Comments(1)March 29, 2008
Hair cut
In a moment of madness, I decided enough was enough with the long, heavy, un-stylable hair and after work this evening, I scampered off to the hairdresser.
I like the new sleeker, shorter version of Kelly’s hair.
April 6, 2008
The old grey cat
Many of you know the story of my first cat Mollie so I won’t bother to share it again. Six months ago Mollie died. She died as the result of a combination of things. Old age and ongoing kidney disease was most certainly the major culprit, she was 19 years old. But, in my opinion, her death was also a result of my own personal failure to, as her caregiver, take care of her at the end the way I should have.
I am no stranger to death. I’ve had multiple pets over the years and, as such, have been a part of multiple deaths. Rodents and smaller animals tend to have shorter life spans and the very first cat I ever fostered, Norman, died unexpectedly at a very young age from heart disease. In some cases I knew their death was unpreventable, that I had done everything I could for them and while those deaths were still difficult, there was some comfort in knowing that I had done what I could. Over the last couple of years I had, or at least thought I had, tried to prepare myself for Mollie’s death. She was an old cat and she was suffering from kidney disease. And, in all honesty, the first week or so after she died I thought I was doing okay. There was sadness and tears and a feeling of loss but overall I thought I was doing okay.
The dictionary describes grief as:
1) keen mental suffering or distress over affliction or loss; sharp sorrow or painful regret
2) a cause or occasion of keen distress or sorrow
This particular part, painful regret, is an apt description. The last six months of an overwhelming sense of loss and sorrow, anguish and heartache I can handle. The painful regret combined with the loss and sorrow? Makes me feel like I am slowly going mad.
I had decided that I would write a post here about exactly what happened, and how, despite friends and family’s well-meaning assurances that I was not to blame, I had a deep sense of failure and responsibility for Mollie’s death. In the past, writing has always had a cathartic effect on me and I didn’t believe it would be any different this time. I was wrong. The feelings of regret and guilt and sorrow are so strong that I haven’t the ability to even write about it. I can hardly bear to think about it; forget writing it down. Seeing it actually written down, at this point, would not be helping to remove the knife of guilt in my gut but rather more like twisting and shoving it in deeper.
The last six months have been hell, let’s just leave it at that shall we and move on?
Two weeks after Mollie died, I booked appointments for both Ben and I to have tattoo’s done at a tattoo shop in Vernon. I had done some research and found a tattoo artist online who specialized in animals. Her name is Janette and her and her husband Kevin own Genesis Designs Tattoo in Vernon. (www.genesistattoo.com) She was booked solid for six months so we patiently waited until March and five days after Mollie’s birthday we had our tattoos done. We had similar ones done with the exception that on mine I had a Haiku poem I had written about Mollie a year before her death, tattooed under her picture.
I can’t recommend Janette enough, she was warm and kind and an absolutely fantastic tattoo artist. We were both so very pleased with her work. Their shop was open and bright and very clean and we had a wonderful experience.
March 25, 2008
Just another ordinary miracle today…
Today is my birthday. I am 33 years old.
It was a good birthday. Full of:
Birthday Cards:
Birthday Presents:
Birthday coffee (thanks Nghi!):
Birthday lunch (thanks Clark!)
Birthday cake (thanks Jenny!)
Brightly painted toenails in wedge heels (not recommended to drive in):
An expired drivers license (damn the closed ICBC on Easter Monday!)
(No picture available)
An adorable husband who cleaned the kitchen and did my chores while I was at work:
Birthday smiles:
A delicious birthday dinner (thanks Ben!)
Birthday ice cream (thanks Ben!):
And Birthday Curling Viewing (um thanks Ben?)
Birthday Dancing with the Stars viewing (much better!)
Today is my birthday. I am 33 years old.
It was a good day; full of laughter and love and friends but there is also grief. Today is Mollie’s birthday too; and for the first time in 20 years I celebrate my birthday alone. It is not the same.
Happy 20th Birthday Mollie. I miss you.
March 23, 2008
Typical Saturday Morning
Me: C’mon honey, get up, we have stuff to do.
Ben: Hmm.
Me: Seriously dude, it’s late, get up.
Ben: Yup.
Me: *hollering from the bathroom* Are you up yet?
Ebony the cat: *leaps from the window*
Ben: Gah!
Me: Honey?
Me: *walking into the bedroom* Honey! Get up!
Ben: *curled into the fetal position*
Me: For the love of pete man! Get out of bed!
Ben: As soon as I recover from the herd of cats that just tap danced across my balls, I’ll get out of bed.
Ebony: Purr
Me: *laughs hysterically*
March 14, 2008
Cedric the Snake
So way back in October, Ben expressed interest in an itty bitty snake at one of our local, family-owned pet stores. I used to work part time at this pet store and so we know the owner quite well. Ben has wanted a king snake for years and years and immediately fell in love with the gray banded king snake at Pet City. He was just a little fellow, quite mellow and very beautiful. And, apparently, quite rare. He hemmed and hawwed about getting him, I kept encouraging him to go for it but in the end, his (sometimes too much) common sense and fiscal responsibility won and he didn’t buy him (despite having an extra aquarium and all the required equipment to house him in). A week later, I stopped by the pet store and secretly purchased him, with the owner agreeing to hold on to the little guy until Christmas Eve day when I would bring Ben in and show him his Xmas surprise.
The following week we went back to the store where a small, neatly-lettered sign indicated the king snake had been sold. Ben’s face dropped and later that day I had to listen to him moan and groan about how he should have bought the snake. I nodded sympathetically (oh who am I kidding - I was all over the “I told you that you should have bought him” line along with random bursts of cruel laughter) .
A day or so later the subject was dropped. (I’ll say one thing for Ben, the man is not a whiner. How on earth he ever fell for someone like me I’ll never know). But every now and then when we were at the pet store he’d take a look at that snake still curled up in his enclosure and sigh. The sold sign mocked him cruelly.
About mid November we were at the pet store, once again looking at the reptiles when Ben casually mentioned to the owner that the snake had been there a long time even though it was sold. Luckily I was standing behind him because my eyes bugged out of my head and I turned a vibrant shade of green. The owner, however, cool as a cucumber just nodded disinterestedly and then changed the subject to the new veiled chameleon he had just brought in. They began to chat about the chameleon and I gave my best “Whew, crisis averted!” look to the owner and headed to the fish room to recover.
Later that week Ben and I were in the kitchen when he said:
Ben: So, did you see that Pet City has a sale on corn snakes?
Me: I did see that.
Ben: I know how much you want a corn snake.
Me: That’s true.
Ben: It’s a really good price.
Me: *picking invisible lint off my sweater* Uh-huh
Ben: We have that extra aquarium you know, we could set that up and you could finally have your corn snake.
Me: But we were going to use that aquarium for when you got a king snake.
Ben: I’ve decided I don’t want a king snake.
Me: *outside voice* Really?
Me: *inside voice* Too fucking bad mister, you got yourself a mother-fucking king snake!
Ben: Yup. I think we should get you a corn snake.
Me: Maybe I’ve decided I don’t want a corn snake.
Ben: Yeah right. Listen, all I’m saying is it’s a really good price and it’s a nice corn snake.
Me: I’m too busy right now, I don’t have time.
Ben: Fair enough. But I really think you should think about this.
Me: *outside voice* Will do honey.
Me: *inside voice* Will do Jackass!
On Christmas Eve morning dad, Ben and I went to the airport and picked up the mumsi entity. On the way back into town I mentioned that I needed to stop at the pet store and pick up some pet supplies, Ben nodded agreeably and after a quick bite to eat we all filed into the store. I nodded and winked at the owner and made my way to the back of the store where the reptile enclosures were. I called Ben over and taking his hand, pointed to the sold sign and said “Merry Christmas Honey.” He gave me a blank look and I again pointed at the sign and repeated my Merry Christmas. At that point, he finally got it (he’s a smart one!) and the look of surprise and shock on his face was well worth the two months of trying to keep the secret. My lovely, sweet Ben was completely and utterly surprised by his Christmas present.
We took Cedric home that day and got him set up in his new enclosure. He’s a really great little snake, very mellow and easy to catch. He’s just a baby right now but eventually he’ll grow to be between 4 to 6 feet in length.
March 13, 2008
Hello Darkness my old friend
Last Friday morning I woke up with one hell of a back ache. Not an unusual occurence, I often wake up with back pain. But that morning? It was not just painful, it was ferociously painful. I hobbled my way to the bathroom, took a prescription painkiller described by my doctor for just such incidents as this one, and hobbled back to bed. After about 20 minutes, the drugs kicked in and I eased my way into the shower and got ready for work.
Thirty or so minutes later Ben and I were driving to work and I was just thinking about how odd it was that my stomach was hurting so badly when my collarbone started to ache. For those of you who are new to the blog, in November of 2006 I had my gallbladder removed. I had lost nearly 90 lbs by that point and my gallbladder decided to exact it’s revenge by turning on me. It staged a full blown mutiny for months and, in fact, had almost convinced my damn pancreas to turn on me as well, before a surgeon finally went in with a scope, cut the organ free from it’s bile duct attachment thingy, scrambled it up like a bunch of egg whites and sucked it from my body.
Since that point, life has been grand. I may have mentioned this before but gallbladder pain? Is the worse fucking pain of your life. My mom would probably dispute this, seeing as I was a rather whiny kid, but I have a high tolerance for pain (the whininess as a kid was mostly to try and get away with not going to school). For the roughly six months I suffered from gallbladder pain I was able to walk off maybe two attacks thus avoiding a trip to the emergency room, the rest of them rose up and smote me with the wrath of an angry god. Near the end, right before the surgery, my stomach hurt constantly. The stomach pain I could deal with (see: high tolerance to pain), I was grumpy but I dealt. But it didn’t take me long to discover a pattern. The only true way I had of knowing if I was about to have an actual attack was if my collarbone started to ache. And I’m not ashamed to admit that near the end, the moment my collarbone started aching, I started to cry. I knew what was coming you see. And what was about to happen was not exactly rainbows and puppies.
The only good thing about having gallbladder attacks is that since then, I’ve compared every pain to gallbladder pain. Nearly sliced my thumb off with a paring knife? Eh, not as bad as a gallbladder attack, slap a bandaid on it and I’ll be fine. Fell down and slammed my knee into concrete? Whatever, I’ll walk it off. Debilitating back pain? Oh well, at least it’s not my gallbladder. You get the picture.
So, Friday morning there I am, sitting in the passenger seat of the car with a bad stomach ache and my collarbone starts to ache. I hold off on the crying because I know it can’t possibly be a gallbladder attack. I might not be the brightest bulb in the pantry but even I know that one cannot have a gallbladder attack if one does not have a gallbladder.
But as we pull up in front of my office and the stomach pain increases and the collarbone aching continues I do mention to Ben that it feels like I’m having a gallbladder attack. If I had been really smart I would have had him drive me to the hospital right then but I think we’ve already established my level of intelligence. Instead I went to work, taking shallow breaths, muttering under my breath and continuing on in my little bubble of denial.
Twenty minutes later I popped the denial bubble and sobbing like a little girl, asked a co-worker to drive me to the hospital. I phoned Ben and told him what I was doing and we drove the 5 minutes to the hospital, me crying and cursing the entire way there. There was no denying it any longer, I was having a full blown gallbladder attack. Without a gallbladder.
As it often did, the attack stopped while I was still in the waiting room but I stayed, patiently waiting as they did a cardiogram and took blood. I mentioned the pain relief medication I had took and they led me into a room in the emergency room. A very friendly nurse took all my information and then mentioned that perhaps it was the pain relief that was causing the pain. Having done the exact same thing I did this morning dozens of times over the last year and a half, I just gave a little smile and a shrug.
Ben, bless him, found someone to cover his first class and arrived at the hospital, allowing my very over-worked but much loved coworker to get back to her job. After only a 20 minute wait we met with a doctor who explained very patiently the theory that some medical professionals had.
Basically, in some women (and only women) the little piece of duct that’s left over after the gallbladder removal can be irritated by narcotics, which then mimics a gallbladder attack. It doesn’t always happen but can and does happen. It may never happen again, I may get another attack the minute I take another narcotic, they don’t really know.
Armed with this knowledge, I went back to work and spent the next 45 minutes explaining in intricate detail the habits of the inner workings of my body to my interested coworkers. I prepared myself fully to never again take any sort of narcotic, afterall, I’ve had gallbladder attacks, I can handle any pain after that.
Yeah, unfortunately, this “theory” is not believed by all medical professions. In fact, a surgeon that my mumsi works with told her in no uncertain terms that this theory was utter bullshit (my words not his) and that in reality, what can sometimes happen is that some people who have had their gallbladders out will get random phantom gallbladder attacks. They don’t know why, they can’t explain it, it just sometimes happens.
Awesome.
In short, I am left with two theories and still no clear idea on why I had a gallbladder attack on that dark Friday morning. For now, until I see my family doctor and get yet another opinion on why it might happen, I am avoiding all narcotics with the dedication of a Navy SEAL defending his country, and living in fear that at any moment I may have another phantom gallbladder attack.
Good times people. Good times.
February 28, 2008
Milk…it doesn’t do a body good.
I just found this article on line and had to post it here. I’m neither “anti-milk” or “pro-homeopathic” but I really appreciated this article. Although I occasionally drink milk from time to time (mostly whenever Ben makes french toast) I usually go months without drinking any. I don’t particularly like the taste of milk and I’ve never understood why people think it’s so good for you. Did you know that humans are the only mammals that continue to drink milk after they’ve been weaned? And it’s not even human milk, it’s cow milk! Other than taste, which I guess some obviously deranged people like, (Hi George!) what do we drink it for? Calcium? Take a vitamin.
I just don’t get it. But I could never adequately explain why I felt the push to drink milk on a consistent basis was stupid and pointless or why people have been fooled for so long into thinking it’s good for you. I consider my occasional glasses of milk to be on the same level as my occasional glasses of Coca-cola. Not all that good for you but sometimes, ya just gotta have some. This article helps explain my feelings on it:
We hear it every day, drink your milk, and make sure you have two glasses per day and so on. We are not as dumb as we look, are we? Do we really believe that this stuff is good for us? Think about it, we are taking milk from another species and drinking it. What do you think it would look like if cows drank human’s milk and dogs drank raccoons’ milk or goats drank cats’ milk? I think it would look bizarre to say the least.I want to shed some light on this subject. Among children the problems that are generally associated with milk consumption are allergies, ear and tonsil infections, bedwetting, asthma, intestinal bleeding, and colic and childhood diabetes. In adults, the problems are centered more around heart disease, arthritis, allergies, sinusitis, and the more serious questions of leukemia, lymphoma and cancer.
The harmful components of cow’s milk include all the major parts of it, as well as some minor elements. Lactose is a sugar meant for babies, but it is generally harmful to adults. The proteins in cow’s milk are different from human milk proteins and cause problems of digestion, intolerance, impaired absorption of other nutrients, and autoimmune reactions. Few of the proteins meant for baby cows are found naturally in human mother’s milk, and none is found in any natural adult human food. Even the high protein content in cow’s milk creates problems. Human babies need the saturated fats and cholesterol in mother’s milk. Bovine milk fat is not appropriately composed for human babies and is only deleterious to the health of children and adults.
Many nutrition experts such as Harvard’s Dr. Walter Willett, suggest dairy products should not even be a featured on the food group pyramid at all. We hear it every day, we need to drink milk so we will have strong bones. It is true that it may be better to drink than the most consumed cola drink on the market but not by much. In the end, milk can actually start deteriorating your bones and cause the very same osteoporosis the experts were telling you for years it was going to prevent.
Dr. T. Colin Campbell, PhD, a prestigious nutritional biochemist at Cornell University, with some of his research has concluded that cow’s milk may not even do what it is supposed to do best - build strong bones, since recent studies suggest that humans may need less calcium for strong bones than was once believed. Additionally, other foods, including various vegetables and legumes, may be a better source than cow’s milk. If you think about it, adult cows do not drink milk and they have strong bones.
Doctor Campbell also found links to liver cancer in persons getting more than 10% of their daily protein from milk protein. This alone should get you to pour what you have left sitting in your refrigerator, down the sink.
Let us face it, if something has been marketed as being a good thing to the point where there is hundreds of millions in advertising dollars put into the marketing campaigns, that should tell you right there that there is something amiss. I have never seen or heard an advertisement for bean sprouts or lima beans.
I am constantly being asked what will my children drink if I do not give them milk. To this, I answer, water, not distilled or reverse osmosis water but good spring water with the minerals still intact. I will tell you that is all they require everything else is just for taste.
I have witnessed repeatedly how well children can overcome certain diagnosed “diseases” to the point of it almost being miraculous just by discontinuing drinking milk. What I am discussing here is the actual drinking of milk, eating cheese, yogurt, or ice cream occasionally does not have the same effects unless you are allergic to it.
http://www.castanet.net/edition/news-story-37556-920-.htm#37556
An offer he had to refuse
I’ve probably mentioned this before but I work in a bad neighbourhood. We have a lot of homeless people, drug dealers, crack addicts and *ahem* ladies of the evening hanging around our office building. I can’t tell you just how much fun it is to leave your office at 6pm and have to step over the two people crouched down and blocking the front door of your building as they shoot up.
The other night Ben and Cassie picked me up from work. I sat down in the front seat, buckled up and said:
Me: Hi honey.
Ben: Hello.
Me: How was your day?
Ben: Pretty good, and yours?
Me: Good thanks.
Ben: I just got propositioned.
Me: Wha?
Ben: A young lady just propositioned me in the parking lot.
Me: giggles madly
Ben: I think it might have been my fault though.
Me: Really?
Ben: Yup. I stopped at the stop sign and looked down the street, there was a woman standing on the corner and I made eye contact with her. Then I crossed the street and pulled into the parking lot.
Me: Baby, making eye contact was your first mistake.
Ben: Then I told Cassie we were waiting for the girl (when talking to the dogs, Ben refers to me as “the girl”. I don’t really know why.) and I think she read my lips. The next thing I know she’s crossed the parking lot and opened the passenger door.
Me: She opened the door?!?
Ben: Yup.
Me: What happened then.
Ben: I looked at her and she said:
Lady of the evening: Hi sweetheart, are you waiting for me?
Ben: Um, no… I’m sorry I’m not.
Lady of the Evening: Okay, have a good night.
Ben: Uh, you too.
Me: laughs hysterically
Ben: Then she just walked away.
Me: Cassie, is this really what happened?
Cassie: *fart*
Ben: Cassie! Bad dog!
Me: Roll down the window, for the love of all that is holy and pure! Roll down the damn windows!
Ben: Yikes, that was a bad one.
Me: What did the dog do when she opened the door?
Ben: Nothing really. She was staring at your building door waiting for you to come out and when the woman opened the door she just peered at her, saw it wasn’t you and continued her front door vigilance.
Me: Was she cute?
Ben: Uh? I guess.
Me: I can’t wait to blog about this.
Ben: I know.