Healthcare workers are amazing

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They don’t really tell you the worst part of the stitches is before the stitching starts. When they put that freeze in you, which literally freezes everything so you don’t feel the stitching. How ironic that the freeze actually feels like a burn rather than a freeze.

Yesterday, I experienced this for the first time in my life. I’m hoping that I don’t need to get stitches again any time soon, if ever. I got a cut across my shin, right on top of the top of my snowboard boot. Talk about freak accidents, right? Ski lifts are a dangerous thing. I thought I’d gotten the hang of getting off one smoothly, but it’s very much like driving on the roads. It’s not all just about you getting off safely. Everyone else also needs to get off safely (duh!). Anyway, domino effects are a thing and I swept off my feet by one, finding myself landing on top of my friend after getting off the lift.

I think the adrenaline kept me going because I didn’t realize how bad the cut was, or that there was an actual cut until 2 runs and a washroom break later when I was at the car trying to take off my gear. The second I saw it, I knew I’d need stitches. I was seeing more blood and more me than I’m used to seeing, that’s for sure.

Throughout the entire process, from the first aid centre at the ski resort to the hospital ED, I have to say that everyone who helped me or who checked on my wound was great. Considering the work they do and all the different injuries or problems they get coming in, they still managed to get through it all. I waited 5 hours at the hospital, which was what the indicated wait time was listed as, so that was fair. My injury wasn’t as serious as several others I saw coming in, so I definitely get why people are shuffled around based on need/urgency. Everyone I spoke to was in a good mood. I mean, my mood as the patient also probably dictates how they react too. But considering everything, they definitely work in a high stress environment and I am very grateful for their services and professionalism. If I’m not in enough pain to feel super miserable, then the least I can do is probably to share some of my sunny disposition (*SMILE*) with the staff who’ve already seen enough miserable faces during their shift.

Current Reads: Goodbye For Now

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Every so often, I find myself drawn back into the reading world by a book cover, a recommendation, an article, or just plain old walking into a bookstore and finding something that piques my interest.

The current read definitely has an interesting premise. I feel fortunate to say that I have never been in a situation where I was grieving for a close one. But I am very aware that many of the people in my life have lost close ones and have experienced grieving of their own. And I do very much mean, of their own. Everyone grieves differently and feels differently. Everyone needs something different and reacts differently. I can imagine that if I was grieving, this book might pull a much stronger emotion from me just because of what it is suggesting or asking the reader to consider. Alas, I am not in such a situation and am reading this book with a more philosophical hat on instead.

The romantic component of this novel seems to be only slightly secondary to the primary theme of the novel. What if there was an alternative way to grieve your loss? One that could help ease your pain to some extent? One where your loved one is still as lost to the world of the living as before, but you could say another goodbye or ease into that final goodbye in a different way?

There isn’t an easy answer for this. Each of us approaches our own death with each passing day. Quite a morbid thought, but it is what it is. We spend the time we have until that moment comes, hopefully living our lives to the fullest we can.

At a dinner tonight with a few friends, one of the significant others noted how difficult it was sometimes to keep up with how everyone is connected to each other. The more involved you are with other people in your life during your time with the living, the more people may be impacted by your passing. It’s all tied together. It’s almost enough for me to consider whether I should not build those relationships so that less people feel any sort of pain or sadness when I eventually leave. But very quickly, I back away from that thought. In place of that, there are memories that I’d rather experience and be able to cherish. Perhaps it’s partially selfish that once we pass, we are unable to actually see the pain of those closest to us. Our eyes are closed to it, quite literally so.

In the end, all I can think to say is to grab life by the balls and just live it. You don’t know when life will pass you by.

Coffee Week

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Hello again. As I sit here and drink my coffee, I think about how nice coffee meetups are. Work has been busy lately and people in general have other priorities, so the usual crowd hasn’t met up as much lately. In any case, if we can’t meed for coffee during the day, we can always meet for a boozy time later. So many choices.

Come to think of it, it’s coming on two years since I met this one group through Gunter, an old co-worker. One day, Gunter invited me to join them for drinks and the next thing I knew, I’d been given the stamp of approval and was inaugurated into the coffee gang. I haven’t looked back since. Coffee breaks are our smoke breaks. It keeps us from going mental at work and our eyes from glazing over too much.

Naturally, when Ritual introduced Coffee Week last year, we were all on top of our coffee game. Until we weren’t. Salim and Morag the Destroyer (yes, since I’m the storyteller, I get to come up with the names too) started sounding the coffee bells and it was off to the races.

Day 1 was great. Everyone ordered $1 coffee from the usual joint at the time (and I do mean at the time because there are just so many pop up and hipster coffee shops these days).

Day 2 was also great. Everyone got their $1 coffee from a different coffee shop.

Day 3 was more of the same. We each ordered our own $1 coffees from a third coffee shop on the approved list.

Day 4, we decided to go back to our usual joint for more $1 coffees. And that’s when it happened. As we met up and started congregating towards the coffee shop and ordering on the Ritual app at the same time, we realized that the coffee was no longer $1. But it was coffee week! What happened?

After a moment of confusion, we realized our mistake. The Coffee Week deal was only good once at any coffee shop. We considered our options. How many coffees do we need to buy in order for the shop owner to offer us a free coffee? Probably too much. Mcdonald’s was running its dollar coffee deal as well and there’s always that apple pie special. We could pick another coffee shop off Ritual or we could just get coffee from the favourite anyway at regular price.

At the end of it all, there was just never really any other option. Old comforts are old comforts. We headed back to our usual place and paid regular price for our usual coffees. So much for being savvy dealfinders. I am fairly positive that every time any of us does something like this, we hear our parents’ voices in our heads asking us why we didn’t just drink the free (crappy) office coffee, but we had all successfully suppressed these little voices for better coffee. What’s work without enjoying the fruit of our labour?

Normal Aches and Pains or Aging Muscles?

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I can’t tell if my body is simply screaming at me, asking me not to put it through things it hasn’t done before or if it’s that I’m hitting that point where my body just tires out more easily than it used to, especially since I don’t generally condition or put it through workouts.

I joined a friend for a muay thai class last Thursday. I felt it in my calves during the class. I knew I’d pay for it and I did. My calves felt it for the next four days. Two days after, my shoulders and chest were feeling it and screaming every time I tried raising my arms. Stretching is a must. It loosens up the body so much more. Especially when there’s so much soreness happening.

That same friend asked if I’m ready for round 2 this week. Should I keep pushing through and keep working those muscles or should I be lazy? If I push forward, then maybe my body won’t scream at me. Or maybe it’ll just scream at me less. One can only hope.

April Rain

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I never considered myself a storyteller, but I’ve been told that telling the story will help with the healing process. It’s been some time since everything happened, so you’ll have to bear with me if my memory fails me.

It was raining the day I met him. The day I learned of my brother’s accident. I had been sitting in a coffee shop studying for my finals before work when I got the call. I will never forget my mom’s broken voice as she said “Jordan is gone”. I remember wondering what she meant by gone, but I knew. The second she said it, everything just seemed to freeze and I must have known what she meant, but I didn’t want to believe it. My older brother, my rock, the one I went to for almost everything couldn’t be gone. I mustered up the strength to ask mom what she meant by that and she started crying even harder.

“There was an accident,” she said. “It’s raining hard and the other driver was speeding…” I didn’t catch the rest of what she said because my ears had started ringing. I must have sat there for a really long time looking distraught because I bolted when I suddenly felt a hand on my shoulder.

In a deep voice, he asked if I was alright. He had picked up my phone from the ground because I’d dropped it in my shocked state. How did he know that the world wasn’t okay anymore? One of the most important people in my life was no longer around. I had to make sure my mom was right. I didn’t even answer his question. I grabbed my phone from his hand and speed-dialed Jordan. The phone kept ringing until his cheery voicemail recording played. Maybe mom was mistaken. Maybe it was just a bad accident and he wasn’t gone. I finally stopped long enough to breath and realize the guy was still standing there looking concerned at my frantic state.

I took another deep breath and told him thanks and that I would be fine. Just needed to sort something out. He didn’t look convinced, but it wasn’t something I was ready to share with someone I didn’t know. I packed up my belongings since studying was so far from my mind by this point and headed home. Walking through the front door was a gargantuan task. My always steady hands shook so hard when I turned that knob, hoping so bad that maybe I had heard wrong or that I had just cut my mom off at the wrong time of the call. As I opened the door and took those steps through the door, I knew. I just felt it. I could hear her crying. I could hear the pain and I could feel it in my gut.