding Meaning in the Second Half of Life" by James Hollis.  I picked the book up a couple of nights ago and started reading it again, determined this time to finish it.

I just read a bit about midlife crisis.

There are reasons why these disturbances frequently manifest at what we typically consider "midlife."  One has to have separated from the parents long enough to be in the world, to make choices, to see what works, what does not, and to experience the collapse, or at least erosion, of one's projections.  By this age, the ego strength necessary for self-examination may have reached a level where it can reflect upon itself, critique itself, and risk altering choices, and thereby values as well...To engage with the summons of our souls is to step into the deepest ocean, uncertain whether we will be able to swim to some new, distant shore.  And yet, until we have consented to swim beyond the familiar lights of the port left behind, we will never arrive at a newer shore.  For some the entry is gradual; others are pushed suddenly into deep waters. ( Finding Meaning in the Second Half of Life, James Hollis, Pg. 25)

I often wonder why it is that I am fifty years old and questioning everything I believe and think and do.  Why did I do the things I did?  Why did I believe what I did?  Why didn't I question things before now? 

It's time, once again, to start looking at myself.

I tried to take Katie to Fort Edmonton on Sunday because I know it closes for the season soon.  We got there at 10:30 and it was closed.  Apparently they changed the hours of operation but I didn't know until we got there.  We weren't about to hang around for an hour and a half, so I took her for a walk along the river for some fresh air.  She got to pet some friendly dogs and said hi to everyone who was running the race that was going on.  We also ran into someone who knew Katie from Little Bits Theraputic Riding.  Edmonton is a large city now and it always surprises me when we meet people who know Katie.

I had my birthday on Saturday.  I always find birthdays don't meet expectations, a lot like Christmas day.  I'm sixty-three now.  Still waiting for my wisdom:)

I went to pottery yesterday and had a lovely time.  The ladies there are wonderful, supportive, and funny.  The two new ladies are sisters which I didn't realize.  They are also funny as hell.  I managed to make a large fruit bowl.  It wasn't perfect but I stopped messing with it because the longer I mess with things, the more damage I do.  I let it go.  It's a good lesson for life and perhaps pottery should be a mandatory course in school.

The Wednesday course that Jack and I are going to too had a slide about what children want/need.

1. Love

2. Empathy

3. Connection

It made me think about my son and I realized I want to repair our relationship.  He's says he's sober, but time will tell.  I'm not about to rush into anything, but I do love him, despite everything.  I put a wall around my heart years ago when it came to dealing with him, but walls don't really protect people, they just keep us apart from others. The same with anger and grudges and resentment.  All of those keep us from letting people in.  We hold them close like they are the most precious things in our lives, when really all they do is isolate us, making it even harder for us to love, and be loved.

My dad could never let anyone close to him either and it caused so much pain and suffering in our family, for all of us, and most especially for him I think.  It's no way to live, or die.

Enough sad for now, made myself cry.

The fall equinox has come and gone.  The sun rises in the east again, briefly, before it heads further south in the sky.  It's that time of year and I love the golden light that shines into my kitchen.

And a funny.