The Torture Continues

So to get the result of my last ultrasound test, from last Wednesday, I have to wait another week and then go for an appointment at the hospital. Not only that but my regular doctor is away for a year and I will have a locum telling me the results.  Either there is something wrong with my results or this is an administrive procedure where they can't give me results by phone.

I am so exhausted by appointments and tests and waits and new aches and pains. I had a short break from this over the summer, where I snatched every opportunity to go swimming, despite the constant thunder shower warnings, to make myself feel better. But now I am back at it. 

I was so hoping to be done by now. To enjoy Friday, a day I have taken off before I start my new job on Monday. I was hoping to start my new job without this hanging over my head. But that is not to be. I will have to start my job distracted, immediately asking for half a day off. 

I can simply choose not to worry. But it is easier said than done. 

It just doesn't seem right that I have to wait so long when it know that my results are just sitting there. I just need time with a doctor. Yet what am I supposed to do? The medical system is doing what it is supposed to do and anxiety is not a good enough reason to do things a different way. 

May the Long Time Sun Shine Upon You

Today was our first mother-daughter yoga class.  Truth be told, I picked it as an introductory yoga class for me, since I was worried that a regular yoga class would be too hard for me.  I figured that I could manage a class that included 7 to 12 year olds.  Amrita isn't thrilled about mother-daughter yoga, but we've done it since she was a baby so it is kind of our thing.  And I thought it was so great for us to do the swimming together all summer, I wanted to keep doing something with her.

The magic of yoga worked.  It grounded me, made me less fearful. It made me feel as if I had had a massage - physical, psychological and spiritual.  One little yoga class, and I feel more in control again.  The magical power has always amazed me.  I must find a way to do it more.

And Amrita may not admit it, but she had a great time too!

May the Long Time Sun
Shine upon you
All love surround you
And the pure light within you
Guide your way on
Guide your way on

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T8eoEv1tnTU

Rainy September Saturday

It is Saturday and raining hard today.  I am having a hard time today.  My mind keeps going around and around, replaying the time just before my diagnosis and surgery.  Maybe it is because I am stressed, still waiting for my ultrasound results.  Maybe it is because we had our first swimming lessons back at Carleton today where I do the parent-swim, the kids have their lessons, and then we go to Stella Luna for waffles - the same pattern we had in the fall, leading up to me landing in the hospital.

Maybe for these reasons.  Maybe just because these bad memories will keep playing endlessly in my head until enough time has passed, until enough other memories replace them, until I feel safe again. 

I am trying to put behind me.  I am trying not to be so anxious about all my doctors' appointments and tests.  It is tiresome for my family and friends.  It is tiresome for me and my body to be stressed and anxious.  I try to forget.  I try to breathe.  Sometimes, it is easier.  When I am distracted and with my family and friends.  Other times, I am alone, and my mind keeps going there. 

I imagine it is normal though.  At least I suppose it is.  I don't have any points of comparison.  I have some role models, but they are ten years ahead of me.  I have to be the role model.  And I am trying.  Trying to rebuild my life.  By working and parenting and doing as much as I can.  But it isn't easy.  No one's life is easy.  Mine certainly isn't. 

I have to also remember that as much as I want to move on, and as much as those around me want me to as well, I can't do everything.  I still get tired.  I am still adjusting to be "back in the world" full time, and it hasn't been that long, and I am still going through lots of tests and appointments.  And sometimes I have to say "no", which is hard and go at my own pace.  When I don't, my body lets me know that I haven't.  And I have to step back and start again.

Maybe it is the pounding rain.  Maybe I will feel better when the sun comes out again.

It's the Fall

It's the fall & the unfallen apples hold their brightness a little longer into the blue air, holding the dream that they can be brighter.

The weather has definitely turned.  There is a chill in the air.  The skies are grey.  We may see an unseasonally warm day or two, but there is no mistake about the colder days and the longer nights.  We are heading into the fall.  Children are back to school.  The parks are deserted in the evenings.  There is homework and piano practice.  The pool is closed.


Fall can be beautiful.  If the days are bright and crisp.  If you have the right sweater.  If you go apple picking (which we did last Sunday) and hiking in the Gatineaus.  Apple picking turns into pumpkin picking, which turns into pies for Thanksgiving dinner.  Still a little colder and you can carve the pumpkins and put candles in them and leave them outside for Hallow'een.

Fall is beautiful. 

Except when it is just grey and cold.  And followed by winter.

Fall is the start of new things.  I will never forget the excitement I felt every fall starting school, especially university, arriving at the beautiful campus at Dalhousie University, some leaves already changing to red, yellow, and orange, the ivy clinging to the stone buildings, all the new students arriving, moving into the majestic Women's Residence. 

This fall, after many years, I will be starting something new.  A new job at Tax Policy.  Hardly a radical move, my Director told me when I said I was trying to experiment with my life a bit.  No, not radical.  If I could choose, I would quit my job and move to Paris to be a writer. 

Working at Tax Policy will not be like being a writer in Paris.  I think it will be a tough, hard slog.  My office will not have the beautiful, south-facing view I have now.  In fact, it won't have any window at all, though it will be bigger.  I will have to learn the Income Tax Act.  I will have a steep learning curve, and maybe it won't be as much fun as my current job.

But I've done my current job for so many years.  And learning Tax may not be as romantic as writing in Paris, but I think it will be a highlight of a career in public policy.  It will be doing in practice what I learned from those dusty public finance textbooks while sitting in my classrooms at Dalhousie.  This is what I studied for.  

It may not be the ideal time for me to go to Tax Policy.  When I am trying to recover.  When my concentration is low.  When I get more easily tired and distracted.  When they are just running an EX-01 competition in my current Division and there will in fact be openings.  Not the ideal time. 

But this is when the opportunity came - they had already waited for me a long time - so I couldn't say no.  And in other ways, it is a good time for me to start something new.  A new beginning.  Without the reminders of what was happening to me in January when I look at old e-mails to refresh my memory on files.

I've made my decision and I'm leaving. 

But before I do, a rough week lies ahead. My quarterly appointment with my specialist.  Physio for a shoulder injury.  (Really?)  Another ultrasound, which I don't know how I will get through because it was through an ultrasound that they found what they did last time.  I don't know how I will react to the test.  And how I will get through waiting for the results.  And how I will do this over and over again.  And how I will deal with the other aches and pains. 

Ativan?  No.  I've worked hard to get off of it.  And it hasn't been easy.  Trying to get through the insomnia and the intense bursts of anxiety.  I think - I hope - I've gotten through the worst of it and can't afford to go back to it.  I don't want to take it ever again and I hope I never have to.

I have to get through it without.

If I find myself drifting, I have to bring myself back to the present, to the unfallen apples that hold their brightness a little longer. 

Back to the fall.

New York Stories

We are back in Ottawa now.  Ottawa seems so quiet and small.  New York seems like a dream.  It is hard to believe that just a few hours ago we were in the busy bustle of such an incredible city. 

This morning, before leaving, we hit MoMA.  The kids really liked it, in fact more than the Museum of Natural History.  MoMA was light and airy filled with art that they knew.  The looked at the sculptures, picked out the instruments of the Three Musicians, and debated what can be considered art.  I was only sorry that we had not left more time for MoMA. 

Another original walk in New York was the High Line, a public park built on an historic freight rail line elevated above the streets on Manhattan’s West Side.  It gives you various views of the city and is filled with wild flowers and herbs.  My friend whose family is posted in NYC took us on the walk.  We got caught in a thunder and lightning rainstorm and had to wait under scaffolds for over an hour.  But it was fun because we had friends to chat with and the kids had friends to play with.  When the rain finally let up, we finished the walk and found ourselves having lunch in Chelsea Market.

Later that night, we went to see my friend's apartment.  It was really cool to see an actual Manhattan apartment and the amazing view she had from the 27th floor.  She invited Aveen and Amrita for dinner and insisted that Jaime and I go out for dinner alone.  She really wanted to do that for us, and it meant a lot to us that she wanted to do that for us.  (Thank you.)  And when else would we have dinner on Madison Avenue while the kids watched A Night at the Museum (after having just visited the Museum of Natural History).

Another place I was really curious about was Greenwich Village.  We took the subway to Madison Square and walked to Union Square.  From there, we went to Washington Square and wandered the narrow, curving, tree-lined streets of Greenwich Village with charming brownstones.  We found Amy's Bread, a sweet little sandwich and cake café, which was recommended through a personal note in a travel book I borrowed.  We had yummy and original sandwiches - peppery grilled cheese and tomato, a fancy, mini-tuna - and finished with cupcakes and lemon cake.  A few doors down was a bookstore with a lot of really beautiful books on architecture in Manhattan and Brooklyn. 

One night, we walked through Soho, browsing through the shops as we made our way to Little Italy.  Once there, we had dinner at Lobardie's, the first pizzeria in the US.  The server guided us through twists and turns and up the stairs into a backroom, from where we were sure we would never find our way back.  We ordered a pitcher of coke and the traditional, New York, thin crust pizza.  It was worth the long subway ride.

The cafes in New York surprised me.  With the exception of Starbucks, with which we Canadians are intimately familiar, when you order a coffee in New York, they add the milk for you.  I don't like that, because I have to put just the right amount of milk in and nobody can do that for me.  So I had to remember to always ask for milk on the side.  There is a reason why "on the side" was such a big thing for Sally in When Harry Met Sally.

New York is an amazing city, so busy, so big, just so.  Things that made our trip particularly special .... having friends there to give us the personal touch, having to make our way through an actual neighbourhood to buy groceries (Whole Foods on 97th) and do laundry (in NYC, you drop off your clothes and they wash and fold it for you), and the book we were reading (Walls Within Walls - we were even able to find the apartment building where the kids in the book lived). 

It is hard to believe that NYC is so close to Ottawa yet it is such a different world.  We are already talking about our next trip back there.  I would like to go in the Fall (maybe not this Fall), when Central Park will be full of colour and the weather cooler.  Next time, maybe we will stay in a hotel closer to downtown.  I can't wait to go back to MoMA and see another Broadway play, maybe go to a concert.  There is no end of things to do.