When I rolled over to get out of bed this morning the whole world started spinning.  I have vertigo, benign paroxysmal positional vertigo, which means it comes and goes and it isn't going to kill me, unless I fall down the stairs.  Sometimes it's mild, sometimes it's stomach turning.  This morning I walked out to the kitchen like a toddler, unsure of my footing.  I sat down and my stomach started churning.  I tried the Epley Maneuver, three times and the vertigo improved only slightly.  Finally I gave up and lay down. 

The big guy went to work without me and I dreamed of a very nice doctor who came and helped me with my vertigo.  He was an older man, so kind and tender it was lovely.  I felt so safe, the kind of safe you feel when you're a kid and your mum can still give you that feeling.  I'm still a little dizzy but I can walk now without hanging onto walls which is nice. 

I went to see my doctor the other day to try and figure out why I'm so tired all the time.  We talked about life, work, stress, exercise.  She's a lovely woman who actually listens and doesn't rush you.  She suggested I figure out a way to work less and told me to relax more.  I don't relax.  I do.  I go.  I always have a list of things that that need to be done.  The big guy laughs at me because of my lists.  Maybe I need to let go of my lists. 

For so many years I took care of Katie.  Then I took care of my mum.  Now I'm taking care of my patients.  I'm not good at taking care of myself.  So today my poor body made me lie down, slowed me down.  Time to find a better balance for myself.

I'm stiff and sore today.  Yesterday there was a Code Blue in the parkade and we're the closest department to the parkade.  I ran faster than I knew I could.  The man was at the far end of the parkade and thankfully he was only dizzy and fell down, not dead.  My boss was the third person to arrive.  He asked how I got there so fast and I thought, but this is my job.  This is what I do.  I care about my patients.  They mean something to me.  I remember their names.  I remember their tattoos.  I remember their faces.  This is what I do.

Two days ago we had a woman come in by transport from a small town.  She was in horrific pain and vomiting.  We got her pain and vomiting under control and she had her MRI.  She has leptomeningeal disease;  it's a rare complication of cancer in which the cancer spreads to the meninges of the brain.  I've only seen it once before but it is memorable, the symptoms, how the patient presents.  It's also terminal.  I sat in the control room while she had her MRI, watching the O2 sat monitor.  The tech showed me the tumor in her brain, the leptomeningeal disease, the part of her skull that had been eaten through by the tumor and I wept. My poor lady is dying much more quickly than her family and friends realized.  Her husband is trying to get his crops in before the snow hits.  My lady was admitted and then came down again yesterday for an emergency central line insertion.  I stayed late to help.  It won't make a difference but both my lady and her family need some hope.  They can't let go yet.  I can understand that.  Acceptance comes at different times and in different forms for everyone.  She's four years younger than me.

The weather has cooled here.  It truly feels like fall.  Two days ago I walked in the river valley, admiring the fall colors, the yellow of the poplar leaves standing out so beautifully against the blue, blue sky.  And then last night the wind came up and the temperatures dropped and most of the tress now stand naked, ready for winter and their long sleep. 

And me?  I don't know.  I'm older and wiser, a little.  I keep my mouth closed more than I used to and listen more.  I still feel so deeply the pain of others that it wrecks me some days.  I'm still trying to understand suffering, still trying to accept suffering I guess. 

 

 

We had a lovely weekend in Jasper with my cousin and her husband.  On the drive to Jasper though I had a huge meltdown beside the Pembina river.  The big guy gave me my birthday gift early and I'll probably never use it so I asked him if he would mind if I returned it.  He got huffy and then I got mad and started crying.  It went downhill from there. 

 

I don't like receiving gifts.  I am often disappointed which sounds so awful and self centered.  I remember being a kid at Christmas time and I often felt disappointed on Christmas morning.  Except for one year.  Our dog was sick that year and needed an operation.  My parents told us that we wouldn't be getting gifts because they couldn't afford the operation and Christmas gifts.  I was ok with that.  And then on Christmas morning there was a brand new Easy Bake Oven under the tree for me.  It was the best gift ever.  Not only because it was what I wanted but because it was such a surprise.  I expected nothing. 

 

And that's where my disappointment comes in, right behind my expectations.  Except there's more and I can feel it just outside of my consciousness but can't quite grasp it.  I don't like telling people what to get me or what I want because that feels fake and uncomfortable.  And to be honest I pretty much have all that I want already.  Expectations always bite me in the ass.  The gap between how I want the world to be and how the world really is. 

 

The big guy let me have a good cry and then told me that I was a wonderful person.  I didn't feel that way.  I've pretty much always felt like the difficult, prickly, hard to get along with person.  Turns out we had a lovely weekend.  It was probably the nicest holiday I've had a long time.  I had a chance to get to know my cousin much better and really get to know her husband who happens to be a very down to earth, warm, funny, kind man. 

 

The strange thing is, I love giving gifts.  So why am I such an ungrateful gift recipient?

 

 

 

The big guy and I ordered new bedroom furniture last fall and it arrived this past week.  Mission style, hand made, beautiful.  My old set was the original set I had;  it was the one my ex-husband and I picked out just before we were married.  When I say my ex-husband and I picked it out, I mean he picked it out and I agreed.  That's how he built consensus.  Anyway, he picked it out and I had never liked it.  Now I have the bedroom suite I always wanted and I love it.

In the process of moving everything in and out of the bedroom I came across many old bits and pieces of writing and mail that I had tucked away and saved over the years.  One was a letter from my ex-husband going over our marriage.  I reread it and then tore it up and threw it away.  I'm done with him.  In his letter he told me how afraid he was of me and my anger and how he felt bullied by me.  To be fair I was often angry.  I was overwhelmed, sad, depressed and isolated with three children, one of those children with a severe disability.  It's strange because my takeaway from my marriage is that I was mentally abused by my ex.  Two sides to every story.

This past year I have gotten rid of everything that my ex-husband picked out for the house.  The dishes he picked out, the cutlery, the bedroom suite;  there is nothing of him left in my life, other than my children and that feels good. 

I can still remember the first time we visited a divorce mediator together and he spent about thirty minutes arguing about the date of our separation.  He was arguing about one day.  When that was all done he was very happy and said we had come to a consensus.  In reality, I had said, I don't care.  What difference does it make?  He beat the point to death, by himself.  At that point the lawyer turned to me and asked me if I had been abused.  She wanted to know before we continued.  Everything with my ex-husband felt like, beaten to death.  I felt beaten to death by the time I was done.  I had nothing left and he wonders why I left. 

Going over the old letters stirred up my grief again.  Grief is a funny thing.  It gets smaller but it never really goes away.  It's also easy to stir up and when it resurfaces it can feel fresh and painful all over again.  I am so thankful I had the strength to leave him.

I am also thankful that I met a lovely man ,the big guy.  He's kind and compassionate.  He's also fierce and loyal.  He calls me on my bullshit and he accepts me as I am, tears and all.  He makes me laugh and I make him laugh.  He hugs me everyday.  He knows me and I know him.  Who knew I would find such a love so late in life. 

 

 

 

Holidays.  Some of the big guys photos.

 

Blue Heron

Dog in Port Renfrew, waiting for his owner.

Waves on Ucluelet beach.

Starfish.

Me looking for shells and whatnot.

I attended a medicine conference at the University this past week.  Two days of information and learning.  I loved it.  Some of it was just interesting, transgenderism and cystic fibrosis, some of it left me in awe, liver dialysis post Tylenol overdose, and some of it was staggering, the link between oral care and hospital acquired non vented pneumonia.  The best session was all about central lines which is what we do in our department.  I feel energized with new knowledge and a desire to do better.  We even found new products to make our patients' lives better. 

The big guy and I leave for holidays next Saturday which I'm looking forward to.  Two weeks without an alarm clock.  I love my patients but need a break to recharge my batteries.  There will be mountains and ocean and waterfalls.  Spending time outside always make me feel better.  If I could I would start IVs outside in our healing garden.  Now that would be nice.

Katie turns twenty-three on Tuesday.  It's hard to believe sometimes.  She seems to be calmer on the new medication although she still gets anxious, the anxiety doesn't last as long.  Last week at Fort Edmonton she wanted to go on the train but as we were waiting, a group of woman and babies came to where we were sitting and got to close and loud for Katie.  One woman in particular was very close and loud.  I could feel the energy change and I know how Katie feels when that happens.  It was too much and she started slapping herself and crying.  We left, walking back to the main gate and she managed to calm down.  She also had different staff that day which makes it harder for her.  A very nice man but not her regular staff. 


It's a gray day here.  Supposed to rain which I hope it does.  We've had the driest spring in fifty years here and are badly in need of rain.  Time for laundry and cooking and cleaning, which strangely enough I enjoy.  Take care people.

I've felt like an outsider my whole life.  I don't fit in, not in my family, not with my peers, not anywhere it seems.  I do fit in with the big guy though.  He's an outsider too. 

When I was at Shirley's funeral on Monday I felt like an outsider again.  Listening to the eulogies I remembered the space between us that eventually became a chasm.  Shirley was Chinese;  her parents were refugees who came to Canada for a better life for their children.  They operated a dry cleaning business and the family lived in an apartment above the dry cleaning store.  Eleven people lived in that apartment.  Her parents spoke Chinese.  I remember one day telling Shirley how much my middle daughter hated me signing to Katie and how she refused to learn sign language.  Shirley was shocked.  I asked if she minded when her parents spoke Chinese to her in public when she was a kid and she said she hated it, but that it was different.  It wasn't different.  Kids don't want to be different.  They don't want to be set apart.  They want to belong.

Shirley belonged.  She was outgoing, smart and sociable.  She had a wide group of friends and was involved in everything.  She was also hard working, organized and very stubborn.  I was envious of her life.  I looked through my window at the constant stream of parents and children coming and going into her house and felt like an outsider again.  Shirley never made me feel like that, it was me.

As my marriage fell apart and my children went to hell in a hand basket, Shirley listened.   She didn't tell me what to do, she just listened. We didn't agree on child rearing but we respected each others ways. 

When we sold our house almost four years ago I kind of let go of everything, not intentionally but I did.  Maybe I didn't want the reminders.  That house was my home for twenty years, longer than I had lived anywhere else.  It's where my kids grew up.  I poured myself into that house and garden for years and then strangers bought the house and I was out.  I didn't like going back to visit neighbors because the new owners let my garden go to hell, which is no reason to not visit but it's the truth.

And then just over a year ago Shirley came back into my life again at the Cross.  She was different though.  We were more honest with each other.  I told her how envious I was of her life and she just laughed.  She was still stubborn but softer too.  She finally came up against something that was bigger and more resolute than she was.  Death was coming for her and would not take no for an answer.  Our conversations were sometimes like the old days and sometimes about life and death, always honest though.

Being at her funeral dredged up all these old feelings of being an outsider again.  I'm guessing a large portion of the world's population feels like an outsider at any given moment.  But I have only my own head to live in.  I've spent this past week thinking about my life.  I'm not very sociable and I used to blame it on my ex-husband or Katie but to be honest, I don't think I'm very sociable.  I enjoy spending time with people but only for short periods of time and then I need time alone.  At work I am very sociable as a nurse.  I love my patients and most of my co-workers and then I need to withdraw into solitude again to recharge my batteries.  But I need both.  I enjoy making others laugh and caring for my patients but I need time alone.  The big guy understands that. 

So here I am, still striving to understand and accept myself.  It is a lifelong process I'm thinking, at least for me.