Fiona's Other Blog

#whyareyoufollowingme?

2012-01-16T13:30:00.000-08:00

My husband will tell you that I have an unhealthy obsession, which, I suppose, is a bit redundant given the innate nature of obsession but still, this is what he believes.

(aside: do you ever feel that you are the only person on the planet who spots the obvious logic of a situation and yet cannot persuade others to see it your way?)

I call it a pet peeve, not an obsession - I have broached the subject less than 6 times, so it hardly qualifies but I won't quibble (again). It's Twitter.

I love Twitter. I tweet often. I re-tweet. I mention. I follow. I follow back. My pet peeve, and I'm only slightly embarrassed to announce this publicly, is when other tweeps unfollow me. I just don't understand and frankly, you unfollowers, my feelings are a bit hurt.

People use Twitter for a myriad of reasons but for me, Twitter is primarily a professional platform. I am building my "personal learning network" - a.k.a. #PLN - and connecting and sharing with like-minded educators around the world. It's fantastic. I'm not trying to sell tea cosies or porn or get a kajillion followers. I am methodically and conscientiously building my network.

Following someone new on Twitter can be a bit like a blind date, except that you have ALL THEIR PREVIOUS TWEETS TO READ and kind of assess a) what kind of person they are b) what they are interested in and, obviously, c) what they tweet about. If the abc's don't gel with what you're up to on Twitter, don't follow them. It only takes a few minutes to see if you're a match or not. Seems simple to me.

My twitter heart is on my sleeve. So, why, for the love of Pete, do people start following me and then quite unceremoniously unfollow me a few days later?

My photo is front and center. My profile is there for you to read. I have over 2000 tweets you can scan to see what I'm up to. Is the "what you see is what you get" just a little too obvious for you? Did I not surprise you enough? Did you think I would follow you back even though your entire Twitter feed is in Japanese or worse, incredibly boring and irrelevant?

I feel like you're driving me home because I didn't make out with you in the back of the car even though you knew I had a boyfriend. You just wanted another notch in your Twitter belt.

Honestly, I think you're kind of sluttish and well, I have my pride. Go tweet with @suzy745 and think before you follow. I did.

Oh, Luke Skywalker, where have you been?!

2012-01-08T23:01:00.000-08:00

Christmas at the Bramble house brings a brooding cloud of parent shame that is on par with the should-be shame of toddlers-and-tiaras-special-juice parent pushers. There exists in our humble home enough lego to build a second summer home in the Hamptons or, at least, Lake Cowichan - enough for a wrap-around deck and extendo-dock. The collection hit the ground running with #1 and then over the last decade and with child #2 gathered enough momentum to be the natural disaster plot in a Will Smith doomsday flick.

So, it was with some happiness coupled with deep embarrassment that I announce two new babies in the Bramble-lego-brick household: the adorable "Alien Conquest" and its collectible twin "Indiana Jones". Merry Christmas 2011.

And so begins the great clean-up of 2012, for, in order to make room for these enormous new sets, one must reorganize and as I like to say - redistribute (to the neighbours, to charity, to the recycle bin). This past Saturday, as I shuffled and lugged and carted, I rediscovered the joy of rediscovering.

Every baby and child-rearing book touts the power and simplicity of the "put away for a rainy day" toy strategy. But not having read such books since, well, I was pregnant, I guess it had slipped my mind.

You see, my children are spoiled rotten. Like budding hoarders, they are mostly unaware of all the cool stuff they already have. But with a little bait-and-switch, suddenly they are looking at Luke Skywalker as if they had never held his little plastic body in their sweaty, greasy hands or as if they had never snapped his blond hair off and replaced it with Harry Potter's...or Hermione's. They'll be mesmerized anew. For at least 20 minutes.

So, my fellow long-suffering-long-guilty parents, I recommend doing the ol' switcheroo every few months - shuffle a few books, move the playmobil upstairs, and bring the puzzles out of the closet. It'll be like Christmas without well, the Christmas.

p.s. My 16-year old is going to kill me for lumping him in with his little brother but replace "Luke" with "Winston" and it's all the same.

What to Wear: The Poppy ( Red is the New Black)

2011-11-09T11:29:00.000-08:00

I've been hard pressed to find a bare jacket collar this week. Not only am I seeing pinless scores of them littering the ground but I am dazzled by bright red poppies adorning virtually every lapel, sweater, even backpack I see on our city's streets.

Is the Poppy's ubiquity something new or is my noticing it simply something new to me? Official "poppy policy" sees our civil servants and broadcasters don the poppy two weeks prior to Remembrance Day, November 11th. In late October, our young cadets and Legion members swamp grocery and liquor stores trading poppies for donations. From what I have seen, business is brisk.

Perhaps it is my own predilection for the poppy that has me interpreting my world through red-coloured glasses, but I can't help sense that Canadians are establishing a new patriotism, a patriotism that naturally extends to our appreciation for our active military personnel but also to those who helped establish Canada as a nation. This pride in our country, in ourselves, may stem from the new-found respect afforded us as a global leader side-stepping a crumbling world economy or it may simply be that we are growing up.

As I move into what my son refers to as a "certain age", I am finding myself more sentimental, even nostalgic but I am also more grateful. And perhaps that is all it is, those of us in developed nations are finally feeling grateful for what we do have.

In the news today, Prince William "demands Fifa U-turn on poppy ban", a long-standing policy that match
shirts should not carry political, religious or commercial messages. The Duke of Cambridge insists that poppies do not represent political, religious or commercial messages. I don't know quite what to say to that except that perhaps they don't, but they so also obviously do. What the poppy represents may now become the stuff of future debate. For me, it is a show of gratitude and quiet commemoration.

As Rick Mercer says: remember to remember. I'm looking forward to seeing you and your poppy until 11:11 a.m. on November 11th and then we will do what our military personnel, their families, and our veterans do every year, move past the remembering and back into the doing.

And just to prove I am a sentimental old fool, here is Terry Kelly's "A Pittance of Time"

Prince Justin: Heir to Canada

2011-05-03T10:21:00.000-07:00

Dear Monsieur Trudeau,

First, a hearty congratulations on your successful bid for Papineau. They are lucky to have you. You are a hard-working and dedicated MP. Your supporters behind you in the television frame on May 2nd looked as jubilant as you did serious. I can only assume you were feeling both relieved to be re-elected and heartbroken that your beloved Canada had sent your Party to the um...comment dit-on "doghouse" en français? Je suis désolé.

Of course you were terribly busy in the month of April, I realize, but did you catch the Royal Wedding by chance? I understand that anything related to the English monarchy might offend your French sensibilities, again, forgive me, but it was quite le spectacle!

Not garish at all, however, really just a quiet family wedding on a grand scale with some beautiful, dignified, and somber touches. Oh, and a hot maid of honour. All in all, a very appropriate event that also signaled the beginning of a new era and the gradual ascent of Prince William to the throne.

Now I know with some certainty that you will loathe what I write next, but, well, can you see any parallels with your position and Wills'? Any teeny, tiny similarities at all? Like, for example, a young man born of a mythical past in lockstep with an inevitable destiny? If that seems a bit much, how about: a hard-working, charismatic heir who represents a new generation?

You see, mon ami, as you tossed your dark curls in annoyance when, on election night, you were asked if perhaps the time had come for you to seek the leadership of the Liberal party - almost every liberal/Liberal Canadian was holding his or her breath. On the eve of the greatest defeat the Liberal Party of Canada has ever suffered, there was a collective pause, albeit brief, before you replied: non.

Much has been said regarding the failure and future of the Liberal Party since the fateful election that is but 7 days into history. Most of it doesn't matter one fig. Not une figue. Yet there is one fact that is not only obvious to all but necessary: the Liberal Party needs a new leader.

Not a leader who is arrogant or acts with the sense of entitlement that many say was the downfall of the Party, but one who has proven leadership, hard work, and dedication. This new leader also conjurs the single thing that is a political alchemist's gold: inspiration. You, mon ami, by virtue of birth or chance or determination, have this, this je ne sais quoi, that will inspire a new generation of Canadians.

Monsieur, you are no Prince Harry. You have chosen a path that is your destiny. You have quietly, diligently earned your place in the political court of Canada and now it is time to do what our dear Rex Murphy boldly and rightly referred to as your duty.

The men and women in your campaign office showed more than a little hope in their eyes as they held their breath that night and hoped what would come from your lips would be a resounding: OUI!

Let the inspiration begin. Vive la révolution!

Très sincèrement votre ,
Canada

p.s. please pardon my French

	Muse - Uprising .mp3

	Found at bee mp3 search engine

It's election time - do you know where your children are?

2011-04-12T19:17:00.000-07:00

Rock the vote, man, Yeah, like rock it totally. Come on you young uns - get out and VOTE! Tweet your vote, facebook your vote, shoot, facepaint your vote. Just VOTE already.

We oldies are sure keen to get our youth democratically motivated. And we should be; it ain't no democracy without every last eligible voter voting.

( Are you sure all your boys are doing their best? Are they ALL making noise? Are you sure every Who down in Who-ville is working? Quick! Look through your town! Is there anyone shirking?)

The funny thing I've noticed lately, though, is that only parties of a certain colour seem hyper-engaged in rockin' the youth vote. By colour, I mean the red, green, and orange variety. The blues, well, they are noticeably absent on this particular mandate.

This is good, right? I mean, getting those 18+ "kids" out to vote can only be something fantastically great and democratic, regardless of who lights the fire under their derrières. Right?

Cue ominous music and whisper: be careful what you wish for....

Ponder this: there is the remote possibility, dear parents and assorted oldies, that, even though you may be waving a red, green, or orange flag, the brilliant son or college-aged niece that you've been pushing aggressively to the ballot box may actually be A CONSERVATIVE. Still want them to vote? Huh?

I can almost hear the deafening silence that would transpire should those 2.6 million young voters show up on May 2 and vote in a Conservative majority.What if Jo-jo is no shirker but simply a quiet Conservative?

Now don't panic. Just because our first born put campaign signs in his bedroom window when we denied him the front yard and embarrasses us in public with his bold blue pin. And just because he's been reduced to saying "the Party" in mixed company. And just because he may blast his political beliefs all over public radio sometime this afternoon - don't panic. Or toilet-paper our house, please.

All of that and none of that necessarily means we should be careful what we wish for. I'm just saying, democracy can sometimes be a bit of a surprise.

Now get out and VOTE. Election. May 2nd, 2011. Coming to a school gym near you.

	Talking Heads - Burning Down The House .mp3

	Found at bee mp3 search engine

YOPP!

I gave to #japan and all I got was this stupid t-shirt

2011-04-10T19:03:00.001-07:00

It usually comes in plain white, with short square sleeves, and a banded snug neckline. It is also usually printed with a bold logo stretched across its front in some horrible primary colour, or worse, a pastel.

It is the Charity T-shirt - perfunctory, ubiquitous and quite possibly the ugliest and most unflattering item in my wardrobe, (except for those beige, flared cords - shut up, Judy)

Not suprisingly, the Charity T-shirt happens to also be the least worn item in my wardrobe and somehow, regardless of its many sizes, it still manages to fit me only slightly better than a paper bag. The crazy thing? My Charity T-shirt is not alone - oh no - I have at least TEN CHARITY T-SHIRTS, each as equally ugly and unworn as the next.

The origins of my collection could quite possibly be traced to a crazed night at the Vagina Monologues when I got carried away and insisted my newly-purchased "I heart Vagina" t-shirt would be my favorite protest shirt when disillusioned with my three boys at home. My teenager was predictably disgusted but even I couldn't bring myself to wear it in the end. Not even to bed. Bed, by the way, being the place where all my Charity T-shirts go to die.

I realize that my I-heart-vagina shirt does not strictly qualify as a Charity T-shirt, but something slipped that night, some small sliver of sense. Soon I had drawers stuffed with Cancer, MS, and Chicken Pox T-shirts.

Do not get me wrong - I LOVE CHARITABLE ORGANIZATIONS (except of course when you call mid-lasagna-bite). Some of my friends even belong to charitable organizations. But, please, for the love of Japan, can we lay the Charity T-shirt to rest?

There have been some decent alternative efforts out there. Thanks, Lance - the bands worked for awhile, until the kids got bored and their parents started making them wash their band-infested and increasingly sweaty lower arms. Stickers and pins, bless them, are hanging in there. But do charities truly need to spend money and to manufacture junk to thank people for donating?

Of course I understand that such items also have a promotional component, as well as sending a strong social message. Perhaps it is simply the style of the shirt that has run its course. By that I mean, the cheap style. The style that is literally a T and of no fashion use to anyone.

Japan, I am more than happy to raise and donate money for disaster relief, but I will be satisfied with a mere thank you when you get around to it. Keep the shirt.

	Right Said Fred - Right Said Fred - I m Too Sexy .mp3

	Found at bee mp3 search engine

Dear God: please don't let it snow on a Sunday

2011-02-24T18:11:00.001-08:00

Living in the the "green" belt of BC, snow comes perhaps twice a year and usually, a light dusting at worst. Here today. Gone tomorrow.

That said, we have been blasted by Mother Nature a few times in the past decade and have been completely paralyzed - our ineptitude and anguish drowned out by the loud snickers and snorts of Canadians elsewhere. Our comeuppance usually arrives in the form of a high flower count in late-February.

Our fair city is adapting to climate change, however, and so, when the latest wintry blast blew somewhat unexpectedly in the early hours of morning yesterday, Victorians were basically back on their feet by this morning.

Well, let's say some Victorians were back on their feet. Those with wheels on their strollers or wheelchairs or those with casts, canes, crutches, unsteady feet, high heels or just plain common sense took one look at the minefields the sidewalks in their neighbourhoods had become and beat a hasty retreat back inside.

My youngest and I crunched and tiptoed and slid to school this morning, along the ice-pocked sidewalks of our urban-residential neighbourhood. He, brashly pushing forth like any five-year old with some pluck, sturdy boots, and a close proximity to the ground should. Me, less so -older, wiser, fragile bones reluctant.

Yesterday was smooth sailing by today's comparison. Soft, wet snow. The smush and crunch of boots. If not driving or cycling, your chances of calamity were slim. Of course, for those who have any sense whatsoever know, if you didn't shovel and clear your sidewalk yesterday, with an overnight forecast of more snow and -7 degrees, those same pathways would be deadly today. Not clearing your sidewalk is basically telling your neighbours to f*ck off and break a leg.

I think it goes without saying that we do not expect people who are incapable or unable of clearing their sidewalks to do so. Being a lazy a*s does not qualify as a good excuse. Nor does being a renter. Nor does worshipping God. The single worst perpetrators of sidewalk sabotage by apathy in my neighbourhood? Houses of the holy.

Um, are you there, God? It's me, Fiona. Nope, don't have my period. No, not worried about kissing Sam in 4th grade. Um, please don't send me to Hell just for this but, um, your peeps are not doing their civic duty and I'm pissed.

The bricks and mortar that occasionally house your faithful sit on larger, longish corner lots. With two longish sidewalk sides. On snowy, inclement weather days, these lengths of sidewalk lie embarrassingly and treacherously unshovelled. Uncleared. Ice-pocked. Hazardous. Pray tell why they are not cleared? Are you in our hearts always, but in church only on Sundays? I know someone was there, I saw footprints in the snow exiting from the side door. Do your worshippers only kneel, not scoop or sweep? Do they pretend not to see their church as they walk their kids to school? Cough and look the other way?

Listen, I'm not trying to judge you or anything but I'm not fast or strong enough to catch every able and un-able being that is trying to pick his or her way across the icy path that is your threshold.

I know, I know - it's a weekday. I feel your pain. Faith these days seems to be practiced only on Christmas Eve and Sundays.

Dear God: I pray it snows this Sunday, so everyone can walk home without falling on their arses.

Love the Chilis:

	Red Hot Chili Peppers - Snow .mp3

	Found at bee mp3 search engine

Say It Like You Mean It Dammit

2011-02-04T09:03:00.000-08:00

In a recent Globe and Mail piece, Ian Brown wrote about public speaking and political rhetoric and reflects, mainly, that well, the speech-making of our modern-day leaders sucks. Brown quotes one of Winston Churchill's powerful rallying cries:

"You ask, 'What is our policy?' I will say: it is to wage war, by sea, land, and air, with all our might and with all the strength that god can give us; to wage war against a monstrous tyranny never surpassed in the dark and lamentable catalogue of human crime. That is our policy. You ask, 'What is our aim?' I can answer in one word: victory; victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror, victory, however long and hard the road may be; for without victory, there is no survival. "

I imagine Brown quoted this in its entirety for the same reason I have. Churchill's words are unequivocal. They are bare. They are terrifying. They are truthful. They don't give one fig what spin the newspaper might put on them.

Brown, as my husband did over coffee this morning, conceded that Churchill had a war as a dramatic, galvanizing backdrop. Brown and my husband also suggested that we don't trust our leaders anymore, so instead of being galvanized into action by their words, we roll our eyes and say, whatever.

Blame Wikileaks; blame the media. Hell, blame the economy, the schools, the parents, the weather - whatever floats your boat. Brown writes that President Obama is one of the better speakers on Earth - but we are not receptive to [his rhetoric]. I disagree. A great speaker creates a receptive audience. Our leaders and speakers today make tepid calls to action, if at all. In trying to predict what the spinners might spin, all content is stripped of substance.

There doesn't have to be a war going on to be passionate about something, to be brutally truthful about something, to inspire your people into action. As it happens, there are many current, ongoing conflicts around the world that fall under the banner of "monstrous tyranny". As it happens, there is no shortage of difficult issues or problems that are not scattered in a minefield of political correctness.

Leaders, shout clean and clear your policies on human kindness, on work ethic, on common human values and concerns.

Imagine bellowing:

"You ask, 'What is our policy?' I will say: it is to wage war on child poverty with all our might and with all the strength that our faith can give us; to wage war against a monstrous tyranny never surpassed in the dark and lamentable catalogue of human crime. That is our policy. " You ask, 'What is our aim?' I can answer in one word: victory; victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror, victory, however long and hard the road may be; for without victory, there is no survival. "

You are not just our governors, you are our leaders - inspire us. Scare us a little. Galvanize us.

Let the media muddy the waters if they wish but it's your job to say it like it is and say it like you mean it. Do your job, dammit.

	Muse - Uprising .mp3

	Found at bee mp3 search engine

Hi Pammy! And Other Truncation Horror Stories

2011-01-21T19:30:00.000-08:00

Don't EVER call me *Liz*, she spat.

I choked a little.

It was my second week on the job and I was loving it. My new colleagues were smart, fun, and funny. I couldn't believe my luck. When "Thanks, Liz" left my lips one afternoon and entered our immediate sound space, I had no idea I had committed a punishable offence.

This witty, stunning Elizabeth had transformed into a spittle-spraying dragon lady. I backed up a few inches, looked down at my shoes and promised never to do it again. I felt 12. Unbeknownst to me, Elizabeth detested being called Liz, perhaps for many reasons, but none more paramount than the fact that her husband's ex-girlfriend, also an Elizabeth, was called "Liz".

Later in life I will meet another Elizabeth who refers to her husband's ex as "Elizabeth I", or sometimes just "crazy Elizabeth" while my friend is, naturally, the current reigning monarch, Elizabeth II. But I digress.

You see, I am one of those people, those friendly folks that shorten other people's names. All the time. Just call me the Truncator. In linguistic terms, I am often guilty of what is known as "apocopation", a shortening of the sort that retains only the beginning of a word, also known as "back-clipping" (thanks Wikipedia). Now before you go and wag your finger at me, I think it goes without saying that the newest, youngest generation are back-clipper, truncators extraordinaire, what with texting and tweeting and well, talking and everything.

And really, it is just people's first names that are victims of my clip. Unfortunately, this little habit of mine ticks some people off to the mammoth degree. Who knew?

I was having a wee chat with a good friend or two, let's call them Krissy and Pammy (not to their faces of course), when the conversation steered towards what one prefers to be called, is called, and any discrepancies there within. Turns out, Pamela gets right steamed when someone calls her Pam. Just who do they think they are, she says. My new best friend? I HATE being called Pam! By the time Kristina has expressed her feelings about being called Kris, Krissy, or, egad, Kristy, I am looking intently at my shoes and feeling my ears turn bright red.

P and K are not only frustrated by such presumption, they are insulted. The nerve of these people. P and K are certain that some sort of sycophantic, ingratiating plot is at work. By some small miracle, neither of these ladies is aware that I am one of these people. And as my backbone would have it, I am far too chicken to confess my sins, so instead I attempt to come to the defense of my fellow clippers.

Perhaps he feels comfortable with you. Maybe her pet rabbit is named Pam. Could be that she just really likes you alot.

Truth is, I don't know why I do it. There are certainly people to and with whom I will never do it. Especially Pamela. A list of some of my oldest and newest friends might look and sound like this: Col, Marn, Steph, Lis, Uni, Kat, Seoni, Sheel, Dee, Jude, Nik, Lor, Em...

Ladies, please forgive me.

Future friends: I promise that if I clip you, I'm not being sycophantic, I simply feel comfortable with you and maybe even like you alot. I also promise I won't clip you if you already have a single syllable name. And I promise I won't name a pet rabbit after you.

I can't promise, however, that I won't touch your arm when we're talking. It's just the way I am. Oh, and please call me Fi.

Download this mp3 from Beemp3.com

KD & Me: personal story * travel guide & playlist

2011-01-06T13:58:00.000-08:00

press play & read4
(double-click first track if necessary - the rest will play!)

(click on thumbnail below and use controls to enlarge text, download, print, or just read)

In the End: It Just Is

2010-12-27T19:25:00.000-08:00

Pain
I know little about the physiology of pain - the neural pathways, the synapses, the receivers and transmitters of pain signals - some sense, some medical mumbo-jumbo. I understand a little more about the psychology of pain, acute and chronic, which both aids and hinders us humans along the path of illness and hopefully, wellness.

It's possible we humans do not possess identical pain processing plants. It's certain that we humans perceive, and therefore, feel pain on radically different scales of agony. That we perceive pain differently is widely accepted. Why we perceive pain differently is universally questioned.

And so we are left with this: pain is relative. There can be no hierarchy of pain because there is no constant template from which to establish a frame or point of reference.

The pain you perceive to feel is as real as and as *painful* as you believe it to be. You are your brain and your body. You cannot escape this simple fact. You cannot compare yourself to another or your affliction to another's. You are not stronger or weaker or braver or more cowardly than other sufferers. You just are. Your pain just is. Or isn't.

Medical practitioners and caregivers know this - they are willing to treat and mitigate your pain without judgment. Enlist them when you need to and discharge then when you don't.

As I've written: In the end, it is only you. You, and what you can bear.

Illness
"There is a psychology to any illness, whether you have chicken pox or a broken leg. There is a particular psychology to a progressive illness or disease, one in which the pain, loss of mobility, and exhaustion are all framed in a race against the clock. The matter of you walking or not, or living or not, is a matter of time and timely treatment and, occasionally, of timely miracles." So I once wrote.

I don't profess to know much about illness on the whole but even in my short journey, I fell victim to the sudden sense of isolation that envelops one when sick or injured. We've all had a bad cold and spent a sick day or two in bed with tissues and a book. Remember the feeling you had when you eventually showered and dressed and went back to work and life. It seemed like you had been away for ages. It may have only taken a few minutes or perhaps an entire morning before you slid back into your routine, but for a short time, you felt the tiny stab of knowledge that the world marched along without you. Unaware and unconcerned.

For those with lengthy or terminal illnesses or injuries, you begin to feel like a ghost in the outside world, neither fully present, nor completely absent.

The reasons for your phantom existence are multi-fold but mainly it is because you feel terrible and unable. Participating in regular life might highlight or antagonize your disability. Worse, you might utter a complaint or an audible moan of pain. You want neither to be a martyr nor be viewed as one.

You sometimes believe and behave as if it is easier to stay home, to be alone, to not have to ask, explain, or negotiate what should be simple things, like small talk in the grocery store or ladies' baking night. Of course, this is what life is - but it suddenly seems so daunting, and tiring.

Illness is a state of mind and body.

Support
Everyone has a support network. They may or may not be individuals or organizations that you automatically identify as such. It may be your spouse but it could also be your aerobics class or your dog.

Even your standard definition of support may be unrecognizable. It might be in the form of drug therapy, aromatherapy, or laugh therapy. It might be more concrete, like a buying an automatic can opener when the task finally becomes insurmountable.

You may desperately seek out support, reject it outright, grudgingly accept it, or fall into it, as I did.

My wise advice: When any such supportive form begins to make itself recognizable to you, embrace it and surround yourself with it. Don't abuse it but don't feel guilty about drawing strength and assistance from it either, whenever necessary.

Me
There's no great epiphany here. I haven't seen the end of the world. I've just explored more terrain and foreign topography.

Some clichés: I am learning how to be grateful, more patient, less judgmental, more helpful, lighter, freer.

I am learning that cold, damp winters will be hard. I am a 40-year old with the hands of an arthritic octogenarian.

I am learning that I can bear more than I realize but not as much as I thought.

I am learning that there are many causes and reasons for a person's appearance and behaviour.

I am learning that everyone bears some pain in some form.

I am learning that good and bad can come at anytime in equal or unequal measure and that *fair* is a myth.

I am learning how to age.

I am learning how to accept.

I am learning It Just Is:
(Summertime in England - Van Morrison. I know Van doesn't approve of this whole file-sharing thing, so I hope he'll forgive me this one time. Long before KD, this was one of my favorite-all-time-celebrate-life-with-wisdom songs. Wise man, Van. It's 15 minutes long - close your eyes and just be.)

In the End: This Much is True (for me)

2010-12-23T18:09:00.000-08:00

Some people have referred to my KD story as a journey. I suppose it was. And is. It is one journey woven through our daily travels and travails. My KD is running alongside all the other challenges and joys of life and in doing so, has imparted wee nuggets of knowledge. I consider them gifts and, although some of these may be specific to my experience, I feel there is a general thread of truth and common experience worthy of sharing. This is what is true for me when it comes to:

Kienbock's Disease It sucks. It sucks the joy from your life. It is a progressive and potentially debilitating disease. It's the end of the word and it's not the end of the world. It is not as rare as it appears and yet rare enough to make finding treatment tricky. No one, not even surgeons, knows why we get KD for sure. No one, not even surgeons, knows with certainty how KD will progress in each patient. No one, not even surgeons, knows with certainty what the best treatment is for each patient. No one, not even surgeons or KD sufferers, knows with certainty when and what surgery will be the most successful or if another surgery will be required down the line. It is these uncertainties coupled with the loss of the use of one's hand(s) that create fear and anxiety in KD sufferers.

KD is not a vascular disorder. Three months of acupuncture and four months of casting did not and will not trigger the blood supply to the lunate. In the months I believed a cure for KD was simply a case of restoring blood flow to the lunate, I wasted precious energy and time on the wrong solutions. The only way to restore blood flow to the lunate is surgically, through a revascularization procedure. In my amateur opinion, if casting *cures* your KD, you did not have KD.

Canada's Medical System There exist many myths about Canadian health care and Canada's Medical Services Plan, mostly perpetuated by Michael Moore and my grandmother. Oh, and Kiefer Sutherland. Don't get me wrong, Tommy Douglas was a great man with astounding vision, but no system is perfect, and ours certainly has its flaws. It is incredible that ANYONE, rich or poor has access to medical treatment for every category of illness, disease, or injury. No one in Canada will or can go bankrupt due to the need for medical care. Paying for the prescription drugs one might need is another story, of course.

Medical care in Canada is not free. Yes, those living desperately at or below the poverty line do not pay for medical services, but that line is pathetically low. Middle- and high-income families or individuals pay around $1500 a year. Our personal tax contributions to the system amount to much more, though don't ask me how much (that's what Google is for).

But Canada is a vast country with a relatively small population, a large number of which resides in rural communities. The number of medical care facilities and practitioners is not infinite. Making do is the motto of the northern community, the non-urban hub.

In our courts of justice, it stands that if one is not granted timely access to trial, then justice is not being served. Many of us seeking medical care in Canada are receiving too little, too late, sometimes with tragic consequences.

The small matter of life or death aside, I fail to understand the economics of a young workforce crippled by a lack of medical treatment. The cost of sick days and disability and unemployment payments alone must be staggering. What is the social and economic cost of a young man or woman waiting a year for a surgery that will allow him or her to return to work within weeks?

Surgeons Chances are, if and when you need a surgeon, he will most likely be male, aged 35 -60. As I've written before, he will be a type-A personality with a very black-and-white approach to your surgical needs. He will be confident and, in most cases, absolute. He will not be impressed by your Google-degree in medicine.
It is important that you like and trust your surgeon. He does not care if he likes or trusts you. If you do indeed feel comfortable with your surgeon, you must accept that the surgical procedure he performs on you will only be one he is both willing and able to do, regardless if there is a multitude of theoretical surgical possibilities, as in the case of KD. Despite the unprofessional and, in my view, unethical behaviour of my Dr. D, I now realize that he had only the capacity for those two things. Being willing. And being able.
If you don't like nor trust your surgeon and have the option of a second or third opinion, seek one without delay. If your surgery is inevitable, commit to it as soon as possible and get on with healing and life.
Most surgeons see their jobs as starting and finishing in the OR. Your outcomes are moderately important to them and best read about in a journal of medicine. A good surgeon is a surgeon who is good at performing surgery. A rare surgeon is one who is a good surgeon, a problem-solver, and a compassionate human being. I wish everyone a rare surgeon.

This much is True:

	Spandau Ballet - True .mp3

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In Recovery: Here Comes the Sun

2010-12-22T19:53:00.000-08:00

It's as if it has been winter for a year. As if I've been in hibernation for 4 seasons - a grumpy, hairy bear forgetting to emerge from my den. As my therapy continues and the pain slips away, my body has become my own again. As I move back into myself, there is a re-acquaintance, an awakening. It is glorious.

And it just so happens to be spring.

I don't have much function - I never will have full function - but I can sit on my front porch and plan what I'll plant next season. More tulips and shrubs and vines and geez, I'll prune that tree and fix that fence and stain that deck and move that...there is no end to my plans and hopes. I am not yet able to squeeze my secateurs but I am able to dream and recognize that it is just enough to sit in the spring sunshine and not hurt or fear or worry. One day soon, I'll dream to plan to write again. Teach again. Cook again. Fully live again.

My hand therapy is going well - the hand *hot tub*, massaging, gripping, stretching - stretching the tendons, the skin, all to remind my hand regularly to heal and accept its new self, to not curl into itself as is its inclination. We've gone from twice a week to once every two and soon Nicole will tell me there is nothing else she can do. The remainder of my progress is up to me. In a few months time, Dr.G will not be impressed with my solitary efforts, however, and I'll feel like a child being reprimanded.

When my wrappings first come off, I am pretty horrified by my Frankenstein-esque wrist. It takes awhile before I perversely delight in flashing my severed hand at unsuspecting friends, guests, and strangers. It wasn't truly severed, of course, but the back of my hand has a straight, thin scar running the length of my wrist. If one doesn't see the other side, it is easily imagined that my hand was lopped off and sewn back on. Plus my left hand is now shorter than my right. I am three bones short a full hand. I love that it freaks people out. I don't love that they get too mushy and sympathetic and murmur total lies like, oh, it's not so bad or I didn't even notice. Their first reactions have already given them away. I don't care how it looks at all - I am well past vanity.

So this is my new hand, my new life. I'm not so naive that I don't know this surgery, as many KD treatments have, could fail down the line, but it could be 3 or 10 years. It could be never. I know my right wrist could start to deteriorate. Could be tomorrow or 20 years from now. It's been almost four years now since my initial symptoms starting making themselves known - like a hungry, cranky toddler. Gradually more impossible to ignore.

These thoughts, these worries are pushed far back into my mind - they are only possible futures. My now is a new lease on life. A chiefly pain-free life with hope and plans for progress. It seems like years since it's been here but...

Here Comes the Sun:

	Beatles - Here Comes The Sun .mp3

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In Emergency - Part 2

2010-12-19T21:51:00.000-08:00

I've already forgotten the name of my angel. Of all the things I can recall of these days, her name eludes me. Her essence does not. She swept aside my torturers with a quick word and a firm hand - her needle at the ready. She is gently brushing the hair from my forehead as the morphine seeps into my bloodstream. She calls me dear. And sweetie.

I do not know how I arrived here in the hallway, on the gurney. My angel is telling me they are trying to find a doctor for me. It's just crazy here tonight. Tonight. Where did day go, I wonder. I am able to wonder. The morphine has both anchored me and allowed me to be free again. I am also aware. My gurney is opposite the doorway of a room. I can hear and see the elderly wife of an elderly man berate him. She hits him with something. Her purse I think. The morphine does not let me feel shock but I feel Eric behind me shift uncomfortably. Security is called and the wife screams obscenities as she is pulled from the room. This is more than I can fathom at this moment.

My angel is telling me that the orthopaedic surgeon on duty is in the clinic. My gurney starts moving in that direction. I know this hallway well - the "clinic" is where I have had my arm casted no less than 5 times in the last 12 months. The clinic is almost like a second home. And who should be there but John, my left- and right-hand man.

Beside John is Michael. I think. I'm pretty sure it's Michael. I'm certain he is an orthopaedic surgeon. I'm doubly certain he has just returned from Afghanistan. The pieces of his life trickle through the morphine. But who is reporting them? And why?

Michael looks so tired, already. He is reading my file. John is filling in the bits he knows. Michael leans close to me and asks me: what happened? I talk about the coming of the pain. I talk about the onslaught of the pain. He asks me what I feel now. I say numbness. He looks confused. But you can feel this, right? Yes, but it is numb. He stares at me. If it's numb then you can't feel it. I feel anger build in me. How can this be happening? It is like I am arguing with my 4-year old instead of talking to a doctor. The veil of morphine is lifting. Numb does not mean without feeling, I want to shout. Anyway, I feel fine now. I refuse to look at him.

Michael shifts some paperwork, talks into his computer mike, and instructs John to cast me again. The danger has passed. I seem ok.

John is so gentle with the gauze - my eyes thank him. Michael is talking to Eric as John lays the first strip of hot plaster on my arm. My angel has left me. There is only ice-blue and blood-red and black. The whimper comes before the scream. The scream comes from someone outside my body - I am suspended - begging Eric to help me, to make it stop. I am begging and screaming at John, at Michael, at Eric. I lose feeling in my left arm. Then my right arm, then my right leg. I can't feel either of my feet. I am going into shock. I don't comprehend this logical chain of events. I am beyond logic.

Michael calls emerg across the hall - but we discharged her from emerg to orthopaedics. Shit, I hear him say. I can't have morphine unless I've been admitted or am in Emergency. John is pushing my gurney to emerg, fast. Michael is dialing St. Paul's hospital as we cross the hallway. Incredibly, I hear him laughing. He and Dr. G are sharing some joke. Michael has just come back from Afghanistan - my little drama must pale in significance.

I catch sight of Eric's face - there is a surprising degree of control there. I am another plane now, moaning low and deeply. When my angel reappears and rushes me back into emerg, I know relief is close. I just need to be inside the emerg doors and she can give me morphine. She stops in the nearest hallway and injects me quickly. It takes no more than 30 seconds to

flood my body. I breathe.

Michael is suddenly back and, beside him, Dr. D. Dr. D speaks in the softest of voices, Hi, Fiona. how are you feeling now? My tongue is thick and slow. Tired, I reply. Dr. D is holding my arm and chatting with Eric as he gently wraps it in gauze and padding and a soft sling. This can happen sometimes, Dr. D is telling Eric. There is some talk of opening my hand up for what sounds like bloodletting, to relieve the pressure. She doesn't need a plaster cast - we'll leave it like this. Dr. D has been summoned from dinner. He is not on call.

Something is happening in this moment between me and Dr. D and Eric. It has been almost exactly a year since he refused to treat me. There is a strange reparation taking place. There is more than morphine spreading peace and light through me. Perhaps.

We arrive home some time after dinner. The house is dark. An entire day has passed. Only a single day has passed. Eric walks me to bed and the boys quietly watch me ascend the stairs. I am fine, completely and totally fine, and will only continue to get better. My pain is manageable and within a day or two requires no management at all. My cast had simply been too tight. My skin and flesh squeezed to bursting - my nerve endings raw from surgery and my pain receptors on super-charge. Small things.

	Rare Earth - I just want to Celebrate .mp3

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In Emergency - Part 1

2010-12-19T14:42:00.000-08:00

The room is dark and quiet. The boys are at school. I remember Eric leading me in here last night after the trip home, into our eldest son's bedroom, where I can sleep uninterrupted. No 4-year old climbing into bed in the early hours. No jumping on the bed, no jarring my arm.

Eric was here beside me - was it an hour ago? - bringing my pain meds and the Celebrex. He set the alarm through the night. Every four hours. He wants me to stay ahead of the pain, as we've been instructed. I'm still so groggy. My arm is elevated on several pillows next to me, tightly casted. It's been almost 20 hours since my surgery but I feel like I'm on another planet. The pain meds are just scratching the surface. The slightest movement of the blanket or my body brings a stifled cry to my lips. It is 9 a.m.

By noon, I know something is terribly wrong. I doubled my meds at 1o. I can barely breathe through the pain. When I call Eric, I suddenly begin sobbing. The most he can get from me is a gasped yes when he asks if I need to go to the hospital. It's a 7-minute drive from our home to his office. He's by my side in 5. In 6, he is helping me descend the stairs. In 10, the thought of footwear finally abandoned, I am in the passenger seat of the car.

As he backs out of the driveway, the tiniest edge of curb dips the tires and I scream. My arm is on fire. I whimper, alternately audibly and soundlessly, during the short drive to the hospital.

I know this emergency room well. I have 2 sons. Many a Saturday afternoon with bumped heads and twisted ankles, many a Sunday night with high fevers and unexplained spots have been idled away here. The last time I was here, my youngest had tripped and cracked his head open on a concrete pad at the park. His head spewed blood like a furious fountain. In the two hours we spent waiting to have his head crazy-glued, he had peed all over my lap and read every book in emerg. I was able to dry my skirt in the late-summer sun before the doctor could see us.

Somehow I know they are not going to make me wait this afternoon.

Our admission begins in the usual way. Eric is talking because all I can do is moan or gasp. The triage nurse asks the standard questions but, at some point, it becomes obvious that I need care. Now. Perhaps it's the mention of post-op. Perhaps it's because I'm about to pass out. Either way, I am rushed through an astoundingly packed "inner" waiting room and directly into an examination cubicle.

Please don't ask me how I remember this or why, but 3 interns, young men straight out of prime-time hospital drama and better-looking than necessary, are instantly in my cubicle. If it is odd that they seem to come from nowhere and seem to know not a fig what they are doing doesn't dawn on me until much, much later. Where they eventually disappear to is also a mystery. Unfortunately, while they are very much in my cubicle and in my space, one of them begins to remove my cast.

I'm not quite sure where my screaming ends and my sobbing begins. This sobbing is as deep as the Earth's core. My curtain is open, so I can see all patients in the inner waiting room. I am screaming and looking at them. I am screaming at the intern to not EVER touch me again. I am pleading with Eric to help me. I can see my hand now too - it has been unwrapped and revealed - and it is massive and throbbing and purple and red. This thing is attached to my arm. I want them to cut it off.

	Kanye West - Stronger .mp3

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In Surgery - Part 2: What a Wonderful World

2010-12-19T14:38:00.000-08:00

It's been 3 months since my arthroscopy. I can't get my surgeon's MOA on the phone. She doesn't reply to my emails. I have realized that a surgeon is only as good as his hands and only as available as his MOA. I've now passed the one year anniversary of my diagnosis and my every waking thought is about having my surgery and getting on with my life. This holding pattern is purgatory.

I have learned this past year that protocol is a bit of a sham. I have no intention of waiting in some imaginary queue. When I do get Ms. P on the phone, I lie: Dr. G was clear that I was to have my surgery 1 month after my arthroscopy. Ms. P taps on her keyboard and replies that she doesn't see any notes to that effect but if he told you that, then...oh, I have an opening for February 17th. It is that easy. After all the fighting and waiting and suffering, it comes down to a single, well-timed phone call. The lie was more of a partial truth anyway. What Dr. G actually said was that I needed to wait at least a month before my next surgery. I feel like I have reached the summit of a mountain. February 17th is 3 weeks away. I am almost giddy.

Dr. G meets me in the nurse's office, where she and I are completing my pre-op paperwork. He smiles and says: so you're ready to do this, are you? It's as if he doesn't know I have late-stage KD. It's as if he's forgotten that we last talked about this surgery 8 months ago. I am struck again by the irony of a surgeon not comprehending the loss of the use of one's hands. I just smile.

Dr. G brandishes a menacing-looking red marker and starts mapping my arm. Some circles here, a line or two there, a definitive "L" on the back of my hand. God forbid they get the wrong arm. I am not comforted by this extra security measure. See you in there, he says over his shoulder as he goes to prep.

I am a little disappointed that Brian is not my anaesthetist. We had talked about round 2 back in October and he'd said he'd be around. I actually don't have just one anaesthetist, I have a team - a team-in-training, it turns out. I tell them about my last nerve block wearing off after 3 hours. They exchange glances with each other and say they'll top it up.

I am decidedly wasted when they wheel my bed into the OR. This will be a longer surgery than before. And noisier. Electric saws, pliers, and chisels. Ok, the chisel could be my imagination - but I'll never forget the crunching sound of the pliers or the whirr of the saw blade cutting through bone. Or the bits of bone and flesh that spit out of the wound. I don't get the tv screen for this one. I am grateful.

My surgery is called a PRC and involves the removal of the proximal row of three bones, one of which is the lunate - the source of all my trouble. The surgery allows for the distal row to slide down into the vacated space, in turn helping convert the existing joint to something more akin to a hinge. Like a door.

There is a point where I can feel incredible pressure and my OR anaesthetist slides a syringe into my IV. The pressure fades away.

In recovery, I am quite helpless. I think my gown is twisted. One of my breasts is hanging out. I don't really notice or care. A nurse discreetly shifts and tucks my gown until I am covered. In an hour or so, this same nurse will try to help me put on my underwear and bra. I am too stoned to stand and my right arm is like jelly. She has to remind me to hold it up because otherwise I don't remember it is there and it thuds to the side of the bed. Getting dressed seems to take forever and makes me giggle like a little girl. God bless nurses.

Incredibly, I've been discharged. This time, I have the pain killer prescription filled. This time, when we get to the already-full ferry, my husband declares us a medical emergency and a vacant spot magically appears. We learn that this spot is always left free for any emergency. I store that little nugget away in my cloudy mind.

I am three bones lighter, high as a kite, and on my way home to rest and recovery. Hallelujah.

What a Wonderful World:

	Louis Armstrong - What A Wonderful World .mp3

	Found at bee mp3 search engine

In Surgery - Part 1: Going the Distance

2010-12-18T10:24:00.000-08:00

Brian, the anaesthetist, is looking at my chart and calling me orthopaedically challenged. We both chuckle a little. I'm laughing mainly because I'm a little bit stoned and freaked out lying there in the operating room while everyone goes through their paces - crossing off their checklists and arranging equipment.

I like Brian - he has a sense of humour and a bit of devil-may-care about him. I've met a couple of anaesthetists in my time and they're all a bit quirky, in a good way, I think. And hope. The better part of their days involve whacking people out -that takes a certain character. I'll be awake for this procedure, so Brian must strike that delicate balance of pain relief, distraction, and alertness. Perhaps his little joke is a test to see how well his cocktail is working.

I have a nerve block for my arm and something for my head to relax me a little. I feel fine. Dr.G is all business but takes the time to make sure I can see the scalpel action on the tv screen above me and says he'll keep me posted throughout. I'm having a *minor* surgery, an arthroscopy, just to check the state of my lunate and sort anything that might need sorting. It's the first step towards real treatment for my Kienbock's and I am relieved.

The OR crew are relaxed and seem to know each other well. They share some jabs and jokes. I can see my opened wrist on the screen above but there's nothing too impressive there, certainly not the blood and guts-fest I had anticipated. Just the whitest bones you can imagine. The only significant thing I remember is Dr. G saying your lunate is in great shape. Why, thank you, I think to myself.

The entire event lasts no more than a hour and while I'm waiting in recovery, I watch Dr.G visit all his post-ops. I see more evidence of him being a good doctor, of him being a good man. Dr.G spends many minutes with an older man who is not sure what he needs to do next and many more minutes with an older woman who just wants to talk. When he gets to me, he is happy that there is no visible sign of damage to my lunate and hopes that this KD will stay in its infancy. He did clean up some fragments while he was in there. Fragments of what I will always wonder. It occurs to me that I may never have known I had KD in my right hand had I not lost the use of my left.

This is all good news. After a month or so, after my right hand heals and regains some strength, I'll be ready for the surgery I really need. I am thrilled. The nurse finally gives my husband and me the thumbs up for discharge, a prescription for painkillers, and 2 Tylenol 3's . The nerve block will wear off in about 12 hours she says, get ahead of the pain. I have no idea what she means. Yet.

My husband races with me to the ferry and we arrive just in time to see the Spirit of British Columbia pull from the dock. I'm groggy and tired and not too bothered by the 2-hour wait ahead of us. Hoping to catch the ferry, we decided to fill my prescription once we are home. The nurse said we had 12 hours, I remind Eric.

Within an hour, I am kneeling on the floor below the front passenger seat, breathing deeply and moaning a little, as if in labour, propping my bandaged arm on the seat. Nerve blocks don't wear off, they switch off. On. Off. I never get my 12 hours.

This is my recovery learning curve and there is no going back. My surgeon, my family, and I are
Going the Distance:

	Cake - Going the Distance .mp3

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In Progress - Part 5: Beast of Burden

2010-12-18T09:00:00.000-08:00

However much I hate being in cast, being without one is sometimes terrifying. KD sufferers know the brutalizing pain of an accidental bump or twist of the wrist as well as the constant, grinding agony of the wrist simply at rest.

For KD sufferers in the late stages, there is no respite at rest or in action. A cast can at least eliminate the fear of further injury, prevent one from over-using, and provide a convenient cradle in which to nestle the lame appendage.

Similar to this love-hate affair with one's cast is the compromise one accepts with public reaction. There is relief in the fact that people are more careful around you, more solicitous, sometimes more helpful. There is frustration in the reality of constant questions, annoying quips (middle-aged men with floating duck rings), and the worst, medical opinion. Most people believe you have a broken arm. Others might inquire and with the brief details you provide them conclude you have something akin to carpal tunnel syndrome. Not that there is anything wrong with that.

It is so childish, so small-minded, but every so often I am enraged by this and want this well-meaning stranger to feel very bad about my condition. I want to establish my case in the hierarchy of illness. I will solemnly reveal all the sad details of my disease and its worst case scenarios. I will watch as the stranger's face drops a little. It's mean. I can't resist it.

With one arm casted and the other virtually useless I have given up the pretence of being capable. My reluctance to ask for help has all but slipped away. I can't cook, drive, or write any longer. I now have a housekeeper. I order my groceries online and they are delivered promptly. I am working out a system that will let me live my life and fulfill my responsibilities. I miss small things though. I miss reading to my youngest at bedtime, snuggled beside him on the pillow. My hands can only bear the weight of the lightest of books. So we sit up and lay the book out on the duvet, my 3-year old turning the pages. It's not so bad.

Dr.G has booked a surgery for my right wrist for late October. He is keen to not let the KD progress as it has in my left. While I am willing to do almost anything to be rid of the pain in my right, I understand his logic. In the meantime, I can only be.

To Eric, my tireless
Beast of Burden:

	The Rolling Stones - Beast Of Burden .mp3

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In Progress - Part 4: Cruel Summer

2010-12-13T12:37:00.000-08:00

I'm watching Eric unload the car, humping tents and poles and coolers stuffed with food. Kieran is helping in that non-committal way teenagers do - a pillow here, a pop bottle there, dragging his body from the car to the picnic table.

It's our annual, end-of-school-hop-on-the-ferry-drive-to-the-interior camping trip and we've just arrived at Paul Lake Provincial Park. The campground is full - it is Canada Day after all - and we are perched at the end of what is essentially a parking lot. A parking lot with spectacular views of the lake and a cool shower close by. It is hot and dusty and my teenager is moaning. I want to jump in the lake so desperately.

But there are chores to do - setting up camp and all that implies: assembling tent poles, inflating mattresses, organizing food and drink and camp chairs and camp stoves. I am not doing a damn thing. I am standing, sitting, pacing. I am about as useful as a turnip.

The day before we left the island, I saw John, my cast man at the orthopaedic clinic. He was casting me for the third time in 6 months, but this time it was my right arm.

A month previous, in my desperate search for a surgeon, I had paid $500 for a surgical consultation at a private clinic in Vancouver. This new surgeon examined me and proposed the exact procedure I didn't need at a cost of about $8000. He did, however, cut off the 4 1/2-month-old cast that encased my left arm. I had been anxious to have it removed, something no one would do without a surgeon's requisition. I didn't have a surgeon, yadda yadda...there is a hole in the bucket dear Liza, dear Liza...so I guess that was worth the $500.

Anyway, John was acting on orders from Dr.G. and was prepping his materials when I asked for a light summer colour in fibreglass. Sorry, but we're all out of gortex right now, I can only do a plaster cast, John shouts from the computer. Turns out, there is no gortex in any of the hospitals on the southern part of the island. Will take about 2 weeks, John tells me. When did I start living on Gilligan's Island? It's the beginning of summer and I'm about to leave for the lake for a week. Me and my old-school plaster cast. I can't quite believe it.

So here I am, Mrs. Turnip, with a left arm so weak I can't trust it with a cup of coffee and a right arm weighted down in layers of plaster, dreaming about swimming in the lake and helplessly watching my husband do virtually everything.

As the week passes, we settle into a routine of early morning walks, midday swimming, and afternoon excursions. The same families seem to gather at the lake shore by mid-morning and there is an easy rapport amongst us all. I've wrapped my plaster in a plastic grocery bag, securing it with elastic bands. I splash a little at the water's edge when the heat becomes unbearable.

One of the dads around that week, middle-aged with a bit of paunch and goofy look, makes a new wisecrack about my cast every morning. What does the other guy look like? Time to stop skateboarding, hey! It makes me crazy. I see him lumbering towards me with a floating duck ring under his arm. He's smiling and about to greet me with something spectacularly unfunny about my cast. I sigh.

It's going to be a long,
Cruel Summer:

	Bananarama - Cruel Summer .mp3

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In Progress - Part 3: (Don't) Lean On Me

2010-12-07T13:39:00.000-08:00

Pain is a personal thing. Explaining your own physical pain is challenging, it is almost pointless. And dull. Not that that stops any of us. My head is killing me. My arms are going to fall off. I can't move my back. It's sore. It's swollen. It's tender. It throbs. It stings.

It burns. Burning. A burning pain. This is the only word I can find that fits me - the only description I can muster that matches the sensation in my wrist.

In describing my pain this way, I feel that I'm disrespecting true burn victims. Victims. Not mere sufferers or simply patients. The extraordinary pain of a burn makes one a victim, as if you were shot in your own bed by a crazed stranger. Something horrible has been done unto you. Something unexpected. Incomprehensible. Irrevocable. I am dishonouring many I know: acquaintances, a dear friend - men and women who daily tolerate extraordinary, unrelenting pain. I think of Natalie and I am ashamed.

However much I know I am not on fire or even smoldering, I can only say and feel that it burns. In my imagination, a slow burn, like a subterranean Saskatchewan coal seam, is methodically laying waste to the core of my hands - until it is spent.

"Some smolder deep within abandoned mines; others blaze forth in exposed seams of coal. Like forest fires, coal fires can be sparked either by natural phenomena such as lightning or by people's carelessness. Beyond their potentially devastating effects on mining communities, coal fires change the landscape and damage the environment. "

But what I think I know about pain at this moment, even after surgeries and disease and childbirth, will be shattered, blasted apart in a few months time. Burning has its own vocabulary. Burn. Singe. Sear. For now, I have my slow burn.

Doctors have a system for helping patients articulate their pain. The 1-10 scale. You know it: So where does it hurt? Here? How does it feel now? When I do this. On a scale of 1-10? 1 being little pain.

Of course, the relativity of pain renders this assessment tool almost useless. One man's 10 is another man's 5. The man that has broken his back understands 10 just a little differently from the man who has suffered a bout of indigestion. Nevertheless, somehow, both you and your doctor learn something about you.

And then there is the hierarchy of suffering. Me and my Natalie. Many, if not all of us, in our quest for validation and treatment, seek to paradoxically *score* higher on and refute the hierarchy. But the hierarchy is meaningless. In the end, it is only you. You, and what you can bear.

I can almost bear the burn. There is no painkiller that can reach inside a dying bone and soothe it. No tonic or lotion. There are just forgetting drugs: wine, laughter, love, distraction. These I have in abundance, when I remember to take them. And accept them.

God bless my husband for easing my pain and my load - thank you, Eric, for showing and saying time and again:

Lean on Me:

	Al Green - Lean On Me .mp3

	Found at bee mp3 search engine

In Progress - Part 2: The Beat Goes On

2010-12-05T13:55:00.001-08:00

This was what I had feared most. This was my monster under the bed. "To salvage" means to save from peril, from complete destruction. My wrist is one step from annihilation. All those months under the gortex and fibreglass, it was disintegrating quietly. It had done everything I had imagined it could. And here it and I are, at least with a chance of salvaging.

Yet I also have a nagging feeling - could it have been this bad all along? In the coming days, still obsessed and preoccupied, I will cross-reference MRI results and doctors' notes. From a report done 7 months after my initial diagnosis, one sentence haunts me: The lunate looks very similar to the previous study done in December 2007.

I have not let go of my anger and sense of betrayal over my (lack of) treatment by the Victorian group of plastic surgeons. Even though I am now in the gifted and concerned hands of another surgeon, I cannot forget what has happened. Did Dr. D actually know this all along? Was this the reason for his arrogance and reluctance?

I know how petty and sad this seems. It is petty and sad. There is no end to my conspiracy theories. Nothing will satisfy my need for validation. My family, my friends, and my neighbours listen to me patiently. It will be many months before there is a letting go, a peace established within myself but also, significantly, with Dr.D.

In the meantime, my monster has not only reared his ugly, bony head, but is waggling his slimy tongue at me. Surprising even myself, and despite my suspicions and bitterness, I almost immediately begin coping, strategizing. The worst case scenario is being played out and there is nothing to do but accept it and move on. That is all there is.

A rant, a drink, and a few tears later, Elvira and I are on our way back to St. Paul's. Unfortunately, the day has progressed and with no known protocol for queue jumping, we wait with dozens of others until our need to get to the ferry terminal becomes urgent. I don't get to see Dr. G again this day but after five more hours in Friday afternoon gridlock and a ferry ride, I am home, exhausted, sharing the news with my husband.

There is also a voicemail from Dr. G. He regrets that he didn't get to see me again and leaves a detailed explanation of why he must do the salvage procedure and an insistence that I cast my right wrist immediately. It seems a small and natural gesture, this 3-minute follow-up call, but I recognize and respect it for what it is: an anomaly, a gift.

And The Beat Goes On:

	Sonny & Cher - The Beat Goes On .mp3

	Found at bee mp3 search engine

In Progress - Part 1: There's No Other Way

2010-12-02T11:02:00.000-08:00

The rain is bucketing down, sheets of it, constant and punishing. How will we find the hospital if I can't even see the road?

Elvira is sitting beside me, white-knuckled, possibly praying. She is a good friend. I am thinking how ironic it would be if we are in a car crash and rushed into St. Paul's emerg by ambulance. Would I hop off my stretcher, broken leg askew, or worse, and say right then, must pop up to see Dr.G about this pesky wrist thing. Morbid thoughts? Maybe. Oddly, I am buoyed by them - it puts my condition in perspective. Now if we can just get there.

This first visit will be one of many and the route my mind and car are mapping through these unfamiliar and busy Vancouver streets will become as etched and automatic as the drive from my home to the grocery store. The parkade, the street, the fastest hospital elevator, and the waiting room protocol become small lessons I will quickly memorize and master.

We are both in dainty summer dresses and sandals, no jackets or umbrellas, completely unprepared for a rainy day downtown. I don't know what we were thinking. We weren't thinking we'd be spending the whole day in the city. My appointment is for 9:30 a.m. It is now 9:45. The ferry was late and the roads were brutal. We bolt from the covered parkade for the side door of St. Paul's. It is, by chance, the exact door through which we should be entering. Not knowing this, we follow the blue and yellow lines around St. Paul's until we eventually ask at an information desk. We are guided back to the door we initially came in. We're off to a good start.

I am worried that Dr.G won't see me now - I am worried I have insulted him by my lateness. I don't know it yet but he is going to raise the bar on waiting room wait times. Whatever the national average is, multiply that by 5.

What is both wonderful and terrible about St. Paul's is that it is a teaching hospital. What is both wonderful and terrible about Dr. G is that he is an excellent, well-respected surgeon. The wonderful and terrible thing about my new surgeon working out of St. Paul's is that it will be almost 3 hours before my name is called and I am ushered into an examination room. Late shmate.

The past 5 months have been hard and I've hardened myself as well - buttressing my body and fortifying my expectations. My cynical self is completely unprepared and undone by what happens next: it is Christmas again.

I am greeted with smiles, two interns, and two surgeons, one of whom I assume is Dr.G. I'm hoping he's the cute one on my right. Elvira is led out to the hall while four heads lean in and four sets of hands try to get their hands on my hands. The questions come; the range of motion and strength tests come; much nodding and writing and whispering takes place. Bilateral Kienbock's. My tiny examination room is literally abuzz. I feel special. I feel like I am finally going to get the treatment I need.

The cute surgeon leaves. He is not Dr.G. The three remaining men huddle around a large screen showing my MRI. I have no idea what they see. Dr.G is like an excited kid - he wants to show and explain everything to his interns, to me. He is constantly in motion. The interns move aside so I can see the image. I suspect Dr.G is a great teacher. He is patient and thorough. It is like there aren't 40 more people in the waiting room.

During my examination, we discussed all possible procedures, even MCD. Dr. G seems willing to try it or at least consider it. All treatment options are open.

I hear Dr. G say do you see this? but I'm not really following. I've been lulled and comforted by these knowledgeable men-of-action. I know what they are discussing is important, urgent, but to me it is a melodic background. I'm jarred to attention by Dr.G. Look right here. The lunate has collapsed oddly. On the left. Can you see?

I guess I can see it; I don't know. So what. You just told me you can do anything. I'm thinking these thoughts and I'm feeling strange again because one of the interns is now looking at me closely.

What he means is there is nothing we can do. A salvage surgery is your only option now. The intern says this softly and kindly and I am deeply grateful for him at this moment. Dr.G, too, is gentle, suggests I go have lunch before I come back to get my right arm casted and book the surgery for my left.

I've read about salvage procedures; they sound as horrible and permanent as the word itself. I am devastated. Screw lunch. Elvira and I run, hands like useless umbrellas over our heads, jaywalking across Burrard and down Georgia until we find a bar. We slip, dripping, into a booth. Two martinis please. Cold. Dry. Martinis. It's 1:25 in the afternoon.

There's No Other Way:

	Blur - There's No Other Way .mp3

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In Limbo - Part 8: Help! (at last)

2010-11-24T12:55:00.000-08:00

If I had to pinpoint the day and time I started to get desperate and paranoid, it would probably be this day in April, that minute or two I spend on the phone with Dr. T. It’s not a clinical, official, paranoia, but I have definitely moved beyond what some call a healthy scepticism. I now have a very unhealthy scepticism. Whereas I may have felt like a drug dealer when “smuggled” in for my MRI, I now feel like a drug addict, looking for a fix. Please, doctor, won’t you help me out? Just a little?

There is a psychology to any illness, whether you have chicken pox or a broken leg. There is a particular psychology to a progressive illness or disease, one in which the pain, loss of mobility, and exhaustion are all framed in a race against the clock. The matter of you walking or not, or living or not, is a matter of time and timely treatment and, occasionally, of timely miracles. The sense that time is slipping from you and taking with it your potential to live well or better or at all makes your heart race. The squeeze of time shortens your breath and flips your stomach. It makes small talk and eye contact difficult, and it pushes you to the edge of every seat, one leg rapidly shaking and tapping. Up and down, up and down. You are ready to take flight at any given moment.

Another thing occurs as you begin to identify with yourself as sick or disabled: you think you are too young. You feel ripped off. The irony of Kienbock’s, as well as many other much more serious conditions, is that it generally affects the “young”. Kienbock’s most commonly affects those aged 20 to 40. People just starting their working and family lives. At 37, I am a grandmother in the Kienbock’s family, but I have young children, a new husband, and a new business. I’m just getting started, I feel. I don’t think of myself as old. That youth is a relative concept doesn’t truly become clear until you’re older…or sick. And as they say, youth is wasted on the young.

You believe that the medical profession should be rushing to treat you. You’re a young, vibrant contribution to the world and they’re just letting you waste away. Doctors and medical caregivers, however, have a broader perspective of illness and aging. They realize early on that the big secret is that most of us don’t just suddenly keel over when we’re 90 and go gentle into that good night.

No, the secret is that our bodies start to break down slowly, lose function bit by bit: bursitis by herniation by emphysema by cancer by toothache. The secret is that there comes a day when one or several "medical" conditions, however minor or serious, exist in your body and there is no cure or treatment, there is simply management. Your body and its activities may be forever limited or altered and there may be chronic pain.

That doctors know this and that their patients can’t fathom or won't accept it is the great disconnect in medical care.

I can’t explain my new, sad sense of self to anyone, not my husband or my closest friend. I feel isolated and pathetically, alone. There is no need for this, for what is tantamount to self-pity, yet this new introversion smothers me, traps me.

My mother, as mothers do, sees the crazy in my eyes, my disconnect from “real” life and unbeknownst to me, is working her way up to a semi-friendly takeover of my medical care. When all is said and done – the numerous phone calls and faxes and costly private consultations (yes, there is a two-tier system in Canada!) - good old Mum has landed me a surgeon. A surgeon who has even treated Kienbock’s.

Dr.G works out of St. Paul’s in Vancouver. Each way, it is a 4-hour car and ferry journey from my home. But you know what, it’s all good because what I need most of all is:

Help!

	The Beatles - Help .mp3

	Found at bee mp3 search engine

In Limbo - Part 7: Out of Control

2010-11-22T20:50:00.000-08:00

My cast is starting to break down. Not the fibreglass of course, but the layers of gortex underneath. It’s been 3 months. Those layers that haven’t matted together and begun their own, moist, science experiment are flaking and flying off into space, drains, dinner.

My GP dutifully requisitions a cast change and I pop down to visit John, my cast man. He asks how I’m doing; we briefly discuss the “incident” with my former surgeon. John says that he’s kind of a serious guy. Who’s your new surgeon, he asks. I tell him that it’s a Dr. T and ask if I’m pronouncing it right - I haven’t seen him yet. John tells me Dr. T is a good guy but did you know he works in the same office as Dr.D? I do know and I’m certain it won’t be a problem. He’s a professional after all.

I’m a little shocked by my arm when it’s unwrapped and naked under the hospital lights. It looks tiny and white but also a bit hairy and dirty-looking. John tells me that it is just dead skin and hadn’t you just come back from Mexico when I put this on? My January tan has flaked off and stuck itself to my old gortex padding. Gross.

I choose a baby blue wrap to celebrate spring and drive home with a fresh 75 dollar cast, still hot from the molding and shaping, my shrinking arm pulsing underneath. Four days until I see Dr. T. I am excited, nervous, and relieved all at once.

The phone rings the next morning and I mumble a hello through a mouthful of toast. May I speak with Fiona Bramble? It is Dr.T. He’s terribly sorry but he has reviewed my case and feels he is unable to treat me. My second, sneaky, MRI has just been forwarded to him. It confirms that I now have bilateral Kienbock’s. It is beyond my expertise, he says.

I have been waiting to see him for almost 3 months.

My appointment is in 2 days, I say. I know, which is why I am calling you personally. I am very sorry. I ask him what I am supposed to do now. He replies that he doesn’t know. Good luck, he says.

I shouldn’t be surprised, I suppose, and I’m not. I’m stunned. And angry. So angry I can’t move or speak for several minutes.

When I can speak, I pick up the phone. I call my husband. He can’t believe it either. He almost doesn’t believe me, I feel. I call my GP’s office. Maggie, her receptionist, has known me a long time. Maggie has some understanding of my case and condition. I need to see Gillian right away, I tell her. She asks what is happening. My voice shakes when I tell her about the call from Dr.T. There is a pause. I’m sorry, did you say Dr.T called you himself? I don’t understand. That is highly unusual. That word doesn’t mean much to me anymore.

I am starting to feel crazy again. I have cried more in the last four months than in my entire life. It’s not because my wrists hurt. Or because my feelings are hurt. I have lost control over my body. Over my life.

The tears come, hot and furious.

Out of Control:

	The Chemical Brothers - Out Of Control .mp3

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In Limbo - Part 6: Emotional Rescue

2010-11-22T19:26:00.000-08:00

My husband knows a guy who knows a guy. Let’s call him Yves. Yves makes Murphy beds and goes mountain biking. Yves also does the graveyard shift on the MRI machines at one of our local hospitals.

I am given Yves’ cell # and email address. The drill is: email or call Yves with your contact information; if some time opens up on one of those long nights in medical imaging, Yves will call or email you to come on down. ASAP and on the hush-hush. I feel like a drug dealer.

For reasons unknown to me, MRI testing is carefully rationed in this part of Canada. Perhaps our provincial government is worried about its effects. Perhaps our premier thinks they are alien probe machines. Whatever the problem, patients sometimes wait years for an MRI, often long past the point that reasonable treatment is possible for whatever ails them. Sometimes patients die waiting, the machines and those that operate them sitting idle and empty.

I know I’ve been lucky. I have actually had several MRIs in what I consider to be my young life. I’ve had various problems and excellent doctors and sometimes friends in, if not high, at least well-placed positions. My MRIs have led to immediate and successful treatment. It should be the same for everyone.

Now, my deal with Yves may sound illicit but when I do get the call and rush to the hospital at 11 in the evening, squeezed between his first patient and his 12:30 one, Yves is nothing but professional. Of course I don’t have a requisition from a specialist, Yves knows this, but he does insist on having copies of my confirmed diagnosis and the xray that suggests my possible diagnosis, which recommends an MRI for confirmation.

He is dotting his i's and crossing his t’s. He is curious about Kienbock’s and seems to understand the relative urgency to my treatment. He knows his MRI can get me help faster. This gives me a strange confidence.

I put on my head phones and slide into the tube. I detest the tube. It is like a coffin and when the banging starts, it is easy to imagine yourself banging on the lid of the coffin, trying to get out. The U2 being piped in to comfort me is barely audible. I am very uncomfortable and a little scared but most of all, I am grateful. Progress at last.

Emotional Rescue:

	Rolling Stones - Emotional Rescue .mp3

	Found at bee mp3 search engine

In Limbo - Part 5: Timebomb

2010-11-18T12:55:00.000-08:00

Surgeons remind me of children at Christmas. X-ray, CT-scan, and MRI requisitions are like their letters to Santa. The results, the gifts, wow, the possibilities. Dr. Johnny could get a sketch pad but man, imagine if he gets the Nerf Longshot CS-6, rare and extremely coveted by all the little Johnnys out there. Dr. Susie is hoping for a Taylor Swift Jukebox Doll Set. The other Susies will be so jealous.

Like all of us, perhaps even more so, orthopaedic surgeons want to do something exciting and challenging. Something different. Another carpal tunnel? No thanks. When the test results come back and it's something "rare", Johnny and Susie have just scored this year's hard-to-find-totally-sick-Christmas present with full bragging rights. That present gets their full attention. For about as long as it takes for the next big thing or next birthday to some around.

My kinda-cool Kienbock's Disease got delivered, opened up, and played with for awhile. Now, I'm the scruffy Taylor Swift doll under the bed, hair matted and skirt askew. Nobody wants to play with me.

So, I play by myself for awhile.

I visit my GP and confess the story behind my surgeon's refusal of treatment. I'm still feeling a little crazy, unkempt, guilty. To her credit, she thinks what I asked of him was perfectly reasonable. She reassures me. We will find you another surgeon. Give me a week or two. Neither of us knows yet that the week or two will stretch to months.

I go back to my one-armed life. I've figured out some things, like if I keep driving straight, it's not so hard. Sure, it takes me a little longer to get around but hey, I get there. I discover parallel parking is even harder now than it was on my driving test 20 years ago.

I clock that it takes 10-12 minutes for my cast to drip dry as I wait on the mat outside the shower, squeezing the fibreglass and gortex every so often.

I quit running because even though my cast weighs only a few pounds, my back and shoulders get out-of-whack and it hurts. I probably look silly too. I continue with aerobics though and feel guilty when the sweat drips from my cast and leaves small puddles on the floor as we leap about the room. I worry I'll slip. I worry one of the sweet, little old ladies that frequent my gym will slip in my sweat puddle. There are a surprising number of sweet little old ladies that frequent my gym.

I'm surprised what a good sous chef my husband makes and he kindly shows me how the food processor works. Chopping is quite tricky with one hand. Tricky and dangerous. More than one cucumber has shot out from underneath my cast and flown across the room.

My soon-to-be three-year old is getting quite adept at buttons, laces, and zippers. He even tries to help me with mine. Now, if only he could get my ponytail right. Don't even ask about the toilet thing. Or bras.

I write right-handed on the classroom board. My letters are almost legible. When I was a little girl, my mom would sometimes get me to practice writing with my right-hand - just in case you lose your left hand she would say. Creepy.

I stop typing. It's awkward with my cast propped up on the desk and my other hand is too sore from doing double duty. I can't mark my students' work or add comments on their essays. I miss email. The techie at the college where I teach sets up a voice program for me, so I can leave private audio messages for my students in the computer lab. I install it on my home computer too and start send voice emails instead. I think it's brilliant. I try to explain it to my friends and colleagues but most don't get it and never open the audio files attached to the emails. I think they think that I'm sending them spam or dirty videos. I am relieved when the spring session comes to an end.

I am coping but I have also become keenly aware of why God designed our bodies with two of mostly everything.

During all of this, I'm worried. What is happening under those layers of gortex and fibreglass? KD is a progressive disease after all. The clock is ticking. I also need an MRI to confirm or refute the diagnosis on my right wrist. Only a specialist can order one. My GP comes through in early March: I have an appointment with a new surgeon for mid-April. Sure, I can wait 5 more weeks. No problem.

Timebomb:

	Beck - Timebomb .mp3

	Found at bee mp3 search engine

In Limbo - Part 4: The Last Day of Our Acquaintance

2010-11-17T15:17:00.000-08:00

I am 50/50 when I pick up the phone.

50% wanting to get some answers out of the man. 50% freaking out because my right wrist is now hurting quite a bit and, it seems, losing some range of motion. Sigh. All 100% of me needs to meet with my surgeon asap.

I live on beautiful Vancouver Island, off the coast of British Columbia, Canada. Victoria is the provincial capital and a haven for young families and retirees alike. We are blessed with a medical system that is accessible to everyone, although it can creak along at a dinosaur pace at times. In Victoria, all hand and wrist surgery is performed by plastic surgeons. We have 4 plastic surgeons. Number of plastic surgeons in Victoria who will treat Kienbock's: 1

The answers I seek are elusive. I know this. In addition to all I have read and researched, I joined an online support group and though Kienbock's Disease is classified as "rare", the numbers in the group belie such designation. All the information I have and all the stories I am now intimate with make it crystal-clear that each case it very different and each corresponding treatment debatable. There are some constants, though, and it's these that give me the confidence to approach my surgeon again.

For those with Kienbock's, or KD as I have come to know it, the abbreviations and terms I use next will be familiar; for those unencumbered, the abbr. will be more than adequate. Suffice to say, the lunate bone is "dying" because it is no longer receiving blood and there are a number of stages and corresponding treatments and surgical procedures that attempt to either trigger or redirect that blood flow again, "revascularize", or essentially act as pain management, known as "salvage procedures". Skip ahead even. Trust me.

I am diagnosed Stage 1, possibly Stage 2 (although I'll later doubt this original diagnosis - this is what I have for the moment) and my surgeon wants to perform a radial shortening with a VBG. I am negligibly ulnar negative, -1mm. Therefore, while I don't take any major issue with the VBG, I feel pretty strongly that I am NOT a candidate for radial shortening, particularly having read so many of the complications and "non-success" stories arising from that procedure. I'm also keen to discuss MCD, a relatively new procedure that is less invasive and has reported good outcomes.

I've got my print-outs ready again. I'll stick to my guns this time. My husband is with me this third visit - he knows I might crack and we talk strategy. Stay focused, he reminds me.

It all goes wrong almost immediately. My surgeon walks in the room, barely glances at either of us, and says: So, what is it?

I decide to go with the warm up, a plea to that side of him that is supposed to help me. Help me. I tell him that my right hand is giving me trouble and I am worried. He nods, completes an x-ray requisition and hands it to me. He doesn't examine my wrist. He doesn't touch me or even look at me.

I ask him when I can get my cast off. He says in 10 more weeks. I ask then what? He says that depends.

I am starting to panic, feel a bit crazy. He's treating me like I am crazy. I don't understand. I do realize though that this is probably my last chance. I ask him if he has ever heard of MCD. I feel the air leave the room. I can see that he is deciding whether to be civil with me or not. He decides yes - for the moment.

He tells me that he has read something about it but doesn't know anyone who has performed it. I seize the moment. I show him the copies of articles on MCD that I have brought. I mutter something about good outcomes. My eyes and my body language practically beg him to look down at the papers or even take them. I feel like a Jehovah's Witness on a Catholic's doorstep.

He stops being civil. He suggests that I am wasting his time. I crack. I am not going to cry in front of this man. I say I have to go and rush out the door. While I am running down the stairs, he is telling my husband that he cannot treat me anymore.

I am crying, again, in the undergound parkade. I am clutching the x-ray requisition, the eventual test and results of which one week from now will suggest I also have Kienbock's in my right wrist. My surgeon never passes on those results. My surgeon never refers me to another doctor. I will see this man again one day, in a horrible moment neither of us can predict, but for now:

My left arm is in a cast. I have bilateral Kienbock's. I have no surgeon.

The Last Day of Our Acquaintance:

	Sinéad O'Connor - The Last Day Of Our Acquaintance .mp3

	Found at bee mp3 search engine

In Limbo - Part 3: Superfreak

2010-11-17T09:38:00.000-08:00

I keep looking at my left hand, my wrist - looking for changes, looking for anything. I imagine the bones inside, all of them, not just my poorly lunate, crumbling, breaking off, crashing into each other like dominoes, taking each other down. I stick my tongue out at it sometimes, swear at it under my breath quietly and other times loud, out loud. But mostly, I nurse it, cradle it - worry that my every action will hurry along the inevitable. I am afraid to carry my books to class, too chicken to open heavy doors. Two weeks is suddenly a long time.

My husband comes with me to the "clinic", the orthopaedic casting clinic at the local hospital. This is where, I am to discover, my surgeon spends two days of his week, consulting, casting, and splinting for trauma and non-trauma patients alike. I feel like a trauma patient.

When my surgeon sits down across from my husband and me on our cold metal chairs, he peeks at my file and gathers his thoughts for a brief moment before he says: Why aren't you in a cast?

I, um, I don't know. What? I splutter. I um, have a few questions. I have my sheaf of papers, articles from medical journals, a list of questions one is supposed to ask her surgeon. I kind of hold them up and wave them in front of his face. I have lost my nerve completely.

Listen, he says, you don't have time to fool around. If you can't decide on surgery, you have to be put in a cast today, now. I'll get John to come and cast you.

He stands up and leaves the room. Enter John.

So, um, what kind of cast is it? Can I get it wet?

No, said John, but you can pay extra for a gortex one if you want; those you can get wet. They're 75 bucks.

Well, how long am I going to be in it?

6 months, John responds casually.

Oh my god, I think to myself. I am left-handed. How will I drive? How will I write? How will I teach? How will I cook? How will I dress myself? How will I do anything? I'm bloody well going to shower.

Gortex, please. Can I have the black wrap, please?

The casting process itself takes only 20 minutes or so, and my husband and I are back in the car making our way home. I can't remember if we speak. The list of activities and responsibilities that I now feel I can't do or fulfill seems to be growing by the second, by each intersection we pass. My surgeon came back briefly to check the cast and was gone as quickly. I don't know how I see him again. The cast completely immobilizes my forearm, wrist and all but the tips of my fingers. I can't hold anything with this hand. I can't do anything with this hand. The cast feels very heavy with its layers of gortex and stiff, hard black fibreglass. It's hot.

When we get home, I go straight to the bathroom. I pee. I pull some tp from the roll with my right and pass it to my left, as usual. Then I stare at it. How am I going to...? Oh my god.

Superfreak...

	Rick James - Superfreak .mp3

	Found at bee mp3 search engine

In Limbo - Part 2: Welcome to the Jungle

2010-11-14T18:47:00.000-08:00

There is not much grey in a surgeon's world - everything is as black and white as the x-rays they inspect and dissect. For those who have had any professional contact with a surgeon, you will nod furiously in agreement when I describe mine as Type-A, decisive, blunt, jargon-prone, and about as fun as a bunion. Surgeons are also very much one other thing: unavailable.

When I left my surgeon's office that morning, disoriented and overwhelmed, having tossed a "I'll call you" as I sprinted to the elevator, desperate for some air - some thinking space, I had no idea, no basic understanding at all, that one does not simply ring up his surgeon and have a chat.

After I had slowed my sobbing to a weep and was generally able to drive my son and me home safely, I did what every modern patient or potential patient does: I googled my diagnosis.

This should have been straightforward I suppose, except I had no idea what my diagnosis was. All I had was my foggy memory of the name of a disease that was uttered before an onslaught of images and terms and treatments were thrust upon me. My surgeon hadn't written anything down and my inexperienced self hadn't thought to ask. I had left his office in shock and completely ignorant. I racked my brain for the sounds of the word. I got as close as I could recall and in the Google search box, I typed: KING'S BOX disease

Now, any fellow sufferers might be laughing their pants off right now or, like when reading those lines posted on "misheard lyrics" sites, might be thinking: Yeah, that's what I heard too.

The truly funny part is, Google responded with: did you mean kienbock's disease?
No word of a lie. And so it began.

I googled and read and cross-referenced stories, websites, and medical journals. I am a researching geek, a linguist by training and a writer by will. I can and will eek every bit of information about something until the information and I are spent. But as my fellow sufferers will attest, to find any "answer" in all the Kienbock's research and articles is impossible. Each bit of information brings only more questions.

So I called my surgeon for a chat. As I'm sure I don't need to tell you, the conversation with the surgeon's receptionist/bodyguard went something like this:

Me: Hi there. I’m a patient of Dr. D-‘s and I have a few questions about my diagnosis.

Receptionist: Um, o.k. I can book you a follow-up appointment.

Me: Can he call me back? Or can I just leave some questions with you and he can email me or call me with some answers?

Receptionist: No. I can book you into the clinic in two weeks.

Me: Um, o.k. Where’s that? What time?

Etc… etc…

Surgeons do not chat. Surgeons are unavailable. Duh. Two more weeks pass.

Welcome to the Jungle...

	Guns N' Roses - Welcome to the Jungle .mp3

	Found at bee mp3 search engine

In Limbo - Part 1: It's the End of the World as We Know It

2010-11-12T12:21:00.000-08:00

He delivers the information with great seriousness and gravity and suddenly I've fallen down the shaft of a well I didn't see. I hear words like necrosis, loss of use, crumbling, deformity. Ice-cold blood slowly trickles from my brain to my senses as I register that whatever revelations I had thought might come to pass in this surgeon's office - a pulled tendon, a sprain, perhaps the ganglion my OT friend was so sure about - those possibilities have evaporated, swallowed by the light of the X-ray image being projected on the wall.

Having only just opened my file for the first time, the surgeon is suddenly rushing from the room to consult with his colleagues - there is a flurry of activity, of doors opening and closing, his white coat whisking around the corner. Then, there is the discussion of treatment - so many terms I can't understand - vocabulary I would later, over time, permanently add to my lexicon. There is an immediacy to his look, an urgency I don't fathom. He wants me to say something, to decide my course of action. I swear I see something close to pity in his eyes. Perhaps it is impatience.

I keep bouncing my two-year old on my lap. Then I say I will call him. I get up, take the elevator to the parking lot, buckle my son in his car seat, then collapse in my own, sobbing.

You're probably expecting me to say that I have cancer or, at the very least, some other terminal, life-threatening condition. Thankfully, no, and no. I have and had Kienbock's Disease, also known as avascular necrosis of the lunate, a small bone in your wrist. Doesn't sound so bad now, does it?

Not life-threatening, true, but life-altering in many ways. Besides not knowing any of the terms my surgeon tossed around that morning, I knew least of all that his most grave pronouncement would set me up to become fearful, paranoid, and singularly obsessed for over two years as I became a reluctant member of a small club fighting for the best treatment possible.

It's the End of the World as We Know it...

	R.E.M. - It's The End Of The World As We Know It .mp3

	Found at bee mp3 search engine

Class of '88

2010-05-06T13:11:00.000-07:00

Thinking of you lovely, fresh-faced high school seniors, gearing up for the big grad. The dresses, the tuxes, the dances, the dogwoods...the dates. Yes, it is that time of year and it is your time to shine. Enjoy yourself; you deserve it. Try not to kill yourself too; your parents deserve that.

I'm also thinking of us oldies, perhaps not as fresh-faced and nearing a different definition of "senior" but gearing up this season just the same. Gearing up for the high school reunion.

While my big 20 was almost two years ago, there is a new crop of reunioners heading to the gyms and tanning salons in a town near you. Right now. 38+-year olds hoping to wow their former classmates and crushes with their narrow waists and broad accomplishments. My advice to them: do it, go 2.0 or go home! You do want to look and feel your best when you see your old friends and flames but here is something else I'll share: it won't really matter in the end because in no time, you'll feel like you're with the people that know you best. Like your family, except that they won't hold things against you or make you feel guilty. But I digress.

However weird and nervous I felt at the start of my 20-year high school reunion, the most unexpected thing happened, I felt home. I felt like I had walked through the front door of a home I had built 20 years earlier, and although slightly embarrassed by the shag rug and velvet "paintings", I was relieved to see that my favorite chair and big comfy couch were right where I'd left them. I sunk into my old friends like they were cushions that knew my shape and form. My high school friends were memory foam and they felt damn good.

There are many reasons why this lovely old home and its contents took me by surprise. I may have built it 20 years ago, but I was no craftsman; some of the floors were slanting and I had written on some of the walls and thrown up in the toilet more times than was reasonable. I didn't always make the right colour choices or install things correctly. I had hung cheap drapes in a few of the rooms. I broke some of the dishes, on purpose.

But this house didn't care. Not one bit. It knew I wasn't perfect. It wasn't perfect either. It also hadn't actually noticed some of that lame stuff I had done. We had both aged and we had both grown into ourselves. My old friends are the people that will always know me best not only because we began the building of our future selves together but also because we spent many years with just each other's foundations and learned to love them, cracks and all.

When we signed each other's yearbooks at the end of that June, 1988, most of us knew we might never see each other again, and some of those people I probably never will. But if you get a chance, even at the ripe old age of 38, find the key under the mat and let yourself in. Go home.

Congrats, Class of 2010.

Love,
the Class of '88

Remember this one?

	Naked Eyes - Always Something There to Remind Me .mp3

	Found at bee mp3 search engine

Kick-Ass and My Week Being Bullied

2010-05-02T20:41:00.000-07:00

So when did I become your doormat, huh? No, seriously, at what point in this godforsaken week did you decide, "Geez, Fiona's just been coasting along for awhile; time for me to give 'er the ol' 1-2"? Seriously.

Although I thought it started last Monday (I mean who isn't waiting for an ass-kickin' on a Monday), if I'm really truly honest with myself, it started last Friday. Last Friday. My big trip to the big smoke being a big girl business woman. Big time. I should have known then. Many things were great about that big girl business trip. Fancy shmancy hotel. Two meetings at major-ish bookstores. A good friend for company.

Wait, we were talking about Monday. Right. Well, as not to bore you completely or well, bore you completely, the short of it is: I've spent the past year trying to organize, coordinate, and plan a birthday slash family reunion bash in Mexico for 35 of my multi-aged, multi-interest, highly-dysfunctional extended family members. On Monday, one of those extended (too far, in my opinion, like an LOC) fm's decided to bail out of the plan and take 9 fm's with her, sending my plans and hotel discounts down the toilet.

I emailed. I facebooked. But what about all my plans? What about everyone else? She tried to make me feel bad. It worked. I did. Terribly. For three days. But why?

Oh yeah, last Friday. But wait, I haven't told you about Tuesday yet.

Now, technically, Tuesday was indirect bullying. Bully by proxy if you wish. Nonetheless, I came home to a defeated husband whose Mum had successfully sucked the wind from his sails. She must have used the full force of the past to reduce him to rubble. However horrible he felt, I'm certain I felt even worse. It was as if she had stabbed her forefinger in my chest over and over and...

What day are we on? Shit. Let me cut to the chase.

Last night, I took my teenager to see Kick Ass. I LOVED it. I loved the kids, the costumes, Nicolas Cage, the totally-warped-yet-somehow-true moral of the story. I loved the sweet beginning of empathy and compassion for humanity. The willingness to put your life on the line for what is right. I loved the dawning of reality and pragmatism and still the willingness.

My teenager had tried to turn his responsibilities and his anger around not having met them on me one hour before we sat in that movie theatre. Last Friday, a manipulating bookstore buyer tried to convince me to give him my books for free. That same night, a dear friend implied I was responsible for my husband's lack of eye contact and disengagement with her and that it was an unacceptable situation for her. This morning, while I watched my 5-year old in swimming lessons, a man called me disgusting and swore at me because I was wearing my running shoes approximately 2 inches from the change room doorstep. He yelled something about imaginary dog shit. I cried. Three grown men stood to my left, in their shoes, not speaking.

So I guess it's not my week. For those who know me, I know that you know that I know there are many people out there with far larger, more painful struggles than those in my week of being bullied. And lord knows, I'm far from perfect; I sometimes yell at my kids and am mean to my husband and drink too much wine. But I know injustice, and as soon as I can whip up my costume, I'll knock you out of the bullying game.
KAPOW!

Rock it Joan:

	Joan Jett - Bad Reputation .mp3

	Found at bee mp3 search engine

Generation A-Plus

2010-03-22T18:56:00.000-07:00

Did I mention I chewed my nails, backcombed my hair and daydreamed almost solely about a certain young man named Brooks? Ok, perhaps occasionally about the cute security guard at the downtown McDonald's. My high school career in a nutshell. A very insignificant, useless nutshell.

Tabitha Southeby's recent Globe and Mail article, Quit it with the teen trashing ("and so I salute you, sedentary youth of Canada"), reminds me to do what I had fully intended to at the end of summer '09: commend and compliment BC's youth. No nail-biting, back-combing, wasteful daydreams for them. They own the podium, every podium, from sports to environmentalism to academia to local and global leadership to technology to well, virtually everything. Today's youth are stronger, higher, faster than my sad-sack of Generation Why? could have ever been and ever was. But you know what this worldwide wunderkind actually excell at? Teaching and mentoring. No kidding. This ultra-wired generation is damn good at connecting. In person. For real. Take last summer:

The beginning of our family summer '09 went much like the previous two. A camp or two for the kiddies and a few weekends of beautiful BC camping, or say, awesome Oregon camping. By the time August arrived, #1 was off in England on an adventure and #2, well, he was bored out of his 4 year-old skull. I decided that our pre-schooler should alleviate his boredom plus teach himself to swim, and so a daily dip at a local pool became de riguer for this Mum and son for the entire month of August. Imagine a local pool stuffed with 10-20 day camps of our fair city's energetic youngsters. It was a zoo.

The final week of August saw our youngest diving, floating, swimming, sliding, doing everything water-and underwater-possible. Oh yes, well done Tru. But what really struck me, struck me like the heart punch that happens when our teenager takes a moment to lift his little brother up to show him something magical, what really struck me was that, at the end of those long summer days after days, our town's teen camp leaders had shone in their unending enthusiasm, energy, and encouragement when guiding their young charges.

Yes, cynics, I know these kids were paid to be there, perhaps earning a credit or two for school or their resumes but when was the last time you spent every day with 20 children you didn't know very well. In the pool.

As an silent observer, I watched these "fun" or "team" leaders happily and effectively teach, encourage, and care for 100's of young children. I know for certain that, even though we were not involved in the camps, that these young men and women, who had learned my son's name by the first week of August, shouting, "Hey, Tru, great to see you" or "great dive" or even a quick "high five, dude", I know that they gave my son the courage and motivation to take the big plunge. In so many ways.

I don't know your names. I don't know anything about you, but, damn, I'm grateful for you and I'm proud of you. Our future is in tremendous hands.

Postscript:
Our small town has lost two young women recently, one through suicide, one a horrific and unsolved murder. This brilliant, beautiful generation needs our support, faith, kudos, and sadly, our protection.
Postscript 2:
Full disclosure: I am the proud parent of an amazing, ambitious teen.

It's Complicated

2010-02-04T20:36:00.000-08:00

If I right this very minute pulled on my wellie boots and slung a leg over Shelly & Jeremy's fence, tiptoed through Charlotte and Johanna's funky ol' hodge-podge of a tudor house plus garden and threw myself over a second fence, I could be standing in her backyard. If I then pointed myself due south with a lean to the east and walked a block and a half, I could be at the edge of the water where her body was found. A couple of options are open to me at this point. I could turn on my heel, head straight north and land on my doorstep in a minute or two. Or I could.

I could trace and re-trace this triangle with sharp imaginary pens in my head over and over, from my house to hers to the beach, my house to hers to the beach, from my house, trying to fathom how I could not hear, help, or know this beautiful, brilliant, desperate young woman drowning herself in the cold Pacific waters one block from my home. While I slept. While we all slept. There is much in the space inside the triangle's lines.

Of course, how could I know? Our universal voice is pretty hard to hear in the chaos and minutiae of our every day. I could not.

I can be desperately sad. Confused. Sad some more. Not really confused. I remember.

I can remember what it is like to be 16. To feel overwhelmed by your body. To be overwhelmed by your mind and your thoughts. To not want anyone to think you weren't normal. After all, this is weird, right? I'm acting weird, right? To want the world and not be sure it is yours for the taking. Not sure if you really are smart, beautiful, special enough to take your place in the world. I can remember having an imperfect, non-nuclear family. I can remember feeling awkward, feeling like my ground wasn't as solid as everyone else's. I can remember. I remember my grandmother telling me that once I turned 18, I would feel better. I remember thinking she didn't know what she was talking about. My grandmother was right.

I wish Freya could have hung on, until 18, or until whatever it took to find and love herself again.
All I can do is re-trace my triangle and pray for Freya and her heartbroken family. I wish I could do so much more.

Rest in Peace, Love, Joy
Freya Milne, February 2, 2010

This song is beautiful: Ford Pier's "Why On Earth"

All I Want Is Christmas

2009-11-23T12:40:00.000-08:00

Julie can’t stand the candy canes the secretary has hooked along the top edge of the lampshade. I hear her disgusted tone clear across the table at the staff Christmas dinner. Everyone hears her actually, with the exception of the secretary, who is, mercifully, absent. Julie thinks the candy canes are tacky. Not the canes themselves of course, but the way in which they adorn the otherwise upstanding lamp. This surprises me because, well, I think Julie is a little tacky herself. In fact, candy cane decorations are exactly what I think Julie is not only capable of, but covets. Now, Julie doesn’t wear spandex Mickey Mouse tights or flashing poinsettia earrings, but there is something about her that, while I can’t quite put my pinky finger on it, has essence of déclassé. Meow meow

I am thinking of Julie and the candy canes one morning as I cycle along our fair city’s scenic route, right through the heart of some old money homes and beachside retreats. I see some elaborately decorated residences, but for the most part, I see single-coloured, single-stringed lights hooked and hung evenly along sloping roof lines. A clean, symmetrical show of Christmas spirit. No dripping “icicles” or air-filled bobbing Frosties; no indoor lights crisscrossing the living room window or twinkling candy canes dotted around the front lawn. And goshdarnit, these houses look great. I feel a real affinity for these smartly-decorated homes and their loving owners. This is my kind of Christmas.

It has since dawned on me that Julie may be as tacky as all get out, but she too has her kind of Christmas, and, clearly, it is one without random bulk candy cane placement. Christmas traditions, for those who have ever celebrated this holiday, are, if not hard-wired, pretty close to super-glued. I’m willing to bet that Julie’s mother never hung candy canes from their living room lampshades. Her mom probably stuffed tinsel in the cracks of the dining room table and wrapped green sparkly garland around the banisters, but candy canes were just not on in Julie’s childhood Christmas, a permanently-etched and perpetuated memory.

My husband, to most, is a fountain of flexibility, a true man of the moment. To me, five Christmases and Thanksgivings in a row, a stubborn, ungrateful stuffing critic. My turkey stuffing. Year Two I managed to eek a semi-confession from him: Mum did something different. And all that implies. Mum’s was better. I only like Mum’s. I’ll try yours. I’ll even smile as I eat yours. But I prefer Mum’s stuffing. Despite all attempts, I have been unable to duplicate Mum’s stuffing and I have finally accepted I never will. My husband’s memory could sniff out an erroneous spice or an errant raisin. His childhood stuffing has been super-glued.

When I left a local, major department store last week, after a fitful burst of Christmas shopping, I noticed a holiday message pasted to the door that read something along the lines of “Merry post-Ramadan, middle-of-Hannukah, soon-to-be Kwanzaa, just about-Christmas”. It fell just short of Happy Festivus. I felt the tug of a lampshade candy cane and raisin stuffing; I felt my super glue flex and stretch. Surely no one is here tonight buying Ramadan presents? This is my Christmas, the same one I have celebrated since my mom can remember. This “holiday” message did not reflect my Christmas; how tacky.

Of course, the “Christmas debate” has been raging for many years now, between whom I’m not entirely certain, but I know that some people are irate about all this Christian clatter. And some people want to fix what is the matter. Political correctness has dictated that government, schools, and businesses extend an inclusive holiday message. Absolutely. But does it make sense if you aren’t celebrating a holiday? That’s like saying: Happy Valentine’s Day, you sad, pathetic guy who just got dumped. Or Happy St. Patrick’s Day, Elizabeth.

I was so relieved by a reasonable reaction last season to the stripping of Christmas décor at an American airport. The rabbi who had caused the kafuffle, feeling Hanukkah deserved to be represented just as tackily as Christmas, threatened to sue the airport. After much silliness, tearing down and re-decorating, a wise man revealed that Christmas is now widely celebrated as a secular holiday in many western and non-western cultures and not to the exclusion of anyone in those cultures. It can be one big food-filled, wine-spilled party for whoever wants to join! I was relieved because I could have my childhood Christmas and not feel guilty, not have to grin through the stuffing.

Some of us have our super-glued Christmases, some of us don’t. Julie tolerates the lampshade candy canes and goes home to her tinsel-stuffed dining room table. My husband grins and eats it. We have sloppy multi-coloured lights drooping from our roof and hedges. Our kids love them. I, well, you know what I prefer.

Christmas is what you have always known it to be, or something you are just starting to celebrate, or something you don’t even think about. Everybody and anybody can do whatever they want on December 25th; Christians can keep the Christ in Christmas; Bob can keep his eggnog spiked. There is room for all things tacky and otherwise in this Canadian’s Christmas, as long as I can call it that.

Birth of a Germaphobe

2009-09-04T21:33:00.000-07:00

I’m the mom rolling her eyes at the “no- peanut signs”, thinking that if your kid is so allergic to nuts that my kid’s snack can make your sprog’s tongue inflate like a blimp than you really should be looking at the newest in bubble homes, not hanging out at kindergym. (The Moops! The Moops!). When the university I worked for banned perfume, I sulked for a month. Although I had suffered plenty over-Polo-infused elevator rides in my time, legislating smell seemed crazy. Eventually, though, and dutifully, my perfume found its dusty way to the back of my vanity drawer.

I had the same basic attitude towards colds, superbugs, germy germs. Nile Virus, Avian Flu, even SARS…ha and double ha. As with allergy epidemics, I couldn’t quite swallow that bugs are bigger and badder than they use to be; after all, human history is plagued, well, with plagues. Of course I have had intelligent, semi-informed conversations about modern society’s overuse of chemicals, cleaners, and antibiotics and concede that there are reasonable grounds to conclude that times they are a changin’, but I never really believed.

Norwalk made a believer out of me. Because last Sunday I learned what “The Norwalk” is: it’s the pathetic, bile-laden crawl you do across your bathroom tiles to the foot of your bed, where you lie for awhile until you need to make the return journey, back through bile, back to the basin. When the final count came through, our rousing St. Paddy’s party on Saturday night had resulted in 9 casualties, otherwise healthy adults hugging porcelain for several hours and bed-ridden for at least a couple of days. A fellow Walker laughed when I marveled aloud about how a human can choke on something as small as a peanut and die but when our bodies sense a teeny-tiny foreign molecule, our esophagus opens up like Old Faithful. 1-2 days after we had toasted each other, dug our fists into chip bowls and slopped Irish stew, we were, to use the vernacular, slayed. We were slayed by one of the most effective viruses I have ever had the displeasure of knowing, a “noro-virus”.

5 days into doctor-suggested but self-imposed quarantine later, I found myself carrying disinfectant wipes to the park so that I could wipe down the swings and merry-go-round after my toddler was finished. That same day, my husband rushed in and out of the store for food, touching only what was necessary, while the three of us waited on the sidewalk like wee waifs waiting for a handout. I went to bed the other night worrying about how I pay for a movie: which method would expose me and others the least? Swiping at a terminal would be best, then I could clean my card and the keypad afterwards. Real money? Oh God! Granny, now I know where it’s been; I’ve seen its travels; they resemble a red-water river ride through chunky canyon. How will I touch coins or paper money again? I covet the sanitation station outside the grocery store and wonder how I can make one at my front door look attractive. Perhaps top it with a flower basket.

When I think back to that fateful night, I’m shocked by my slack approach to hygiene. My son chewed some olives, then slopped them back into the bowl. I scooped the chewed ones out and went about my business. The two toddlers licked chips and double-dipped. The adults shared a bottle of Bushmill’s, the lazy man’s way, the rummy way. We dipped our potato cakes in communal gravy. One of the kids had diarrhea; we didn’t think anything of it. Cleaned her up, chucked the pants in the wash and cracked a Guinness. Did we wash our hands? I can’t remember. We kissed and hugged and wiped runny noses with our fingers, then onto our jeans. We walked on the beach and strange wet dogs licked our fingers; we had some more chips and veggies and dip. Norwalk was laughing its pants off and rubbing its nasty hands together with glee.

I now experiment with different measurements of bleach solutions. I do this because in my mind’s eye I can still see my throat wide as a fire hose spewing semi-digested Sunday dinner and gallons of reddish liquid. I can still feel my eyes bursting from my head and the uncertainty of which orifice my organs will get sucked through. I still have the pathetic image burned in my memory of my two-year old dry-heaving while I lay curled around his feet. 4 parts bleach, 10 parts water. Hot, hot water. Yes, that seems strong enough.

Disease control thanked me for calling and the emergency room (where you are NOT supposed to go if you think you have a noro-virus) was very accommodating. Bless IV Gravol. I learned some new medical terminology and that my husband, while he looks kind of cute in rubber gloves, brings new definition to the word “hurl”, as in all over the bathroom door, floor, and walls. Most importantly though, besides no longer mocking peanut-paranoid moms, I have learned that those big, bad bugs truly are everywhere and love normal, but sloppy families and party-goers just like us, and you. See you at the movies tonight.

(As published in Monday Magazine, July 2007)

Tale of a Textbook

2009-04-15T10:38:00.001-07:00

I have moved this book 8 times since university, dutifully packed and unpacked and shelved it, 8 bloody times. I’m not sure why I have done this. I’ve not even turned a single page of it since 1993. I’m not even sure what it is titled (but I’ll check if you want me to). It is a beginner’s coursebook for Russian and it is dustily taking up space on the bottom oak plank of our living room bookshelf.

This book and I spent some serious and not-so-serious face time together in the Fall of ’93, Russian 120. I’m not joking when I say that my instructor’s name was Evilina (although it may have been spelled differently), nor I am being funny when I reveal that she really was well, evil, and no better moniker could have been appointed her. She was also a truly awful teacher and it was rumoured that she had been given the position because her husband was a highly coveted oceanographer on the science side of campus. Who knew science took precedence over language? Damn salmon.

My fellow students and I took great delight in mocking while imitating Evilina from the safety of the SUB pub most afternoons. I remember 2 of my cohorts as well as can be expected, Brian and Rebecca, both smart and gorgeous and hysterically witty. One afternoon saw me with too many drinks under my skirt making a serious attempt to kiss Brian. Or Rebecca. Not sure. But, in Russian, of course.

I don’t remember why I took the course, whether it was a required credit or just to satisfy my fickle and geeky yearning to start reading Russian poetry in its mother tongue, if not uncensored, at least untranslated. Either way, I only acquired the vocabulary to say “hello”, formally and informally, “thank you”, and “goodbye”, all of which I could have surely learned by watching Saturday afternoon reruns of The Hunt for Red October.

I could still crack that book and study solo but somehow I would rather just pack and unpack and dust or not dust the book that lent me a little knowledge but reaped so many memories. Spacibo.

Personal, Political, Professional?

2008-11-23T14:51:00.000-08:00

The personal is political and the political, personal. These are the words of a former university professor that I have forgotten and re-remembered over the last 20 years, and at each remembrance interpreting them through different hues of dumb-coloured glasses. I’m not so sentimental that I oft recall the sage advice of my teachers and mentors. I was a good student often by luck and last-minute fortitude. I doubt I even recognized my mentors for what they were in the moments they swept through my unsophisticated life. Yet, somehow, this simple statement has echoed through my adult days. Perhaps because understanding its meaning has eluded me. Perhaps because its meaning is many. Whatever the reason, the personal is political and the political is personal squats on my head, and the brain dormant beneath, like a big fat toad, the kind that eats small dogs in Darwin, and reminds me of my place here in humanity.

Ok, it was Lesbian Literature 4-something, taken half out of curiousity, half out of credit desperation. It seemed obvious why our gay writer/professor felt the political an inseparable part of being, just as it was equally obvious we too would accept this axiom as our (mostly) non-gay truth. The real truth though was that I didn’t have a clue what she was talking about. My late thirty-something self, however, might be on to something.

My adult political self is finally starting to make the connections that the “official” policies around me impact me, my family, my community, personally, even intimately. What my kids learn at school, the bus route on my street, the clothes I can buy, the food I eat, well, virtually everything in and around my life is what it is as a result of some political process. I know, I know, DUUUUUUHHH. Say what you will, but if the personal is political and vice versa, is the personal also professional? The political? This is my new conundrum.

I’ve always found it a bit creepy when my friends have thrust their professional lives into our friendship. Life insurance (sorry Gardy!), funeral arrangements (ditto Rob), and various schemes have crossed the personal threshold and made me squirm. Now, however, my personal, political, and professional interests seem to meld into each other, blurring the categorical boundaries to which I had once confined them.

I find myself showing my newest products to my friends, happy to pitch to them if necessary. My office doubles as my kids’ playroom. I’m reaching out to ex-boyfriends for marketing advice. I need to actually like my business acquaintances. I care whether where I shop contributes or detracts from the world. My own business will soon start wearing my heart on its sleeve. Is this professional? I’m not sure and I don’t care. Although I’ve been calling it a growing global consciousness, it is probably just called growing up, and at 38 it’s about time. The great thing is that this new stew of all my selves is so warm and nourishing, it’s gotta be good. Gardy and Rob, you know my number.

You probably think this blog is about you

2008-04-06T17:19:00.000-07:00

I could see the judgment in her eyes; the sanctimonious smirk that is all too familiar in our west coast bastion of environmental fervour. Do you need a bag for your milk? The diapers? As if carrying 4 litres of milk by a tiny skinny handle is comfortable. And diapers? The package doesn’t even have a handle. Glance around the parking lot at any given midday moment and you’ll see a mom barely holding on to her toddler as a 10-pound rectangular block of plastic-wrapped poop catchers slides out from under her arm, along her leg, and inevitably to the ground. Yes, I do need a bag. Thanks so much.

I want to say: “I have some funky disease that is eroding the bones in my wrist, which, therefore, makes it difficult for me to grasp anything. Really. Especially your attitude.”
Of course that would be uncalled for. Fun, but uncalled for. What does she know…or care? She’s been trained to ask this question. To be environmentally and cost-conscious. I get it.

Each time this same dialogue takes place (twice a week, at my local Thrifty’s), I recall a painful and conscience-raising conversation I had two years ago with a wonderful gal pal from my high school days. A girl who could smile anybody’s pants off and whose SUV was run over by a dump truck. While she was driving it.

Two years in, having overcome paraplegia, morphine necessity, and a life that sucks ‘cause you’re raising two small children but you can’t raise your arm, my sweet dear friend finally made it to the grocery store one day (whether or not it was a Thrifty’s is unknown to my ironic self). The point is: she drove herself, she parked her car, she planted the wheat (kidding), she took the deepest of breaths, and then she launched herself, unaided, from the driver’s seat to the pavement, from the parking spot to the crosswalk, across which she carefully and painstakingly guided herself.

Some bastard honked. Actually honked. And ever-so-eloquently suggested she quicken her pace. Well, let’s pretend he was so polite and I’m sure I don’t need to tell you I cried when she told me this story. Her lesson from this experience, after she picked her sobbing self up from the produce floor at which she eventually arrived (and because she really needed another lesson, along with her lettuce) was, from that moment forward, to CARRY A CANE. She told me that she believed people would then recognize her challenges and, therefore, honour and respect them. In other words, not honk when she slowly crossed the street, or perhaps, egads, ask her if she needed help. The possibilities!

Yes, well, if my newly-casted arm is anything to go by, props seem to be more of a conversation piece than a deterrent to impatient co-existers. Hey, we’re all Oprah here. We’ve all got problems. Great story; wanna hear mine? But we’re not all O; I know a whole pile of people who keep their very painful problems to themselves. It is not because they’re emotionally stunted or repressed or well, incapacitated or anything. Stoically, sadly, they are just getting on with it. “It”: the pain and the struggle of mild to extreme physical injury and breakdown, from paralysis to blindness to depression, the invisible majority rules.

My mother-in-law is still suffering from shingles and at times can’t bear the feeling of cloth on her skin. My father-in-law can’t go out in strong winds because of a chronic and excruciating eye condition. You will NEVER hear either of them speak of their struggles. I have neighbours and friends who battle fibromyalgia, chronic and debilitating back pain, migraines, cancer, planter fasciitis, partial blindness, badly-behaved children, bad periods, and wayward husbands and, I swear, you could never tell by looking at them or even by engaging in everyday conversation with them.

Yet, however silently stoic and apparently carefree these wonderful, but not perfect, people may be, there are little clues to their pain. An automatic wince. A squint. A slowness. A sadness. A detachment. Perhaps something even less detectable, an avoidance of an activity or a minor motion, an avoidance of something that others do often, of something others take for granted. Surely without us becoming a world of moaners and public confessors, we can still sense when a fellow human is struggling in some way, be it physical or otherwise.

My fear is not the already horrible thought that we have become so completely self-
involved and de-sensitized via the O confessional that we don’t bother showing empathy for our fellow human sufferers, nor is it that marginally worse consideration that, well, frankly my dear, we don’t give a damn. The lead pit in the bottom of my stomach is the notion that we do not even consider that someone is troubled in a way that might may him or her less quick off the ball, less predictable, less convenient for us and our individual and “vital” schedules. No, some of us actually believe that it is a personal slight, that this other being is deliberately trying to delay us, annoy us, spite us. This is the worst conceit of all: choosing to believe that a 30-something woman limping across the road is trying to make us late for work and pushing aside the possibility that she might be taking the first and painful step to a new, scary future. Sometimes, it’s just not about you.

Bono The Beauty Queen

2007-09-04T21:38:00.001-07:00

Much to the dismay of modern and old-fashioned feminists everywhere (ditto fatwa-minded Nigerians), the beauty pageant is alive and well. Sure, it is sometimes called Ms. America and sometimes even disguised in Survivor loincloths. But don’t kid yourself kid, there is still fully-blown superficiality in them thar hills. Yet, inevitably tucked between the bikini walks and talent shows still exists the speech, sometimes referred to as the “community service platform” but really it is the pledge: to bring about world peace; to find a cure for AIDS, for cancer, for…obesity; to end discrimination, and so on. But usually, and more earnestly, is it simply to eliminate world hunger. Or to, as it is known in music circles, feeeeeed theeeee woooorld. Let them know it’s Christmas time.

The trick with the pageant platform, as in life (dinner table chatter: tragic what’s been happening in _________; doesn’t make sense in this day and age; pass the salt please) is that it is that first paving stone, one heap of asphalt, on the road to hell. Because Miss Vermont, or Miss New Brunswick, for that matter, is no closer to feeding the world than my dinner companions and I are, her good intentions are worse than apathy. And just ask six million Jews about apathy. Or roughly one million Rwandans. Or the Sudanese. Or poor people, anywhere. Or…oh, geez. Pass the salt.

Isn’t it funny how apathy seems such a sophisticated, complex word? Actually apathy is commonly defined as “emotional indifference” or “lack of interest or concern” (sociopath, in the briefest of definitions, refers to “individuals with little regard for the feeling or welfare of others...yikes, that’s tight). Therefore, technically, our dinner conversations are a moral loophole, and it seems that my little guilt burst is about inaction, not apathy. Yet and yet, how to quantify interest and concern in the parameters of a spoken sentence? Do-gooder. Now that’s a clean, straight-as-Stephen Harper word. No debate as to its meaning (and it is just your imagination that it is uttered on the edge of a snarl).

Worse than apathy is even merely hinting that you are doing some pro-active to solve the world’s problems. Why? ‘Cause if you say you are busy building communities and trucking grain to sustainable markets than I get to…well, be apathetic. Of course Miss Kentucky is not packing rice and petitioning corporations and aid groups to reconsider their food drops, so actually nothing is getting done. This is why Bono should be Miss America or Miss U.K.. Heck, he should have one big fat tiara on his head and some lovely long stems in his arms. And while we’re handing out tiaras, I fancy Jamie Oliver as Bono’s runner-up. As Doug Saunders reminds us, the “dirt-eating and nothing-eating poor” are sometimes no further than down your block. Oliver rolls up his sleeves, slaps flour with the lunch ladies and wham! bam! thousands of council children in Britain are eating better and the school lunch program gets a boost. Wow.

And it’s not just famous people: Joe Kloete, Paul Forman, Eugenia Muhayimana, Bob Geldof…oops, he is famous. Respectively, these do-gooders have rescued a young girl from a burning car, stood up to the Darfur regime while medically treating victims of various war-horrors, and become the loving mother of a ten-year old son, a boy who may or may not resemble his Hutu rapist father, un enfant de mauvais souvenir. Do-good does not cover such love. Do-god more like. Sir Bob, well, he gets enough publicity.

You see, I have done nothing, big fat zero. Even, or especially, writing about apathy is an exercise in self-flagellation that buys me more time in the do-nothing chair. I feel like Suess’ Bofa on the Sofa, but at least he acted as if he didn’t care. Remember that road to hell. My private embarrassment is that I would rather be able to plead ignorance than apathy. I could protest that Bono has the resources and the connections. Because, naturally, a rock star understands the economics of regionalized starvation and the logistics of humanitarian aid. No, it’s simply this: I am lame and Bono and Jamie, well, they are not. Watch out Miss Ireland; Bono puts his mouth where his bikini is… or something like that.

From New Orleans to Vancouver’s East End, all news is bad news these days as we head into the North American season of cold and wanting. The food drives begin some time around the candy-collecting time of All Hallow’s Eve. The fallacy being, of course, that people are hungrier ‘round Christmas than say……today. This year, I do, I really do, want to feed the world, but I am ignorant. I don’t know where to start. And as soon as the rest of those do-gooders call it quits, I’ll be off the sofa. Right with the rest of you lot.

O Canada

2007-09-04T21:28:00.000-07:00

The last time I sang our national anthem was on a July long weekend in Kamloops two years ago. Shy in a crowd of many, my voiced cracked in a half-hearted attempt to appear patriotic and, though now thirty-four, I know I reminded myself to sing the new words, sans “God”, as we has been instructed sometime around grade four. My son sang gleefully beside me, slipping into the French version when the English words escaped him, the French lyrics more forceful, prideful: “…des plus brillants exploits….” The great Canadian immersion project.

When I entered the gymnasium of the local elementary school this past May 17th, I recalled all of the gyms of my school years and the frequent “assemblies” which always began with a scramble to sit near my friends and then a hush as we stood for, in the early years, God Save The Queen, and then, of course, O Canada. My vocal performance then was no different from that of today, struggling with the tricky balance of appearing “cool” in front of my friends but feeling in my gut it would be wrong not to sing (after all, Canadians young and old are embarrassed by any overt American-style jingoism…aren’t they? or perhaps it is what Adrienne Clarkson calls our “pathological modesty”). In truth, butterflies would tickle my stomach and I would feel something incredibly like pride as the anthem built momentum. I don’t doubt that both the cool and the uncool felt that same glow.

So, as I sidled up to an election volunteer in my son’s school gym that Tuesday, I felt the familiar thrill of my childhood anthemism. Of course, I can attribute the lump in my throat to the super-polished wood floors, the stale smell of sweat, or the stage and its makeshift curtains over which hung the red and white maple leaf. And yet, if I dig deep, I know that it’s because each of these are successfully symbolic, they make me believe, in the joy of childhood, in the satisfaction of education , in Canada, in the whole damn reason I was standing there that afternoon, in democracy.

I don’t normally think of myself or my family as very politicized, yet my 9- year old son wants to be Prime Minister and giggles at the Globe’s Heather Mallick and her term of dislike for our southern neighbour’s leader (or “neighbor” if you wish): “Bushlet”. My husband has started to refer to me as the “pop-up head” as I interject every news item on the radio with my invariably partially-informed, yet passionate, views on world affairs (“I can’t believe the CBC would broadcast comments like ‘dipstick’ “; “Newsweek shouldn’t have to apologize for publishing misinformation; for god’s sake, Bush went to war on misinformation!! And so on…) When my mother-in-law suggested I was wasting my vote if I voted for a certain environmentally-concerned provincial party, I argued that the heart of democracy was not strategic voting and that her vote could be considered trash too if she voted by default for the likely winner, rather than for the party that most closely represented her values. My friends and I discuss the fallacy of a true democracy in a two-party race and a decreasing voter turnout. Perhaps I am more politicized than I realized.

Of course, it was just a provincial election and (yes, Ottawa and Quebec) JUST a wacky B.C. election at that, but what I realized that afternoon as I hovered over my ballot (YES! STV) and my stomach did flip-flops was that O Canada and Gordon Campbell were the same butterfly. I realized that, with the possible exception of Stephen Harper, I can trust that Canadian politicians, regardless of the waxing and waning of scandals and budgets, will forever uphold democracy, will forever cherish my right to vote and it is up to me to stand on guard, protégera nos foyers et nos droits, by submitting my ballot. If democracy is a sham it is only because a country’s citizens (or a U.S.-sponsored coup d'état) make it one. Sure, I am sometimes as embarrassed by our politicians as I am singing aloud but, fortunately, I can hide behind the cardboard divider. Something as simple as a school auditorium or as seemingly complex as a provincial election nudges the word “free” from my heart to my lips. Free. As in True North. As in Strong and. Sentimentality perhaps, simple-mindedness even, but just try to sing O Canada and not feel funny inside. Peculiar and ha ha at once.

I used to be envious of the determination and passion of voters in countries where democracy is in its infancy, where, sometimes, to vote could mean to die. Canadians no longer value this freedom, I would tell myself. I saw no trace of that lazy monster voter apathy last month on the city roads awash with campaign posters. When I stopped for milk at 7:30 p.m., the clerk asked me to hurry, so she could make it to a polling station before it closed at 8. At my polling station, an elderly man struggled with his cane up the path; he looked determined. He looked proud. I’ll bet he had butterflies.

X Canada
X Democracy

(as published in Monday Magazine, July 2005)

The Dead Lamp Collection

2007-06-23T14:31:00.001-07:00

I call it my dead lamp collection. A corner of my basement, a darkened hallway, behind the bookshelf, all repositories of my wanton consumerism. This is where the cheap lamps lie, $12.99 from Costco, 10 bucks from the Stupidstore. New, plastic-wrapped, boxed, and functional…at least for awhile.

Now I mean this as a bit of a confession. A confession because my neighbourhood and my conscience are filled with ardent recyclers and greener than the grass types. And “a bit of” because I am not really certain how guilty I should feel. The social measure, the checks and balances, confuses me. It was for sale after all. And on sale. Aren’t I supposed to buy it? I need a lamp or two to light my living room. Here’s a lamp, next to the 100-pack of white gym socks, of course, where else would it be. $12.99. I need it, it needs me. Cha-ching.

The downside, as you may have guessed, is that they are cheap for a reason, they don’t live long. Duh, you may say. Yet, how often are you shocked when something recently purchased doesn’t perform, or gasps its dying breath 4000 days before you expected it to? Cheap or expensive, “I can’t believe it…what a piece of sh#%” is a common refrain. If it was an expensive piece of shit, you try to get your money back. If it was cheap, you grow a graveyard. But my growing graveyard of bargain illumination haunts me. What do I do with it all?

Landfill. Yup, that’s all I can do. My husband has replaced the metal fixture thingy at the top of an Ikea lamp more times than I can count. It’s dead. Put down the paddles. Mark the chart. And my blue box doesn’t take dead Ikea lamps. Or dead Costco lamps. No dead lamps period. Love thy basement.

My lightless, uncoffined skeletons make me want to redeem myself in other ways. I yearn to find cool clothes at my local twice-around shop. Trouble is: they charge more than the “out-sourced” clothing available at the mall. Plus they never have my size, and tiger-striped skirts were never my style. And not to make a long story long, but how much time is reasonable to spend searching for that fab previously-loved garment? 2? 3 hours? I do have a life you know.

One redemptive item, no kidding, is the gargantuan plastic play structure in my backyard. It is chunky purple and yellow plastic, with a slide and a steering wheel. My toddler loves it. It’s redeeming because a neighbour was giving it away…just left it!! At the bottom of the street. A “for free” sign nestled against it. And I scooped it, my 16-month old and I dragging it six houses uphill like cats that ate the canary, a big canary, a 200-pound canary. O.k., o.k., my husband came by in the car and hauled it home, but still. And there it towers, my testament to re-use, to what my grandma called a “hand-me-down”. Apparently, a long long time ago, there was something called “poverty”, or in some families “conservation”, in others “practicality”. During this magical time, consumer products were built to last and people responded accordingly: they passed items they no longer needed onto those who did require or want them, to family, to friends, to friends of friends. No basement graveyards. This is what my big hunk of plastic feels like, that magical time. Ha, you say. Not so, say I. Family making is community building and community building means sharesies.

There are of course many types of consumer mother or father to consider, but these two seem clear: that parent who must purchase the newest, trendiest, most-coveted toy, article of clothing, diaper, whatever-of-all. And, the one who freely gives and exchanges items of all sorts, however well-loved or unworn the item may have been. As a first-time mother 11 years ago, I know I was a member of the former. 11 years on and a new arrival, my views, my needs, my expectations, call them what you will are…well, open. To stuff. Your stuff. Pre-loved stuff. Old stuff. Good old stuff. Is there something in between a mom using a toy library and one using ToysRUs?

A trite eco-message this may seem but the trick is that we all want the best for our children, and for ourselves. The real trick is that the best may be a hand-me-down, not a shiny new penny. Or a shiny new $12.99 something. Even in my green green neighbourhood, the mothers are of moderate to high-income and have moderate to high consumer needs and expectations, according to the social measure of course. And as soon as the social measure is a social-conscience measure, shopping and not shopping may get easier.

My dead lamp collection is my dawning consumer-conscience. Their sad, skinny silhouettes in the half-lit cellar are constant reminders of my lack of common sense and short-sightedness. So, I propose my own one-tonne challenge, one Rick Mercer never spewed: Buy less crap. And covet the ass thy neighbour no longer wants. Or something like that.

Club Rest Stop

2007-06-23T14:28:00.000-07:00

As a child I feared the rest stop. It was dark, or, in the day, desolate. Dirty toilets and a lone picnic table. The rest stop seemed a last resort, so to speak, a place for people who had nowhere else to stop. We, well, we always had a place to stop: the end of our journey, be it Vancouver, or Terrace, or Prince George, damn, sometimes Billy’s Puddle. There was no resting and no stopping. Mom and I, we were on a road trip, minus the trip, just a whole lot of road and then the end.

It was the 70’s and my mom was the only single mom I knew. Somehow our road trips connect to this. We were on the fringe and on the road. I was the only 7-year old I knew that belted out Jackson Browne by heart (and the squeaky voice at the end of “Stay” was my all- time favorite belting out moment). I know more songs by The Little River Band than any 30-something should know, or confess to. I’m not really certain now why we were ever on any road trips but there were two unspoken rules. Munchies and barreling through. Pee breaks only. Side of the road. Rest stops were for… well, not us.

So, 25 years later, I now find myself on the road with my little travelers, devastated that my 10-year old gets too car sick for munchies and by the fact that Baby Einstein squeaks from the portable dvd player in the back seat while I bemoan the absence of my mom’s devil-may-care tunes and timetable. The other fact is: my 15-month old needs a rest stop. Walking since he was 7 ½ months, our lil’ Tru is a man of action. Let no car seat stand in his way. Damn the torpedoes. These bowlegs are made for walking. Or something like that. In other words, if you don’t let me out of this car, I will flip my adorable lid. The Bramble rest stop was born. Literally.

Our first road trip en famille was to the Mile High Resort -- bearing no relation to the Mile High Club and, as it was a family reunion of sorts, such a connection would be most inappropriate and just plain weird-- near Logan Lake, in B.C.’s beautiful Interior. Somewhere around the Coquihalla summit, we see our wee one’s head start to spin around and, fearing projectile anything, we lurch into the nearest rest stop.

With trepidation, I unload the kids and survey the grounds. To my surprise, fellow travelers mill around chatting, bustle to the loos, gather around the food vending truck. It is almost festive. Nothing like the perceived rest stops of my childhood. Not dirty. Not desolate. No sagebrush lolling about rusted machines in the sand. No men in trench coats with bare knees. This was no Kalifornia. We make our own runs to the toilet, scrape change together for ice cream and poke at the leftover snow ‘round the picnic tables. Best of all: lil’ Tru stretches and stretches and stretches his legs. We can face the road again.

After the 3-day craziness of our Irish-Scots clan celebration—much alcohol, a little fishing, and endless stories round the fire, all at each other’s expense of course -- we buckle up and head home, but this time we know where we were going first. No mad-hope-through-Hope-you-don’t-get-a-ticket dash to the ferry for us. Nope. We are headed for a rest stop. When we arrive, our chosen stop boasts picnic tables sheltered by rustling birches, a hot/cold vendor, a wood craftsman selling his wares, and most importantly, running room & a clean bathroom. The kids meet a dog and some Japanese tourists while snacking on fresh blueberries and hitting golf balls. It seems, well, kind of like a vacation. Here we rested. As we pull away to make whatever ferry will have us and let us return to our island paradise, I realize this rest stop probably hasn’t changed much in the 25 years I had avoided it, but I have, and I suddenly understand that the rest stop is a magical place of rest and refuge when you need it and just a blue sign on the highway when you don’t. I know it sees its share of desolate moments as it does festive ones and the sign outside the bathroom entrance reminds me of this and of the many empty miles in our country far and wide: Keep this bathroom clean: you may be the next person to use it.

Oh, won’t you staaaaaaay just a little bit longer please please please stay just a little more. Hey hey hey.

(As published in Monday Magazine, August 2006)

Brand FOX

2007-06-23T14:25:00.000-07:00

A month or so ago, my ten-year old and I were perusing the shelves of a local bookstore in search of a Winston Churchill biography. My son idolizes and idealizes the great War Prime Minister for reasons both understood and unfathomable to me. When I was ten, my Ken doll was hot and feathered hair was my one goal. However, support him I do, in all his frivolous schemes. So there we were, thumbing through lives of the rich or famous when a lovely photo-biography of Terry Fox caught our attention.

Of course, we’d both scraped pledges in the annual school runs; even at his tender age, my son has participated in no less than 5 Marathons of Hope. My own September primary school memories are grazed with a diaphanous image of “our” tousled-hair Terry and his endearing gait. Now, in our hands, was a touching, and in the way only photographs can be, painfully honest record of Terry’s life and achievements (I say and write “Terry” here as most Canadians do, as if he is a member of our own families, and, mistakenly, as if I knew him, knew his struggle, knew his heart).

I lie. The biography was not really honest or truly painful; it was no more honest than my knowledge of Terry is first-hand. It presented images of people and items from Terry’s short life and worthy dream: family barbeques, running shorts, the sock. In a small voice squeezed through the pinhole my airpipe had become, I declared to my son that it was a beautiful book about a beautiful and courageous young man. And it was and it is. Yet it is dishonest in that, however poignant, the clean images are as far removed from the stench of terminal illness as the glorious swath of school children streaming down the street each mid-September morning “marathon” are.

Within a few minutes of reading some perturbing reports of death and anarchy after Katrina and her ferocious waves tore through the bowl of a city known as New Orleans, I found myself humming a particular Hip tune. You know the one. I wondered to myself if it was getting some renewed airplay in light of events down south. I read several days later, to my indignation, that, in order to show sensitivity to those who have suffered great loss in New Orleans, “New Orleans is Sinking” by the Tragically Hip had been pulled from some radio playlists. First of all, I’m fairly certain it’s a clever metaphor of a song. Second, since when do the media decline to play or print stories that may be insensitive? Did no one see the photographs of floating bodies or catch the sensational headlines: “Katrina survivors screaming for help”, “All I found was a shoe”? Third, it’s true. New Orleans is sinking. Was and is. Besides, when your heart is broken, you don’t sing love songs, you sing down and nasty saaaaaaaaaaaad songs. With broken homes, hearts, souls and bodies, maybe that’s just what some New Orleanians want to sing and maybe, just maybe, they don’t wanna swim either. Gord and the guys just got too darned close to the truth, the honesty of the stench.

So here it is: we’ve wrapped up Terry in a beautiful branded box. This true hero: Brand Fox. A man who believed his struggle to raise awareness and hump his broken body across Canada paled in significance to the realities of the cancer ward.

A man whose name may be behind Adidas' The Terry Fox Limited Edition Replica Shoe, but who, in the words of Ken McQueen, was "even uncomfortable with the trademark three stripes on his running shoes".

Middle-class North America could use some down and nasty to desensitize their delicate souls just as it would behoove them to remember that fresh-faced youngsters are not the face of a devasting disease. They are symbols of Hope.

Though I never knew our Terry, he is remembered for igniting Hope but also for not wanting people to wander too far from the broken hearts and bodies. I think that’s what concerned him about corporate involvement and potential exploitation. The point is to raise awareness, to make the lucky hear and help those much less so, not to create a pretty distraction. I’m guessing Terry would have liked a little more Hip and a little less brand. I never knew our Terry, but I sure wish I had.

TRY, TRY AGAIN

2007-06-23T14:17:00.000-07:00

The other night, my husband and I had a whopper of a fight. Our worst by far, and even in our few years together, that is saying quite a bit. I had lain awake in the wee hours of the morning piecing together the straw that would break not only the camel’s back, but his mother’s as well. You see, our beautiful brown-eyed six-month old has been sharing my breasts (not too much sharing really) and our marital bed for the last, well, six months. In the beginning, he was quite a bit smaller and frankly, a bit of a novelty. Little coochie coo pudgy pookanoo sucking and snuggling. Yes, well, he’s all that and more now; twelve pounds more to be exact. And, in addition to sucking and snuggling, he’s snoring and grunting and squirming and kicking. Kill Bill-Jackie Chan-type kicking. Did I mention the breastfeeding? So, there I was, in those wee hours, cursing my lot, and my back, as I flipped back from one side to the other to accommodate my little angel. Finally, I sat up and bellowed “I just can’t f&#@*en take this anymore!!!!!”

And that’s when my husband and I decided to Ferberize.

No, it’s not a Jane Fonda routine and what I don’t know about “the Ferber method” could fill a book (Richard Ferber’s Solve Your Child’s Sleep Problems probably) but my basic grasp of the concept is that parents should let their child “cry it out” during nighttime wakings, periodically checking and comforting the child, but NOT picking him or her up! The first night we tried it, our little pudgy poo cried for approximately 25 minutes and then went off to la la land. Phew. The next night was the night hubbie and I said some pretty mean stuff to each other, as babe screamed, every hour, on the hour.

I love my husband more than anything. I mean, don’t make me choose between him and my two sons if there is a bus bearing down on them, but I love him A LOT. Why did we spew venom at each other? First, that Ferber stuff is hard, harder than watching Troy, and hard stuff requires one make an effort. Not swearing at your spouse requires work. I once told a friend of mine that when I got grumpy with my ten- or forty-year-old it was emotional laziness on my part; it was simply me not mustering the energy to think of a better approach or to take a deep breath. I just react; I react because it’s easy. She responded that that was much too harsh an assessment, that we are doing our best, that we’re all trying.

Try is one of those great duplicitous words of the English lexicon. It can be both, or either, “to make an effort to do something that may be difficult” or “to experiment with an action that might be a solution to your problem”. We often use it after we have failed to do that difficult thing or find the fix, as in: I tried not to pick him up while he was bawling his eyes out and I tried burying my head in the pillow to muffle his screams. The progressive form often elicits a snide quip: I am trying!...Yes, you certainly are (trying my patience, that is) Trying not only sounds like tiring, it looks like it. Invariably, at the end of every failure, not only are we sick and tired, we always say we tried. At least the British give it a go.

Certain self-help gurus and “life coaches” say there is no try, only do. But try shouldn’t be relegated to the losers’ corner. The lie of try is the problem. Bulletin: we are not really trying. Most of the time we are making as little effort as possible. I am not so lame that most everything I try I fail at. I am either making a conscious effort to stop trying or I didn’t really try in the first place. Take my man Ferber. I wasn’t so married to his theory to begin with. Did I try? Not so much. Did I fail? No, I just stopped trying. If I’m truly honest with myself, I swore at my husband because I was tired, but not because I tried to do something different, like laugh, or eat a bowl of ice cream. Ditto with my parenting shortcomings. I need to exert myself. Do you remember hearing that it requires more muscles to frown than smile? Well, apparently, that is not strictly true. Some now say it takes 12 muscles to smile, 11 to frown. Splitting hairs perhaps, but energy is not only summoned by your muscles. Just try to smile next time you are really pissed off (and not an insincere one…although a fake smile costs you only two puny muscles). The mental energy required to switch tracks will exhaust you.

I often complain that my fellow joggers never smile or wave back at me. My husband suggested that perhaps they’re real runners and their energy is otherwise directed to the physical task at hand, whereas I’m just a weekend Pollyanna with a goofy gait and grin. Not so. I run hard; I push my limits every run. I really exert myself. I try hard. Raising my hand, smiling, and grunting good morning almost kills me, but it seems an important gesture. It should almost kill me to be kinder to my loved ones when everything goes pear-shaped too.

Crying babies are hard to take. Raising a family can be very trying. Nobody’s perfect, but I sure try.