Annual wrap-up: 2008

2008 has been a moody mistress. She's given us some incredible highs and some gut-wrenching lows, and damn near everything in between.

In January, we faced extensive family turmoil, as well as the passing of my Father-in-Law. If not for the fact that I had looming deadlines for applications, and had to keep checking on the progress of certain documents, I would have been running entirely on auto-pilot throughout all of the events. In fact, apart from being quite ill in January and February, I was on auto-pilot all the way through to March. I was working at a job I didn't care for, and being constantly drained by the sadness over B.'s situation, Harry's death, and the strain of waiting for news about Grad school acceptance.

On March 13th, I received word that I was accepted to the MPP program at SFU. Naturally, this news cause jubilation and fear in me (yes, at the same time), and that stress I felt before the news gave way to stress about being good enough to fit in! As if that was not enough to shake me out of the doldrums, Miss. M. came to spend her spring break with us, and we had a lot to see, do, buy, and say. It was clear that we were heading towards some kind of major change in her life, and in April, it came; by the 30th, she was back in Burnaby to live with us.

Also in April, I made the life-altering decision to go ahead with the corrective laser surgery on my eyes, sort of as a wedding present to myself. I knew I was taking a chance, but even during my slow and painful recovery, I didn't regret my decision. The result is that I now have 20/15 vision, which is better than normal. I'd recommend it to anyone considering doing it, because it's been a great result for me. At the very least, I recommend going in and getting tested to see if you are a candidate!

May was a frustrating month, waiting for my slower-then-normal recovery process to end, and trying to adjust to life with a teenager. In addition to this, the rush was on to kick the wedding stuff in to gear, and yes, to those of you who received invitations, you can now look back in awe of the fact that I was filling in each of the kanji symbols by hand while blind. I was still in the early stages of recovery when I was struggling to put together the invitations. :)

Things kicked up again in July, as I finally went back to work, doing temps jobs, which I needed because my time off had started to drain our savings and wedding fund. Time stopped creeping at this point, and started flying, because before I knew it, it was September, and the chaos of starting grad school and getting married converged to create a comical vignette.

I was meeting new people, developing a serious case of economics anxiety enjoying the challenges of Grad level learning, AND rushing to fulfill last minute wedding plans. My valuable advice to one and all: Don't get married and be a Grad student at the same time...it sets you up for falling behind, both in school and in wedding planning. By September 12th, I was glad to see the end of this wedding!

But that was before the chaos of the actual day: everyone deciding that it was a good idea to go to IHOP for breakfast (on a weekend?? Really, people!!), leaving me to run around and handle big tasks alone, running from appointment to appointment, and being late for my own wedding due to traffic. But we managed to get married against a perfect backdrop, and have a great little party afterward.

And where was Miss M. during all of this? Still with living with us, and dealing with terrifically painful dental woes. September was not a great month, as she was starting school at Moscrop at the same time as she was needing a root canal. My poor girl!

Once all of that stuff was over with, it was time to settle in to the school routine, and October was all about school. And then November happened, the details of which can be found here. Again, I reiterate that my profs were incredibly awesome about my absence due to the setback from the spinal tap, and in the end, they bent over backwards to accommodate me. By the time the end of the semester rolled around at the beginning of December, I was caught up in everything except the dreaded economics (incidentally, the only class with a final exam *grimace*). I managed to pass my classes well enough. I'm not totally satisfied with two of my grades, but as everyone keeps reminding me, I've had a difficult semester with a serious medical complication blocking my progress, and I should be pleased with what I accomplished in spite of this.

I also turned 30 in the midst of all of this. I'm not bothered by this in the least, in contrast to all the pop culture references to turning old. To the contrary, I found it an enjoyable experience, as I have never had any expectations of where I would be at this point in my life, so I felt no anxiety about unfulfilled goals.

And finally, Miss M. and her mother decided it was time for her to return to Yellowknife. It's been so tense around here lately, as the three of us have been tripping over each other in our small one-bedroom for 7 months, and Miss M. has been struggling in school. But her coming was good in a lot of ways; it gave her mother some time to get her living situation worked out, and Miss M. has been exposed to a lot of opportunities that she would not have in Yk.

So, as we settle in to finish off 2008, I cast hopeful eyes towards the future, 2009. May it be a year filled with joy, love, and far less chaos, for us, and for everyone!

Xmas Alone: Hour...whatever

2008 will go down for the lunatic weather that killed xmas. It's late in xmas eve, and I've been stuck inside all day as a snow storm dumped another foot or more of snow outside, in addition to the inches that fell in the last three storms.

Vancouver's weather/transportation clusterfuck continues! Thousands stranded as plane, trains and buses all come to a standstill. Car accidents galore, as stupid people go blowing around on the highways at speeds that don't suit the icy surfaces very well. After the airport shut down, people scrambled to the Bus station, only to find that the buses shut down a few hours later. It's a similar story across Canada, and those who have managed to make it out of wherever they were may have trouble getting back.

Take Rod, for instance; he made it out to Vegreville with ease actually, but since he left, there has been another few billion inches of snow on the ground. Coming back could be an adventure to say the least.

But getting around town has been even more fun! The skytrain had to shut down for some hours because a tree fell over the tracks between Nanaimo and Joyce/Collingwood stations; buses have to cancel routes because of hills, snow build-up and ice on trolley wires; driving is a mess for anyone, with snow, snow and more snow covering ice...hell, even a Boathouse in Coal Harbour buckled under the weight of the snow and capsized.

Winter...what a blast!

Christmas Alone: Hour 1

I've just said goodbye to Rod and Miss M., as they have gone to Alberta by vehicle. This statement would normally elicit a mundane response, but under the circumstances, I understand why there is concern; after all, BC has just been walloped by days of snow, making driving a treacherous business.

Well, the saga begins yesterday around noon. It was snowing. Again. And we started watching the activity at the airport closely. I signed up to get updates texted to me on my cell phone, and right away, it was clear Miss M's flight was delayed. We drove out to the Trailerhood so the Grandparents could have one last visit with Miss M. before she leaves Vancouver for good. Around 4, we packed up and took off in bad conditions for the airport, and Rod's top speed on the 99 reached about 90 kph, whereas the posted speed limit is 100. We already knew her flight was delayed over an hour, but better safe than sorry!

We got to the airport, checked the bags, and off we went to wait out the delay, which kept growing longer, and we were there maybe an hour before it was apparent that she was not getting out, which upset her greatly. Ever deal with an overwrought 14 year old girl? Multiple it by 10 because Miss M. can be incredibly frustrating under less trying circumstances. We were on the phone with her mother updating her, and I could tell even mother could not calm Miss M. down.

For some reason, it was the world's most imperative task to get her home to Mother for xmas. That's when the desperate ideas (not mine) started flying (at least something was):

• put her on the bus - Rod, Mother and Miss M. all got really excited about refunding her flight and heading for the greyhound, but I was forced to point out repeatedly that the rules for taking minors had changed this summer, and it was 10 pm before Rod made the call to find out that I was right, and that the bus was not an option.
• Get her to Edmonton, then she can hotel/get picked up by friends - We could get her a connecting flight tomorrow (Monday) to Mother's location, but we couldn't get her out of Vancouver to Edmonton. The delayed flight she was booked on was slated to leave 6 hours late, around 12:30 am, but she would be in Edmonton for 12 hours by herself. Refusing to go with any of our friends (and I was not calling them because I actually want to keep these people as friends...inflicting overwrought teenager on them would end that), Miss M. started texting her friends to see if parents would be willing to chauffeur her around. Came close with one, but it was apparent she couldn't get back to the airport, so it was a no-go. The next idea was to put her in a hotel, except how do you book a 14 year old into a hotel in another city by herself? Exactly.
  
• Fly her out on Tuesday (the next available flights) - this might have worked, but Miss M. threw a fit about going any later than yesterday, and by the time everyone was done running around trying to make the desperate ideas happen, this option expired by virtue of the fact that the airlines were unreachable. By this time, her flight had been cancelled, and her only option was to drive to Alberta with Rod, and be picked up by Mother in Hinton. She was again upset, not wanting to do this AT ALL.
  

Rod was supposed to leave to drive to Vegreville tomorrow, and today was supposed to be errands day. First on our list was that we needed chains for the tires. Second was xmas shopping, and then packing, and spending time together before he left. Well, the itinerary got drastically adjusted to look like this:

1. wake up really early and start calling places, desperately searching for chains - Finally located some at Lordco 5 minutes away, so run over and purchase!
2. Get girl, belongings, and odds'n'ends into car and go - quick 2 minutes for last minute driving cautions and advice, and kiss

Stupid thing in all of this is that Miss M. won't make it to xmas location until the 23rd anyways, so had I booked the back up flight for the 23rd when I was at the ticket counter around 6:30 and trying to arrange a new connecting flight (like I, and I alone wanted to), she could have been flying in comfort instead of knocking herself out to avoid the anxiety of driving on bad highways with an uncle she barely tolerates.

I swear, sometimes, I'm a lonely little island of common sense in a sea of stupid. I realized the futility of our airport antics early on, but how do you explain that to an overwrought teen who always gets her way....that sometimes, it is IMPOSSIBLE to get what you want, just accept what you can get? If you can answer that, you're parental unit/guardian of the bloody millenium.

So that, in a nutshell, is how it came to pass that I am alone for xmas a day longer.

She who disappears, resurfaces

You would have thought "gee, there is so much going on in the world, and Fancy would have such a strong opinion that she couldn't resist writing about them in her blog!" And you would have been right, except for the thing about being overwhelmed by life in the last 6 months!

The lowdown looks something like this:

-Fancy is a grad student in a program that works you like a slave. While other Master's students have the luxury of taking 1 or 2 classes a semester, plus TA'ing and what not...we in the MPP program are subject to 4 classes per semester. As if that's not enough, this semester I had microeconomics AND econometrics. Anyone remember that Fancy is faulty at math? It's been horrendous.

-Fancy has been a guardian to a 14 year old girl. Miss M. has continued on with us, going to school and living the life of a teenager...lots of 'Twilight.'

-Fancy suffered a big health set back in November that kept her on strict bed rest for 2 weeks. This one's a long story, and if you've heard it, feel free to scroll past...

On November 4th, I was at school. We had just gotten our Econ midterm back (62% on mine...only a smidge off the class average), and there was a break until Politics in the afternoon. At loose ends, I decided to grab lunch. As the elevator door opened, I took ONE STEP towards it, and then collapsed to the floor spectacularly. In a sudden, blindingly painful moment, I felt as if someone had just shoved a foot-long knife down my skull and into my brain. I was only vaguely aware of the raucous I had caused, as wave after wave of this shooting pain gripped my head. I have never experienced anything like that. Fearing something serious was going on, an ambulance was called, and I was taken to a downtown hospital, where Rod found me huddled in a crying ball on a chair.

I wasn't waiting long before the doctor took me in, expressing concern. I had bloodwork done, and was sent for a CT because they were concerned that I was experiencing something serious (aneurysm, hemotoma, etc.) and potentially life-threatening. The CT cleared me of that, but still concerned, the doctor's next move was to do a lumbar puncture (a spinal tap) to make sure I wasn't bleeding out in my head. I was suitably freaked out during all of this, with visions of brain surgery, etc. The great news is that they gave me enough morphine to knock me out. The bad news is that I am one of the 3% of people who have post-puncture complications.

A spinal puncture isn't like a regular needle puncture. When you have a needle or bloodwork, the blood clots, sealing the puncture. But gee, spinal/brain fluid doesn't clot! So, the result is that the fluid is leaking out of the puncture in the vertebrae, which results in a Post-Lumbar Puncture Headache (PLPH). This is caused by the fact that your brain isn't protected by enough fluid, and it's causing the membrane to stretch whenever there's movement...essentially, your brain is sorta bouncing around in your skull without enough cushion to protect it, and the brain...crazystoopid thing...is all sensitive with nerves and junk. The overall effect is that you will have the WORST pain of your entire life (because your brain is your most sensitive part) if you have the misfortune of being among the unlucky with complications.

There are only two ways to treat this headache: go in and do a blood patch, where they do another puncture, this time injecting your own blood so it will clot and seal the wound. But you could end up with a headache still. OR, you can be on strict bed rest, laying totally flat until the puncture wound finally seals itself.

My fear of needles, combined with my inability to make it 15 blocks to the hospital without wanting/needing to kill myself made me opt for the bed rest. As you can imagine, my recovery was slow and painful, and it prevented me from going to school for 2 weeks. When I did return, I was in dire straits over having fallen so far behind. Bed rest flat on your back makes studying impossible. I couldn't lay on my side to read, the textbooks were too heavy to life over my head, and forget using the laptop, because you can see the screen if you prop it on your raised knees the right way, but not the keyboard. All in all, it's a clusterfuck.

My profs were all superb, being very understanding and flexible about the assignments and classes I was missing, and in the end, I got some deferrals, and some assignments were dismissed entirely, with the marks transferred to other assignments instead. It's fortunate that I'm in a cohort program, and we're a small faculty, so not only did the profs know about my problem, but several of them were there in the aftermath of the collapse, and they understood this was no simple headache you take two advils for and move on.

There was no saving Econ, and in the end I managed only a B- in the class, but that's not bad considering my mathematical impairment. The prof was extraordinarily patient with me, being that I was already falling behind, and he handled the whole situation well, given that I collapsed after getting his midterm back, and his colleagues had already been ribbing him pretty hard about our class having so much trouble with Econ. He's sort of old skool, and pushes students, saying things like "Look, this is high school math," or "Think harder!" It sort of became a running joke in the department that my initial collapse was caused by "thinking harder" about Econ, and the ribbing got worse for a while.

So there you have it. I have been AWOL from the Blogosphere because this semester has been a clusterfuck of events. I'll try to make it back more regularly, and there will be changes that may assist me in reaching that goal: Miss M. is returning home to Yellowknife; Microeconomics is over, and by all accounts, Macroeconomics will be slightly friendlier; and I plan on never having a spinal tap again in my life (Me: "No thanks doc, I'll just die.").

PS - Happy Holidays! You'll hear the forthcoming saga about that soon!