Since I last posted...

...the amount of snow has increased, by at least 20 cm and the threat of flooding this spring has increased from minor - moderate... to moderate - major. I'm glad I have a functioning sump pump in my basement. Now I just have to find the where with all to try and move a lot of the snow away from my house so it doesn't end up in my basement when it melts. Several young strong men would be a good thing...

Had to deal with a ruptured AV fistula at work last week, which was a complete blood bath. (Same amount of blood flow as if you sliced someone's carotid artery in their neck.) Isn't it amazing how little blood it actually takes to make a scene look horrifying? Needless to say, despite several of us nurses being covered in the stuff, the patient survived with no real ill effects, other than she no longer has a fistula and had to have a temporary dialysis catheter inserted into her jugular vein. Sure made the shift pass quickly, though, and I assisted the vascular surgeon during the ligation of said ruptured vessel. Good thing, also, that my watch survived getting scrubbed with antibacterial/viricidal soap when I washed off the blood that was up past my elbows. How I managed to only get one spot on my uniform is beyond me.

I sat through a grueling 3 hour appeal for my compensation case relating to my shoulder injury of (yes, it's been that long) 2 years ago. They sent me a letter the other day stating they will have an independent sports medicine specialist review the case and give an opinion and they then have 60 days to state their decision. So I should have news by sometime in June. If they do decide in my favour, I should end up with a few dollars to help dig me out of the debt-filled hole I had to dig to survive without a proper income for over a year. I have no feel for how it went, other than I would like to punch out the hospital's representative who stated in the politest terms that I was a liar, as was my union labour relations officer, my two doctors and my physiotherapist. If she was an American lawyer, I could see it... she was just that slimy.

I briefly had a dog. A nice doberman named Kaluha that was my best friend's dog. Due to her mum being very ill with cancer and the process of moving to another province to be with her mum, I agreed to take in the dog, as I had known her since she was 8 weeks old (and she is now almost 8 years old). However, I didn't know she would try and kill Lila. Luckily, she didn't, the cat is safe, but the dog now has another new home with another friend, who lives in the country and had also know the dog for years. Kaluha is very well trained, and was no trouble at all, other than the cat issue. Pips, being her outgoing self, did her best to befriend the dog, and kind of succeeded. Kaluha would be pretty good with her, but as she was settling in, started getting a bit too nippy, but would stop the instant I said anything. But the other morning, she flew down the basement stairs after Lila, growling and snarling. The cat made it up to the top of the cat tree and so was safe, but that was it. I can't have a dog in the house who isn't 100% trustworthy with the cats. They have seniority, after all.

And now... I have a cold. Air passing over my tonsils hurts me. Luckily, my nose isn't very congested at all (crossing my fingers it doesn't get that way) so I don't have to resort to being a mouth breather. I have a cough... one of those horrible, chesty coughs where you sound like a damn seal barking, and my voice makes me sounds like a pubescent boy or an old geezer, often in the same sentence. So far, what I'm coughing up is white, but if it changes to yellow or green, off to the doctor I go.

So there you have it... my life in a nutshell for the past little while.