The sobering reality

Most people who know me will already know that this past summer my mom found she had breast cancer for the second time. The first time the whole process happened so quickly and with so little fanfare that it never really impacted me. Well this time is quite a bit different. Mom ended up having a double mastectomy in Septemer. The surgery went well, but we had a suscipion that this wasn't over. Today we sat with the oncologist and got the results of the further tests. The cancer spread to her liver. Thankfully it is treatable, but unfortunately not cureable. The treatment of course will be chemotherapy which is going to start in the next week or so. The oncologist suggested that realistically what will happen is that the treatment will put the cancer into remission for a year or 2 then it will likely start to progress again. He was hopeful that it could go into remission for a lot longer, but wanted to be realistic with us. Mom is actually in good spirits and the entire family is remaining "realistically" hopeful. She was worried that we were going to hear it is not treatable. So she is quite upbeat. She was actually more distressed by the news that Rita McNeil cancelled her tour of Alberta :-)

I had to go and open my mouth...

Yesterday at work I wasn't feeling well, but took a couple of Ibuprophen and felt much better. I even told my boss that I had not taken a sick day in over 3 years. Well today I ate my words. I woke up with a nasty sore throat. Deciding that swallowing my pride and staying home was better that try to grin and bare through the day. After sleeping for a good chunk of the day, now my teeth hurt. Which tells me the issue is a sinus infection. It sucks cause most of my body feels great, except my head. It hasn't reached the point where I want to pick up a drill put a few holes in my crainum to release the pressure, but that is likely still to come.

Is communication a lost skill among men?

I received a very wonderful compliment from a woman today. I was told that she found it refreshing how I communicate in a straight forward, honest, and clear manner. I find this wonderful because this is a trait I work hard on, so it nice to get positive reinforcement that something is actually getting through my thick skull!

However the comment that it was "refreshing" triggered a question in my mind. Has a large portion of the male gender lost the ability to communicate clearly, honestly and effectly with women? This is not the first time I have recieved this compliment, and often after the compliment has been given, I hear horror stories how men failed to communicate. So I wonder whether I am truly an exception, or whether there just a few men who are horrid communicators that are giving the entire gender a bad name? I throw the question into cyberspace as I am curious on other peoples thoughts on the subject.

I don't think that this is only a male problem, but I am less likely to say something stupid if I stick to comments on my own gender.

Thoughts on "one degree of separation" and the insane cost of window coverings!

As I wrote in my last post I chose to join the local curling club. Last monday was the first day and I did not know any one I was curling with. To my incredible surprise I am connected to two of the guys on my "rink/team" by one degree. One guy is the brother of the receptionist at work, and she was the one who got me connected with the right people so I could curl. The other guy is dear friend of my Aunt and Uncle and he actually rented my grandmother's house for a time. So although I never met these guys in my life before, we already had some connection. It was a bit surreal of the 56 guys curling I would end up with the only two that I have some sort outside connection with. In case you are wondering I didn't make a fool of myself curling as I expected. It did take a few ends to remember my technique, but it came eventually. Everyone there kept telling me that it was like riding a bike, "you never forget". Well for the first three ends it felt like I was riding a tricycle. :-)

Another new thing in my life is that I bought window coverings for two huge windows I have in my living room. I was planning to buy wood blinds, but for a number of reasons it wasn't practical to buy them at the present time. Because I was weighing out the pro's and con's my windows went uncovered for a period of 6 months. Finally being so tired of living in a fish bowl, and not liking my colleagues suggestion to hang a flag in the window, I decided I was going to buy some sort covering this weekend no matter what. So I look around found nothing I really liked, until I went to "linen's and things". For 2 windows $500 (plus tax), and these were some of cheapest drapes in the place! I nearly had a heart attack as I pulled out my credit card. It was at that moment when I realized that having 100" x 50" windows aren't as nice as I thought when I bought the house. Everytime I walk into my living room I remind myself how wonderful it is to have some privacy and how beautiful the drapes are, simply so I don't choke on how much I spent

The fear of ... Curling

After 13 years I dug out my curling shoes, and brush today. I start curling next monday. As I checking to see if everything was still useable, I got a bit nervous. I haven't curled since my first year of university, so as I put my shoes on to see if they still fit I began to worry that I may step out on to the ice and make a bit of a fool of myself. Thankfully I remembered that I make a fool of myself on a regular basis anywise, so this won't be anything out of the ordinary. :-)

Noooo.....

Wednesday evening I returned home after being gone for a day and a half and found my internet not working. At first I was okay with it, but began to have an increasing feeling of disconnect with the world. So when I got home from work I had the intense need to do whatever necessary to get it working again. The sense of relief I got, when after an hour of working with internet tech we managed to get internet working again, was incredible. It has made me realize a bit of the dependency I have formed with the internet for entertainment. Don't get me wrong I have a significant life in the "real world"; however I think the internet plays a bigger role than I had previously recognized. Not sure if that is a good or bad thing. Too busy surfing the net to think any further about it :-)

A surreal conversation

This evening I had one those conversations with my family I never really expected to have. This August we learned that my mother had breast cancer for the second time. She since underwent surgery and has received both potentially good and potentially bad news, and we are waiting on some tests to find out the prognosis. My mother was a nurse so we as a family have been able to remain "realistically" optimistic. We are well aware that it could be really bad, but are going to try and not worry until we know for sure. Well tonight I was visiting my family and at dinner my mother and father began to talk about whether he would date again if my mother passed away. They were both okay with the conversation and I think my mother was pleased to hear my father say that he wouldn't date again. However the whole conversation was a little weird. Especially since they were laughing about the whole thing. I think it is good that we as a family can talk about these sort of things, but it does not make it any less weird.