Sunday Smatterings

We had a very successful meeting with our MHA (Member of our provincial parliament and also a minister) on Thursday. We addressed all topics that were of concern, the poverty class of seniors, particularly women, the lack of adequate medical care, free transit, etc. He was very receptive and will present all our concerns to cabinet on November 4th. He is highly personable and not a puppet speaker and seemed to have researched many of our issues prior to the meeting. Onward the battle. Here is shot from our meeting:

I've had a really marvellous health day today, they are so rare I write about them when they happen. I had to do a lot of walking (sans cane) and truly as I sit down to write this just before midnight on Saturday, my body feels so good I want to take it out and party somewhere, but I can't. I had a successful day in so many ways and found I was enraptured with the fog outside the window first thing, look at the blaze of fall colour breaking through the grey!

I had one of those days where I read for a while, I knitted for a while, a friend dropped in for a while, and I chatted with an old activist in the laundry room. She is old enough to be my mother. Seriously. She is 94 and wields a large stick and her political analysis is right on the money. She was at our meeting with the minister. She said her life was marvelous as she had no children to clutter up her brain. I had to laugh. I had an aunt so very like her.

I decided to go to my doctor and get a certificate to enable me to get an emotional support animal. I have missed my furry companion, Ansa, so much - I know it's been three years but some losses do not fade. That is horsewallop. As there are no pets allowed in this building apparently an ESA supersedes these regulations and I can toddle everywhere with him/her. So wish me luck on this. We would be good for each other. Test case coming up.

I'm kinda thinking (s)he would look like this (My niece's treasure)

30 Days - Day 22

Don't I wish I could afford this!

Ansa fell down the stairs yesterday. All of it. She's done partial slidings before, both forwards and backwards. This time she slipped on the very top step and then slithered all the way down. She limped for a while but was up for a 2k walk later on in the day. Me? Upset? You don't know the half of it.

I thought: yeah, that's it. I blocked off the stairs as she runs up and down it a lot during the day. She has to supervise all my doings in the upper floor because of the secret door. You know, the one hidden behind the bath that allows me an escape to a wonderful dogless existence for all eternity if she's not watching me carefully.

So last night I dreaded going to bed thinking: I can't bear crying, if she cries, I'll try and carry her upstairs or sleep on the couch downstairs. But she didn't cry. She paced. And paced. And paced, her paws clicking on the wood floors. I left all the doors open (thank you Spring!)but didn't call down to her as we would both break down.

This morning I awoke to her pacing and a very lackadaisical greeting, completely unlike her. I get it. She thinks she's being punished. I don't know how long it'll be until she gets used to this new order of business.

I wish she'd understand it's for her own safety, the poor wee darling.

Flashing Lights

Where Ansa is on our driveway became covered in snow a few days later so the ice underneath was not visible.

Yup. Many of those lights to write about.

(1) Flashing lights: A really, really bad fall on the ice resulting in the stars and moon in front of my eyes. Short term memory loss. Swellings on lower spine. Like the humps of a camel. Pain. Oh pain. Increased blood pressure.

(2) Flashing lights: Emblazoned on neon inside the skull - call Daughter.

(3) Flashing lights: Ambulance pulls into driveway, they check my swellings, stretcher me, put me into ambulance. Two lovely, lovely women.

(4) Flashing lights: they pull the ambulance over periodically to check my vitals, BP, sugars. I am IV'd.

(5) Flashing lights: inside hospital, overhead, on probing lights into eyes, ears. They have called ahead I am given a room in spite of other sick souls in corridor.

(6) Flashing lights: I am moved to a long steel table and my whole spine xrayed. "Sorry," says Blaine the technician,"This is very painful." "Not at all," I say back to his belly laugh, "I've given birth twice."

(7) Flashing lights: As I am released four hours later: no bones broken, tissues bruised and swollen but unbloodied. Strong bones, my doctor says, really, really strong bones. A light of overwhelming gratitude fills me. This could have been catastrophic and it wasn't.

Yeah, I hurt. Yeah, I walk like I'm 105 and I don't recognise the purple and pink and black swollen mass all over my behind and down my thighs. And I'm told this will worsen before it gets better. And I'm not sleeping well as I keep waking with pain.

BUT, so very many have it so much worse. So very much worse.

Thanks for all your kind thoughts and wishes out there. They mean so much.