Yesterday we had a birthday party for Miss Katie.  This photo pretty much sums up her day.  She had a wonderful time.  There were two babies, she held both, a dog, potato chips, old friends and a birthday cake.  As you can see by the look on her face, she loved it.  She actually vibrates when she's excited.  The dog was pretty excited too, hopeful that some cake might fall.

This was my view yesterday morning on my walk in the river valley before work.  This morning we couldn't even see the downtown skyline because of the smoke from the forest fires raging north of us.  High Level is almost 750 km north of us and the wind has driven the smoke south.  The sun is an eerie orange color and it smells like smoke.

The trees are all blooming which is lovely.

The poor cat hasn't figured out how to open the retractable screen door, yet.  I imagine she will.  The dog has it figured out.  She just runs at if head on and it snaps back.  We have a neighbor cat that spends a lot of time outdoors; it was a barn cat when it was born.  The little girl next door loves picking him up and throwing him outside.  I like seeing cats outside, despite the coyotes and cars but our cat takes a much dimmer view of having a strange cat in her yard, eating her catnip, laying on her deck.  Bagheera now spends countless hours staring out of the window, ever vigilant.

I'm feeling much better.  I stopped the pepcid and three days later the depression has lifted, no thoughts of death.  My doctor doesn't really believe me but this is the second time that this has happened on pepcid and it happens very quickly;  I go straight to feeling suicidal which is very scary.  I can take pepcid once in awhile but if I take it daily, it's bad.

I'm going to pick up my grandson soon and we're going to the nursery to buy more plants.  The big guy has built me another planter and he requested vegetables and herbs, so we're off.

When I Am Among The Trees

by Mary Oliver

When I among the trees,

especially the willows and the honey locust,

equally the beech, the oaks and the pines,

they give off such hints of gladness.

I would almost say that they save me, and daily,

I am so distant from the hope of myself,

in which I have goodness, and discernment,

and never hurry through the world

but walk slowly, and bow often.

Around me the trees stir in their leaves

and call out,  "Stay awhile."

The light flows from their branches.

And they call again,  It's simple,"

they say,  "and you, too, have come

into the world to do this, to go easy,

to be filled with light, and to shine."

I'm a little weepy this morning, worried about a son who continues to crash against the world, unable to see a clear path ahead for himself, unable to there for his son, just as his own father was not there for him, history repeating itself.  It's early days I tell myself but still it breaks my heart again.

I was sick again this past week.  The last six weeks have conspired to make me feel like a very old woman, but I'm on the mend.  Yesterday at work a seventy-four year man assumed I was close to his age.  Ouch.  It's the almost white hair.  I hope.

My grandbaby hasn't made an appearance yet.  His mama has moved and is all settled in now and loves the house.  I took the dog for a walk last night and stopped by to visit her and see how she was doing.  She's good but big as a house poor thing.  Soon.

We had a code at work this week, a severe allergic reaction to the CT dye, something that happens but rarely are the reactions that bad.  The patient was fine in the end but scared the shit out of all of us.

One of the nurses I work with is a good friend of mine.  She has bipolar disorder and is sinking again.  She usually only last about six months at work and then ends up back in the hospital which always breaks my heart.  She's a smart, funny, kind woman who has a huge heart and right now I can see her fading.  She folds up and slowly backs away when she is suffering.  Her fur goes up and she gets prickly.  It's the disease but still I miss her when she's like this.

Same old same old.  Nothing much changes, while constantly changing.  The snow is receding in the back yard leaving behind snow mold and what appears to the stools of a hundred dogs.  I can't believe such a small dog can produce that much shit.  I suppose mine would look the same if it wasn't flushed down the toilet each day but rather spread on my lawn, waiting for spring.

My in-laws are coming for supper.  I won't hold my tongue today if my father-in-law starts talking about Muslims.  I'm done with letting him getting away with his racism because I try to respect my elders.  If he chooses to talk about racism I will respond.

Now it's time to clean.  There are muddy dog footprints on the floors which need cleaning up.  Supper to be made and a dessert.  I'll listen to the CBC while I putter around the house.  The big guy has gone into work for a few hours and I have the house to myself.

Miss Katie is doing well.  We took her out last Sunday and she wanted me to take this photo of her.  She's sees young women taking photos of themselves and each other all the time at the mall and she is a young woman, so she insisted I take a photo.  

The last year was rough on her.  Last April she had a few very bad meltdowns, one which including attacking me, another, attacking a caregiver.  I didn't know what to do so I took her to emergency.  There is not really any good psychiatric care for people with developmental disabilities.  After eight hours we finally met a wonderful psych resident who recommended valproic acid as a mood stabilizer and after eleven hours, we left emergency with a prescription for valproic acid.  

I can't say enough good things about the drug.  It has dramatically changed Katie's life.  She is no longer anxious, or rarely, and when she does become anxious, it is short lived.  Her attention span has increased greatly and she is trying to fingerspell people's names and tries numbers as well.  Because she's more relaxed and has quit attacking people, she only goes into her wheelchair when she's tired.  The cape is gone, except when she's on DATS, because of an incident that happened six years ago.  She attacked a bus driver, pulled their hair.  When we wander around the mall with her in wheelchair, legs crossed, she holds up her hand and wants to high five everyone.  She hugs freely as well.  A lot of people who work at that mall know her.

She's more like her old self again.  She's happy, smiling and enjoying life.  Her sense of humor has returned and she laughs often and hard.  She gets so excited at times that her body vibrates but she doesn't tip over into anxiety anymore, she's just excited and then it passes.  

We were at the mall on Sunday and there was an International Judo competition going on.  She's not a fan of conflict but when I explained that the contestants were "playing" she was okay with it.  She sat in her chair and watched, mezmerized.  She loves watching people.  When we had to continue on to meet the big guy for lunch, she asked if we could go back to watch the fighting.  I said later and she remembered that and held me to it.

During lunch the big guy asked if she wanted to go to the petting zoo and Miss Katie looks at me and signs fighting, later.  I started laughing because I had already forgotten about that promise but she didn't.  I kept my word and she made her choice, Judo over animals.  

On the way home in the car she asked me to ask her caregivers if she could go and watch the swimmers at the nearby pool, so I did.

She's learning and growing and it blows my mind that after years of regression that she is now blossoming.  I am thankful.

It's been so cold that I haven't been outside except to run back and forth between the car and buildings.  But that same cold has forced me to take different kinds of photos.  There is a pair of woodpeckers that live nearby and love the insect filled suet.  I love watching them.

The cedar waxwings were back yesterday, stripping the trees of their berries.  I went upstairs to the bedroom to get a better view of them and a couple of them decided to fly into the window, not sure why.  After two bird strikes, I shut the blind and left them to their business.  I don't want to find bodies on the ground.

In the fall the juvenile waxwings come back and strip fermented berries off the trees.  One day I had twenty-five drunk teenage birds hit the windows.  Apparently drinking and flying is as dangerous as drinking and driving for teens.  Two birds died but the rest survived.

I always feel restless this time of year.  I'm done with winter and want spring to come but that won't happen for awhile.  My grandson is due in seven weeks and I try not to stress about what kind of father my son will be.  I don't where he's living or what he's doing.  He is leaving Gracie alone which is good but I worry what will happen once the baby is born.

Miss Katie is doing well.  I took her for a doctor appointment last week and the receptionist had never seen Katie out of her wheelchair, didn't know Katie could walk, didn't know how tall Katie was.  We have a referral to a new psychiatrist who has training working with people with developmental disabilities which will be good.  And we also have a referral to a geneticist.  The last genetics appointment Katie had was twenty years ago and things have changed since then.  The human genome has been mapped and I would still like answers.  I understand that nothing can be fixed but I would still like to know what happened.

Last Sunday the big guy and I took Katie out for lunch at the mall.  We drove to see the horses on Fox Drive and then went to the mall.  Katie ran/walked for awhile, we had lunch and then Katie sat in her wheelchair with her legs crossed and proceeded to high five everyone we walked by.  I'm happy the valproic acid has helped with her anxiety and moods.  She's like her old self.  I enjoy spending time with my daughter again and I am so thankful.

It's cold and snowing here, a good day to stay inside and hibernate but I'm not going to do that.  Today I'm off to have lunch with my girlfriend whom I haven't seen in a few months.  The roads are covered in snow and it's fucking cold but that's never kept me home before.

My friend has multiple myeloma and had a stem cell transplant.  She is now on chemo until she dies.  What will happen eventually is the chemo will stop working and then the cancer will come back full force.  The doctor gave her 8-10 years which sounds like a long time until you start to think about it.  Only eight more harvest moons.  Eight more springs.  Eight more Christmases.

Anyway, she was very pissed off to find out that other cancer patients don't have to take chemo for the rest of their lives, so I told her that patients with neuroendocrine tumors have to have treatment for the rest of their lives as well.  She was somewhat mollified by that news.  I love this woman and we have known each other for close to thirty years.  We recently decided to adopt each other as sisters because our own sisters suck.

I made cinnamon scones to ward off the cold and I think tonight for supper I'll make tomato soup with a grilled chilled sandwich.  I don't cook for the big guy on Friday nights, it's free for all Friday and we both have whatever we feel like.  My meal is usually meatless, his is not.  He always says you don't get to be this big without eating meat.  I haven't bothered to counter his argument with facts such as cows, moose and bison are all much bigger than him and are all vegetarians.  I love him just as he is.