baby steps

Paul is still in hospital, and seems to be making good progress. His surgery yesterday took longer than expected, but the surgeon felt it went well. He now has screws holding his scapula together and a metal plate on his clavicle, as well as a temporary hose coming out of his chest draining an impressive amount of fluid from around his lungs. This will hopefully come out sometime tomorrow. He managed to stand a few times this morning (turned a magnificant shade of green the first time), and went for a walk up and down the hall in the afternoon. Since the right side of his upper body doesn't work at all right now, we are getting to know each other VERY intimately. He started eating today. Two bites of muffin in the morning, two mouthfulls of spaghetti at lunch, and a few slurps of soup at dinner. He's doing well with fluids, although nausea is still a problem. Probably all the meds.

He may be coming home by the weekend, which will be nice for both of us. I can't seem to relax unless I'm at the hospital, in spite of being completely exhausted and living off of take out and vending machine food. It only just occured to me this evening that once he's at home, there won't be any nurses. Just me. Shit man. Mental list of things to do being compiled. Work has been good about giving me time off on medial leave. I got a message that they were working on covering next week for me too which I didn't really think would be necessary until I started to think about Paul coming home, and now I'm pretty sure it will be. I'll take it day by day.

Paul is the strongest person I know physically and mentally. I have no doubt he'll recover well and swiftly. It is hard to see him like this though.

life happening

The post I was composing this morning while enjoying my first full blissful day off, no studying, not a care in the world, was derailed. I got a call from the hospital just after noon letting me know that Paul was there after being hit by a car on his bike. I have dreaded this call for the nearly five years we've been together. So off to the hospital I rushed - luckily we live only 4 blocks away, so rushing to the hospital can be done in short order.

He is currently stable, but has multiple broken ribs, broken clavicle, broken scapula (shoulder), some fractures along his spine (which don't seem to be of much concern), a punctured lung, and blood pooling around and in his right lung with is making breathing difficult. He also had some trauma to his head and has a concussion, but it seems his helmet did it's job, and he is really lucky as far as this is concerned.

After many x-rays and CT scans, the orthopedic people have decided they need to operate to repair his shoulder tomorrow. The socket in which the ball sits is cracked and has shifted, so that needs to be realigned and will be held in place with a screw. Since they are already going in there, they have also decided to repair his collar bone, which wouldn't normally be done, but what the heck. He will also need a tube put in his chest to drain out the blood and air putting pressure on his lungs. Surgery is booked for around 9am on Tuesday.

He is currently in an acute trauma unit, but I believe after the surgery he will be moved to a different trauma unit. Paul will likely be in hospital for the next 4 days or so. I would not recommend visiting until Wednesday, depending on how his recovery from surgery goes tomorrow.

I will update as frequently as I can.

April Snow

I woke and saw
That softly, in the night
Sweet April lost her way!
And o’er the ground
A soft snow had fallen,
Displacing balmy showers-
So long a token of the
Fair freshness of nature’s
Wakening month.
Yet, lying ‘neath the fond
Caress of winter’s parting gift
We know the buds and green
Of spring will burst forth
Even more aglow
Vibrant with beauty!
From their rest
Beneath the snow.

Valerie Morrison
1917-2007

bill c-517: mandatory labelling of GE food

This post is copied with permission from my dear friend Harmony's blog. This is a very important issue near and dear to my heart. Thanks Tro!

. . . . .

I urge you all to get involved in this very important issue. GMO foods are undertested and owned by major corporations who (yes, corporations are legally a who and not a what...scary) wield their power to destroy the lives of farmers in Canada and many parts of the world. You have the right to be able to make an informed choice about what you put in your and your childrens' bodies.

Please follow the actions suggested by Greenpeace on this site to pressure federal MPs to vote for the mandatory labeling of GMO foods, which may lead to a ban on them in Canada altogether. As of now, if you buy non-organic soy, wheat, corn, animal products, canola, yellow zucchini, potatoes, flax or cotton, you are likely paying for GMOs. The global food crisis is being worsened by this phenomenon, which seeks to limit nature's bounty to a few corporate owned Frankencrops.

Get involved! Everyone is needed for this, and we are so close to achieving victory.

sesame maple roasted tofu

1 tsp canola oil
2 tsp sesame oil
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp pepper
1 medium onion, diced
1 brick o' firm tofu
1 Tbsp tahini paste
1 Tbsp soy sauce
1 Tbsp maple syrup
1 Tbsp rice wine vinegar
1 Tbsp sesame seeds

Preheat your oven to 450. Dice up your fu into 1 inch cubes. Toss with canola oil, sesame oil, salt, pepper, and onions. Spread onto a baking sheet and roast in oven for 15-20 min, until tofu and onions are starting to brown. In the mean time, whisk together remaining ingredients into a delish sauce. Remove tofu from oven, toss with sesame maple sauce, return to oven and roast another 8 min or so.

I've made this recipe a few times, and it's always been tasty but the sugars in the maple syrup burn and stick to the pan, so you sorta have to scrap everything off and get lots of burnt bits in with your tofu. Last night I had the genius idea to put the whole thing on parchment paper, so I did, and it was fantastic. The maple sauce still burned a little where it was in a puddle around the outside, but that was easily removed and the tofu turned out so fantastically delish.

I served it hot over a nice big spinach salad. Yum yum.

fueled by chocolate milk

Big whopping congratulations to UBC swimmers Brent Hayden, Brian Johns, Annamay Pierse, Tanya Hunks, and Savannah King for making the 2008 Olympic team. These are five incredibly talented athletes and really nice people who have worked hard for this. Must be all that chocolate milk they guzzle as a recovery drink after each workout. Research came out suggesting that chocolate milk was the perfect recovery drink for endurance athletes, what with it's high levels of protein and the additional sugars from the chocolate. And it's deliscious. So the UBC swim team jumped on that bandwagon and started chugging down chocolate milk after every workout, and even one time showering in it. I'm not even joking about that.

Last week I managed to 'acquire' a case of chocolate milk of my own during a huge intramural event on campus which seemed to be sponsored in part by the chocolate milk people, whoever they are. Everyone was walking around with a bottle or two of milk, but I wasn't having any of that nonsense so I marched over authoritatively, picked up an entire case, and walked away. I've since discovered that chocolate milk is good in everything. And by everything I mean in my tea, and straight up, which are the two ways I've consumed it so far. I have big plans for chocolate banana smoothies and chocolate french toast on the weekend (note to self, buy nutella before weekend), and I'm sure it'll get twisted into some sort of tasty alcoholic drink after classes are done. Who am I kidding, after 10am today. I get up early, ok. My 10am is your 3pm.

coming out

Although Paul and I have been living common law for four years now, we have never claimed it on our taxes.
Until now.

I figured we better because I've claimed him as my spouse on my extended benefits through work, and with the recent transfer to a new payroll system I had to sign about a gazillion papers verifying our common law status. It would catch up with us sooner or later. Actually, last year when we added his MSP coverage to my benefits plan, we both got letters from the government suggesting that our health care coverage didn't line up with our taxes, and we had better phone them and deal with it. Which we never did. So yeah.

Plus we realized I could claim his unused educational amounts, which beefed up my refund by over $800. Thanks Paul!

So the deal was, he'd transfer the education amount to me so long as I agreed to use that $$$ towards the trip to Europe he wants me to come on. Paul has a conference in Helsinki for four days in early June, which sees his flight to Europe, and the accommodation in Helsinki already paid for. The plan is I go with him, and after the conference we go to Prague for a few days, and then to Spain where we'll pick a couple of spots to chill out in for 10 days or so before heading home. Nice little holiday partially funded by UBC. And more funded by UBC once they get around to reimbursing me for my tuition this semester (another part of my benefits package - 12 credits a year of free tuition).

There it is. We've officially come out to the government.

And Paul, for the first time in his 33 years, did his own taxes.

final stretch

The semester is nearly over. Eight days of classes left, including today. One research paper, two homework assignment, two problem sets, and one quiz to get through in the next eight days. Then classes are done, and I can just come to work, go home after eight hours and nap if need be, then study without being so tired the words I'm trying to read are swimming on the page.

I have reached the point in the semester, as I do every semester, where I somehow lose the ability to feed myself. I just run out of steam and rather than cook dinner or pack lunches, I eat crackers. I can't seem to deal with anything else, and it's horribly counter productive because I don't get fueled with the nutritious foods I need to keep myself going through exams. My strategy this semester was to plan ahead, and make healthy foods in bulk during periods of higher energy. I've got a bunch of lasagna individually portioned and waiting in the freezer, as well as a large batch of soup. Last weeks Green Quinoa got me through at least 5 days of lunches. I made up a huge batch of three bean and wild rice salad which will be another good grab and go high fibre high protein solution, and Paul whipped up a mean batch of borscht on Sunday which is portioned and frozen as well. Broccoli is cut up and waiting to be tossed into the steamer for an iron rich addition to any lunch or dinner, and a double batch of bran muffins is on stand by for breakfasts. Fruit is cut up and portioned into daily servings in the fridge, where yoghurt and a handful of frozen blackberries can be added at the last minute. I also got a gift certificate good for many of the AMS run food outlets in the student union building for participating in a focus group, so worst case I can go and *gasp* buy myself a sandwich.

I can survive eight more days.

turn off your lights!

Tonight from 8-9pm is Earth Hour. Help take action against climate change by turning out your lights for the hour. Light some candles, go for a walk, or engage in some heat creating "activity" in the dark.

www.earthhour.org

green quinoa

I came in to work this morning to find a big note written on the fridge which read, "One month of university to go. We can ALL do this."

It was uplifting. Last week I was contemplating cutting my losses and withdrawing from my classes, and quite frankly, the only thing stopping me was knowing I'd have to go back and do these classes all over again. So I keep plugging.

Anyways, I have an awesome recipe to share with y'all. Green Quinoa. Paul and I frequently make Green Rice, which is a tasty dish of brown rice cooked with sauteed onions and garlic, and then simmered in a veg broth with roasted seeded jalapenos, and finished with fresh cut cilantro stirred in. Mmmmmm. Back in the fall I snagged a couple of big bags of jalapenos from my favourite organic farmer on the Sunshine Coast, processed them en mass, and froze them in ice cube trays. Now when I get a hankering for the green rice dish, it's as easy as pulling a jalapeno cube out of the freezer and I'm ready to go. Paul loves cilantro, and so buys a bunch a week - more than we can possibly go through - I've decided I need to find a good cilantro pesto recipe (Liminal?) which I can freeze to deal with the excess. Last week as a part of the sustainability fair at UBC, they were selling some produce from the UBC farm, and among other things (purple broccoli, purple flowering broccoli, cabbage) I snagged a bag of organic spinach. Which meant I had 2 bags of spinach at home, again more than we could eat in salads until it started to wilt. What to do with all of that spinach? I contemplated soup, but couldn't find a recipe I liked, and then ultimately stumbled upon another, and somewhat different, green rice recipe. Being the meddler I am I gave it the old switcharoo and made it my own. I subbed in quinoa for the rice, added cubed tofu, and used one of my jalapeno cubes (yes, there was a point to all of those side snippets). So here it is - a protein and amino acid rich, chlorophyll heavy green dinner for everyone.

Green Quinoa:

1 med onion, diced
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 bunch spinach, washed and stemmed
1 bunch cilantro, washed
2 1/2 cups veg broth
2 jalapenos, 1 seeded*
1 1/2 cups quinoa, washed
1 Tbsp olive oil
1/2 brick tofu, cubed

*I used one cube of my previously roasted, seeded, and pureed jalapenos, which is roughly equivalent to 2 peppers.

Put spinach, cilantro, jalapenos, and one cup of broth in a blender, and puree to liquefy. I found I had to add the greenery in several installments and needed to add a little more broth to keep things going, but it did become a wonderful bright green liquid in the end. In a large pot, heat oil over medium high heat. Add onions and saute until translucent. Add garlic and quinoa, and saute for a couple of minutes. Add green liquid, and remaining broth. At this point I also tossed in a half a brick of tofu, cubed. Increase heat to high and bring to boil. Once mixture is boiling, cover, reduce heat to low, and let simmer for 15 min. After 15 min turn off the heat, but leave covered and let stand for 10 min. Fluff with fork, and season if desired. Mine needed a tiny touch of salt, but that was it.

So nutritious, so delicious, and so green. I've got green quinoa for lunch today. Mmmmmm.

for those of you who don't know

Getting up at 4:30am sucks. Five days a week, for five and a half years. S. U. C. K. S. Ugh.

I probably wouldn't be so cranky about it, except I'm coming off a glorious four day weekend where not only did I stuff my face with food and wine, but I also got to sleep in until blissful 9am in a wonderful dark and quiet place.

Now back to reality. And three more weeks of classes.

Hijacked Future

The following is a blurb about a documentary which will be aired on Saturday March 22nd on Global TV. If you're in Vancouver, that's channel 11 at 7pm. If not, check your local listings and find out where/when it's playing. Everyone should watch this. I've included the trailer down below.

It’s 7 am: Do you know where your toast came from?

Eating breakfast toast: a simple ritual to start the day. The bread probably came from a bakery or grocery store, but beyond that who knows where the wheat came from – never mind the seeds that grew the wheat. Do we need to know? A new documentary, “Hijacked Future” says yes, because those seeds that became the toast you ate this morning are being hijacked - right into a looming world food security catastrophe.

Catastrophe? Wait a minute. We see plenty of food on our supermarket shelves. Is our food security really at risk – or is this just scare mongering from the fringe?

While our industrial system of agriculture is providing abundance and variety today, this Global Currents documentary warns us that it’s an unsustainable system that will not be able to nourish and provide for us and our grandchildren in the future. It’s a system that literally runs on oil, from fertilizers and pesticides, to the trucks and planes that transport food. And the source of our food – seeds – is being hijacked by a handful of corporations from the farmers who have for millennia, grown and saved them.

But why should we care about a farmer’s seeds? Aren’t companies developing new seeds all the time? They are -- and that’s part of the problem -- because who controls the seeds, controls our food. More and more, that control is in the hands of a few multinational corporations whose bottom line is profit for their shareholders not necessarily an abundance of healthy food. Should anybody, the film asks, own seeds?

“Hijacked Future” takes us from the grain fields of Saskatchewan, to farmers and seed banks in Ethiopia, to north of the Arctic Circle in Norway, where the “Doomsday” vault is being built to stockpile seeds in the event of a global crisis.

The documentary looks at the increasingly fragile base of our North American industrial food system in order to bring all of us consumers of food to a better understanding of just what’s at stake with our daily bread. It asks us to question the wisdom of a system precariously based on oil and corporate seeds while we’re at the same time witnessing the impact of climate change.

As the film says, “It all starts with the seed, and the stakes are high… because who controls the seed, controls the food… Who will control the seeds we plant, and the food we put on our tables?” Will our future be…Hijacked?

Happy 98th Birthday

Or 14th, if you're going in people years. Yup, Mr. Bubbaroo is having a birthday today. He's a good two years beyond the long end of the average life expectancy for his breed, seems to have selective deafness (can't hear you telling him to do something, but can hear the food bin opening), barks at things that aren't there, "forgets" the rules, and poops all over the place. He's always got a smile on his face and a wagging tail, and is always ready to give his favourite people awesome hugs and snuggles. When he gets really excited, he sneezes continuously. He'll eat anything except celery and raw onions, and is an expert at peeling bananas. He'll do anything to chase a squirrel, including jumping out of the back window of a moving car. He is the best dog of all time. Happy birthday Buddy!

two things

Two things to tell y'all.

First, I'll draw your attention to this post from May 2006, which I poached from Anne's blog:

"I’ve added a couple of new links to my blog. Just wanted to do some introductions.

The first, Liminal Me, is one of my sisters and a groovy gal.

The second, Katie the Mermaid Girl, is a friend and great knitting instructor.

Just for the sake of drawing some random and unnecessary connections, they are both vegetarians. Liminal Me recently did her first triathlon and Mermaid Girl is a swimmer and a runner. Both love to cook, both spend a lot of time on the same campus, and they live within four blocks of one another. And yet…. they’ve never met. They move in parallel universes. Dramatic, but true."

Well now we have! Liminal Me and I crossed paths yesterday afternoon in our neighbourhood wine shop. I saw who I thought she was, and took a chance sounding like a complete weirdo if she wasn't by asking if she was Liminal Me. After a couple of seconds of her looking blankly at me (and me feeling like a bit of a weirdo), she said, you're Katie! and gave me a big hug. We gabbed in the shop for the better part of half an hour or so, before going on with our days.

It was great to finally meet you in the flesh, Liminal, and I hope you enjoyed your wine!

Second, I had the BEST Saturday night last night. One apartment all to myself, one bottle of one of my favourite standby wines (Elderton Friends Cabernet Sauvignon), one small take out pizza, and five, yes five back to back episodes of Grey's Anatomy. Mmmmmm. Guilty pleasures.

mayonnaise dilemma

I've been reading the Omnivore's Dilemma, both for personal interest and for school, and the book is blowing my mind. It's really well written and thoughtful, and is examining all aspects of the food industry.

As a result of the part of the book about corn and how it is broken down and reconstructed into everything from oils and sweeteners to adhesives and building materials, I've decided to try my best to stay away from processed foods. I never considered myself to be someone who consumed a lot of processed foods, and I guess I figured that as a vegetarian I was probably eating more or less good food most of the time. I definitely have an Yves addiction that needs to be dealt with, and the list of ingredients on my favourite vegetarian chick'n nuggets is making me cry. Corn, corn, corn.

Don't get me wrong, I love corn, corn is not the enemy. USDA polices forcing so called commodity crop (corn and soy mainly) farmers to grow more and more for less and less money, and at an increasing cost to our eco system (turning crude oil into fertilizers and pesticides isn't a good idea?) are the bad fellas. Corn grown sustainably for eating (rather than being processed) is awesome.

So I've been replacing my more processed than I had ever imagined sandwich slices with organic smoked tofu, making edamame salads with organic non GMO soy beans, eating nuts, beans, and organic free range eggs for protein. I'm trying to eat my food as whole as possible as often as possible. On Sunday, which in our house is dessert night, I made an angel food cake from scratch. This was previously the only cake I'd ever make from a mix, and now with a little help from Martha Stewart, I've learned that it is only marginally more time consuming to make one from scratch, and way more tasty. I'm not saying I'll never eat processed foods, hello, a veggie pepperoni pizza on a treat night, and I'm not going to throw away the ground round and nuggets in my deep freeze, but I'm doing my best.

So mayonnaise. I don't eat a lot of it, but sometimes I like a thin scraping in my sandwich or in my egg salad sandwich. It's also a dang tasty fry dip, and you know it. Yesterday I was telling this lady in one of my classes that I had to get home to attend to my yoghurt culture - I've been making my own yoghurt for over a year now. It has 2 ingredients; milk and some starter from the last batch of yoghurt. It's sooooo much better than commercial yoghurt with their yucky thickeners and shiz. Anyway, she says to me that she's never made yoghurt, but she makes her own mayo. I told her that I'd be open to making my own mayo except for my phobia of raw eggs, and she pointed out that there was raw eggs in the store bought stuff, plus a gazillion other processed ingredients. Somehow coming from a jar made me feel better about the rawness of the eggs, and I figured they must have been heat processed in some way to make them safe to eat. I don't know. Making it myself using local organic free range eggs is obviously going to be better for both my body and the planet than buying it in a jar. But there will be raw eggs. Yuck. I guess if I want to eat mayo occasionally I had better get my head around this thing.

Sigh.

deconstructing the muffin myth

Muffins are, I think, an unfortunately misunderstood food. Misunderstood in that many people will grab a muffin from a coffee shop, bakery, grocery store, whathaveyou, honestly believing they are making a healthy choice. Sadly, most of the time they are not. The majority of these manufactured muffins are deceptively loaded with fats and sugars and are lacking in fibre. When spending some daily calories on the muffin, we may as well be eating a nice piece of cake. Really, we pretty much are.

I want to deconstruct the muffin myth, and reconstruct the identity of the muffin into what it should be - nourishing, filling, low fat, high fibre, healthy. My goal: reconstruct 100 muffin recipes. Or perhaps 99, since my bran muffin recipe will definitely get tossed in the mix. I'm going to need muffin testers, recipe testers, and recipes. If you have a muffin recipe (or just a type of muffin)you love and wish it was something healthier, but just as tasty or tastier than it already is, fire it in my direction and I'll tinker with it. If you love to bake and you want to help me test out the new recipes, let me know and I'll fire them in your direction and welcome feedback. If you love to eat muffins (hehe) let me know and if you're local, I'll give you some muffin samples for you to scrutinize.

Let the muffin revolution begin!

Christa Giles!

For Pete's sake, update your friggen blog!

Don't you know that blog checking on the company dime is what gets me through the day?

killing time

This post comes to you as I am killing time waiting for the touch up pink dye to set in my streaks. My lovely fella was kind enough to don a pair of gloves (swiped from work, of course) and re-apply the magic stuff. Everyone in the know (ok, two people in the know - my hair dresser and previously hot pink streaked SIL Cammy) told me I'd have to be redoing the streaks after about two weeks. Well, it's been four. My hair defies you all. The bits of pink closer to my scalp maintained their alarming hot pinkness, but the tips gradually faded out from hot pink to orange to a soft baby pink to nearly blond. After the touch up I've still got half a bottle of the pink goop left, so I figure I'm good for two more doses and then my hair will have to be dyed back to my natural colour. Or maybe not. Maybe I'll go crazy with some other funky do. I've got years and years of not colouring my hair to make up for here!

So this week has been reading week - ostensibly a time to spend reading those textbooks and catching up on assignments and shiz. Not me. I spent the week taking an 8am-4pm five day long first aid course. Why, you ask? Don't I have first aid coming out of my wazoo? Well yes I do, as a matter of fact. This course was a prerequisite for another course I am going to be taking in March which will enable me to teach yet another course. Much of the course I just finished up with (well not yet - practical exam 7:30am on Monday) was pretty mundane and stuff I can do in my sleep, but the instructor was mega cute and did a good job of tolerating my incessent inter-agency questions (but in aquatics we do this . . . ). Many of the other folks in the class had never taken any first aid course before, so it was a really interesting range of abilities. There was only one day I wished I wasn't there, and the post written exam beers on Friday from the brew pub downstairs were dang tasty.

Today is my Dad's birthday. Once I rinse the pink dye out of my hair we're heading over to the folk's place for dinner. I made an edamame salad, which was a recipe I was trying to replicate from taste memory alone from something someone picked up at a deli and brought to a potluck one time. I also made a delish double decker carrot cake with cream cheese icing. This was Dad's reqest, and how could I possibly say no? Particularly when I'm going to be asking for his help fixing the sliding bathroom door I busted off it's runners by kicking it when I was mad the other day. Happy birthday Dad!

happy v-day

Veggie day, that is. Today marks for me 15 years as a vegetarian! To celebrate, I thought I'd blog my answers to two of the most common questions I get about being a vegetarian.

1. Why are you a vegetarian?

Well, to be honest the reasons have evolved over the years. Meat always grossed me out. Gristle, fat, veins, whatever, I thought it was gross. I started making the connection with the hunk of meat on my plate and the living thing it once was, and I could eat it no more. I made a new friend who was vegetarian, and I thought that was cool so I decided to do it too. At my friends Sasha and Melanie's 14th birthday party, I decided I was a vegetarian, and after a few days of mishaps with pepperoni pizza and KFC popcorn chicken, I really was. I have not intentionally eaten meat ever since.

The easiest way for me to explain why I am a vegetarian is this - I don't believe in loving one animal and eating another. I believe and animal is an animal is an animal. There are some animals which have been socially constructed as more acceptable to eat than others. It drives me bonkers when I hear omnivores saying things like, "oh I could never eat (insert cute cuddly animal of choice here), that would just be wrong!” I think if you're going to eat one, you should be open to eating them all. I also think that most meat eaters are hideously detached from what they're actually eating. Those sterile styrofoam trays of meat in the supermarket don't really leave people with the true image of what it is. I have the utmost respect for my uncle's fiancée and her kids, who eat the cattle they raise. I have absolutely no difficulty understanding what I am eating when I am looking at an eggplant or a soybean. It is what it is.

Then there are the ethical reasons - the factory farms and the conditions those animals are raised in, the amount of land it takes to grow feed for animals vs. the amount of land we could be feeding people from, the hormones those animals are given, the waste seeping into water systems surrounding big productions. Yuck.


2. I could never be a vegetarian, isn't it hard?

Umm, no. Picture the food you find the most repulsive, that you never want to eat. Do you have a hard time not eating that food? Me neither.

I'm not one of those militant vegetarians who tries to force it on everyone around me. I don't believe in pushing my beliefs on other people, and I expect to not have theirs pushed on me. Paul is an omnivore, and we live and eat together in harmony. It's not an issue unless people make it one.

So have a happy V-day. Eat your veggies!

snippets from project poop

Finally today my mom was released from hospital. This evening found her finally on her way home, to what I'm sure are much more comfortable digs. The nursing staff will be brilliant when Pamela is at home practicing her undergrad nursing skills. They will be questionable at best when it's just Mom and Dad on their own.

During her stint in the hospital, Dad sent out daily (sometimes multiple times daily) progress reports to friends and family. Over the last 6 days or so the reports had a common theme - poop; or lack thereof. Anyone who has had surgery, or hurt themselves significantly enough to require the fun pain killers, knows what they can do to your GI tract . . .

I've pasted some of my favourite snippets from my Dad's emails. They will probably be mostly hilarious to people who know him, but the rest of you may appreciate the humour I find in having a surly old Dad stuck as the primary caregiver of my largely immobile and consipated mother, and 14 yr old incontinent dog . . .


"Heather's project for tomorrow is to have a BM, mine is to be not
there for it."

"Arrived @ 11:00 AM to find H on phone (what else is new), sitting
on bed waiting for the elusive BM. Took her for a long walk then had
to scoot (rush, hurry, run) back for the blessed event. She was not
pleased with the event; or lack there of."

"Heathers main problem at this point is her lack of having a BM.
She took 5 doses of 'Lactulose' to no effect; a hospital record I
think. An intermediate solution, that was partially successful was a
hydraulic wash out."

"I am still optimistic that Heather will be home sometime on
Tuesday. You are all welcome to phone or visit as your whims drive
you. You can bring food as well if you want (I really agonized over
including this one). Food items with lots of 'fiber' (roughage) is
probably what H needs, I will eat anything and I don't care if my kids
eat at all."


"Heather's problem with her lower tract still persists. She has taken
multiple doses of every mild to medium stimulant that exists. She has
just taken a more powerful med called 'citro-mag' with the hope it
will start her system. My dog, on the other hand, goes 3-4 times a day
inside or out - he doesn't care where.
I can't get around the idea that this room costs $200 + per day
and the only reason she's still here is because she can't ----. Just a
foolish aside; after I spilled a bit of the 'citro-mag' on my hand
when mixing it for Heather I foolishly licked it off my fingers.

Cheers for now David"