Can You Hear Me Now?

Life is pretty much back to good ‘ol normal these days. It appears my right side refuses to get any stronger and I may simply have to live with it just laying there more useless than ever, which makes signing Visa slips rather difficult this time of year. Hmph.

I went back to work on Thursday at the pub. Christine gave me permission to not bake shortbread cookies this year (she is the one person who has been on me for those more than anyone else the past 10+ years, my biggest fan!) I appreciate the gesture and don’t expect to bake this year, for the first time in forever. My mom is coming over this weekend and she may help me do a bit, but there are so many other things I need help with right now (MY CLOSETS! GOOD LORD!) I’m not so sure baking will take priority. There are these places called “stores” that sell cookies and things, they’re already made and packaged and everything!!

My friend Shawna is in town from Winnipeg. Friday afternoon we went to Chinook Centre to have a late lunch at Moxie’s and do a bit of Christmas shopping. It wasn’t nearly the mad house I expected. I was really disappointed in Old Navy though… I went in looking for cheap flannel pajama bottoms and all they had were for $24.50! I picked up one pair that I thought were really cute anyway, all pink and fleecy with reindeer on them and a pink satin ribbon. We were at the till waiting to pay for our stuff when I threw them back at Shawna and said “ARGH!! I don’t need this!!!” I think I did that a couple times that day, last minute wake-up calls. I am trying to cut back on the impulse shopping. Aside from the MAC counter, I did a pretty good job.

Not happy with the goods we saw at Old Navy (except we each bought a comfy half-zip sweater thingy), we headed back to my place where I traded in my wheelchair for my scooter (more independence) and headed over to my smaller, less fancy mall where they have things like Payless Shoes and Wal-Mart. I think it was at about 9:15 that I left Shawna to fend for herself at Wal-Mart because I was too tired to do anymore!

Then I came home and went online and looked at my bank balance and almost threw up. Oops. On the positive side though, I am almost done my Christmas shopping.

Saturday I went with my mom and Bob to our friends Andrea and Roger’s Christmas open house. There was so much food. There usually is at these kinds of things, but Andrea really goes all out. I think she bought out a bakery. There were boxes and boxes of pies, always a fresh one coming out of the oven (just like it is in Heaven!!), and by the time we left there were still many unopened pie boxes! Andrea has a really fun house and loves to shop for fun and funky things. They’re the ones with the juke box and pinball machines. On this day the Bailey’s was being served from an old fashioned silver and glass gas pump.

We stayed for a few hours, and as we were leaving I was standing at the door by this elderly women who commented to me “oh, you have a cane too”. Andrea started telling her this grand story about my big accident while luge sledding and how I went flying off the board and broke my hip and just have never been the same since (*shaking head sorrowfully*) complete with sound effects, actions and everything. The poor woman believed every word. It’s so much more exciting than the truth, I think I may use that from now on. But I may add “training for the Olympics” in there somewhere.

Sunday was a stay in and rest day. The weather was GORGEOUS though, so windows and curtains were wide open to let that sun in. Shawna popped by for a short visit and I got her to wrap a couple Christmas presents for me. In the evening I watched “Crash” and it was sooooo good.

Today I am bumming around until such time Shawna and I meet up with another friend for coffee then head over to the Olive Garden for dinner with Michelle. I’ve got a Christmas party there with some clients an hour later so we requested tables close together. I’ll order my food over with my clients, because then it is free. Heh. Russ and Lisa should be popping by later too, so it will be really nice to see everyone, it has been a long time!

‘Tis the season once again. My bathroom scale has been put away until the new year, I do NOT want to know.

Tonight on the news they did a segement on shopping and how it can become a real addiction, as it has a chemical affect: shopping increases the levels of dopamine in your brain. They sort of left it at that. Allow me to take it one step further.

Dopamine is very important - it helps transmit messages to the brain that initiate and control your movement and balance. When nerve cells stop producing dopamine, Parkinson’s Disease sets in.

My conclusion: Shopping prevents Parkinson’s Disease.

This is my last day of at home bored-out-of-my-skull rest for a bit. I have caught up on all my email!! I wish I could say the same about organizing closets, Christmas preparation, my messy office, and all the other things I need to do one of these days, but I guess those don’t fall into the “rest” category. Tomorrow I go back to work and life begins again. My housekeeper comes this afternoon, so I may actually get my office in shape… I usually do that while she is out there doing other stuff. Someone cleaning in my general vicinity usually inspires me to do the same.

Ohhh I never told you, I saw a mouse in here a couple weeks ago. I was lying in bed facing my closet, and I saw something moving around at my closet door, then suddenly a little mouse scurried from my closet and out of my bedroom. I was a little shocked, I never expected to see a mouse in here! My first reaction was to call my mom (because I don’t have a boyfriend). My Stepdad answered. He told me to put (scented) Bounce sheets around the apartment (it worked like a charm to keep the ants away all summer after I had a big incident in my kitchen and office with those creatures). Then my mom said not to worry, it’s totally normal, I’m in a main floor apartment, they just want to come in from the cold, and they can squeeze in anywhere. I lived with mice in Toronto, in fact I had a place where I caught, on average, two mice/day and countless cockroaches and slept with a can of Raid™ in my hand, but honey, those days are OVER.

This mouse, from the brief second I saw of it, didn’t look like a Tough Downtown Toronto Mouse anyway. He appeared to be a Cute Little Suburban Calgary Mouse. Cute enough that I didn’t want to kill it, but not so cute that I’d want it crawling into my bed at night.

Anyway, I did call my landlord to send maintenance over, which they said wouldn’t be until probably Monday (it was a Saturday) and set about tossing sheets of Bounce on the floor by all the closet doors, heating vents and garbage bin. I never saw any sign of the mouse again, so I cancelled my maintenance call. I haven’t seen or heard a thing since. I guess he was just passing through.

Lisa? Next time you buy chocolate, wrap it in sheets of Bounce before you put it in your drawer!!

This was my weekend:

And I’m still no further along. It’s taking a long time to bounce back from this waste-of-a-surgery, but I promise when I do you won’t see an “I’M BACK!” entry because I’m tired of writing those just to turn around and feel like this a few days later!!!

Okay, if everything happens for a reason, which I firmly believe, I’ve got some figuring out to do. I hope the reason for this one shows itself soon! (Maybe the cute paramedic is gonna call?! Ahahahahahaha)

This is a doozy. WHAT a day I had yesterday.

I arrived at the hospital at 10:00 a.m. and was admitted to Day Surgery. After getting routine tests and an IV inserted, a nurse talked to me about what was going to happen that day.

I was told that I’d go into the OR by 1:00, a few doctors and the anesthesiologist would talk to me, I’d go under a general anesthetic, have the laproscopic tubal ligation, then wake up in recovery. Depending on how long it took me to wake up and stuff, I would be back in her care within half an hour after surgery. About an hour after that, they would try to get me up to go to the bathroom. If I am able to go, then they will know I’m okay and will be ready to go home within a couple hours. If I’m not able to pee, they will keep me until I can. (LIARS!)

So, all goes as planned and I woke up in recovery. I was groggy, so I wasn’t sure what I heard was real as a nurse leaned over to tell me, “so, you know, they couldn’t do it. Once they went in, there was too much scar tissue (from a surgery I had 10 years ago) so they couldn’t reach your tubes”. Wha?? Soon my surgeon came over and confirmed what the nurse said. Surgery unsuccessful. He could have gone in, cut me open and done a full surgery to clip my tubes, but since that would mean a couple days in the hospital and weeks of recovery, he figured he should check with me first. Yeah, thanks. And no thanks. I asked him, considering there is so much scar tissue, aren’t I infertile anyway? He said probably, but there is no way to know for sure. Sigh. We agreed to meet in a couple weeks and discuss my options. Read the rest of this entry �