Seismic Twitch

It is now 3 am and I’m doing what I promised. In about 1/2 hour I’m going to have a shower and a cup of coffee (not together). An our after that I’ll be headed to work. Why am I going to be going to work at half-past two damned early in the morning? Because I’m going to Calgary with my co-workers. As I’ve mentioned before we are going to Calgary for the half-way house association’s AGM. Surprisingly enough the big boss, the owner, is also going to the AGM. I don’t know if he’s going to stay for the entire time or if he’s just going to be there for the business part of the AGM, but either way, it’s a surprise. He’s not shown any interest in that part of the business before. Anyway, I’m packed. All I have to do is get my pillow into a bag and I’m ready to go.

Bran and Boy picked up the new Midsomer Murders DVDs. I tried watching them tonight but I was too busy. I did manage to finish the monthly and quarterly reports. I also got my daily work done and some other little bits of work that will make the work of the co-worker who is working my shifts easier. After I finished my shift I cleaned out the chinchilla cage, made sure they had food and replenished the water in both the hedge hogs and the chinchillas. That should keep them ok until I get back on Friday. On that day I’ll feed them enough to get them through to Saturday or Sunday and come in and do the weekly, more thorough cleaning.

I have the hiccoughs and they’re being really annoying.

I got a reply from Student Loans today. I can’t remember if I told you about this adventure before. In Canada a person who owes Student Loans can get interest relief if their income is low enough. The debtor has to apply for this relief every 6 months and can do so for up to 5 years. For the past 6 months I’ve made reduced payments because our total family income was low enough. Now that Bran is unemployed one would expect that that would give us more relief, right? Not so. It turns out the entire bureaucracy known as Canada Student Loans came to a screeching halt on my reapplication for interest relief. Why, you ask? Because I dated the form August 31 instead of September 1. Yeah. So I refaxed the application with the correct date on it and they have given me total interest relief. I make no payments for 6 months. We’re still paying off Bran’s, but we can afford his. In February I’ll apply again (because the winning the lottery thing isn’t working out as ideally as I would like) in February for the March 1 deadline. This time I’ll remember to put March 1 on the application.

This weekend I went through my email for my Wicked Witch Jewelry thing. While going through I was reinspired to take up the production of decorative metal and stones. I got two new books on working with wire and one about Native American beading (that’s the name used in the title) which includes templates for 3 different moccasin patterns. I downloaded the application for the Sundog Artist Society as well. I can join them for $10 a year. Then I can apply to have a table at the Sundog Craft Faire that’s held yearly in December. I’m way to late for this year and I have no inventory. However, I can build up lots of supplies for next year’s Faire or perhaps the year after that. The Sundog is one place where people don’t expect to pay puny sums for work done by crafters, unlike the Fringe where I was competing with people who imported really cheap jewelry from China and India. Part of the work I’ll be doing is making rings and bracelets and maybe some neckware from wire.

My left wrist has been sore lately. It has the same sore feeling as my right wrist did when I had tendonitis in it. If it’s not better by next week I’ll go in and see the doc about it.

Let’s see. What else have I been up to lately? For the life of me I can’t think of anything.

So there you have it. I might update from Calgary but don’t count on it. I can’t seem me lasting very long tonight after supper. Tomorrow night might be taken up spending time with my co-workers. Then again, I might beg off and watch some movies (I’m taking the Midsomers with me) I think that after my shower I might watch the remainder of the movie I tried to get through at work.

Last night at about 9:30 I was getting ready to head to bed. Alas, Bran had other ideas. His chest was bothering him and he was worried. That stands to reason considering he’d just had a heart attack 26 or so days previously. He complained of a heaviness in his chest that was odd. He wanted to head into the hospital. I tiredly agreed.

On our way out he asked which hospital we’d go to. I said RUH as it is where his cardiologist works out of, where the cath lab is and where he’d get the most prompt service (not that St. Paul’s wouldn’t give prompt service, but it would likely involve another ambulance ride from St. Paul’s to RUH to the cardiac ward anyway). So that’s where we went.

They hooked him up to the monitors, the vampires came along and sucked some blood and sprayed some nitro under his tongue. He had a chat with the resident on duty. The resident said that his heart enzymes were elevated, not as much as when he had the m.i. previously, but weren’t zero. He was concerned that with the previous stent blocking up and needing to be redone and with there being another artery that was fairly blocked that Bran was having another “event”. So in comes the cardiac resident. He looked at things, prescribed morphine and Gravol for the pain (the heaviness translated to pain on our drive over) and heparin in case to keep clots from forming. He said that though he had to speak to the senior cardiac fellow (fellow being a position, not just a guy who does cardiology) but that the likely hood of his being admitted to hospital was very high.

By this time it was after 1 am and I was dragging my ass (hard work, let me tell you). I needed to stay awake. I needed to be there while there was a possibility of Bran being sent home. After all, someone had to drive him back, right? At about 2:15 the news came back that Bran would be admitted to hospital and the cardiac resident would push to get Bran into the cath lab first thing in the morning considering his history and worries about the other artery being involved. I went out to the parking lot to go home.

Here’s where my adventure got to it’s pinnacle. It was bad enough that I had the stress of Bran being hospitalized again, but I had to try and find the cash exit of the parking lot. For the life of me I couldn’t find it. It’s a good thing that I had my credit card with me because I was trapped there. The only exit was the “Express Exit” which doesn’t take cash, nor does it take debit. Not only that, but even if I’d found the cash exit I wouldn’t have had enough money. That 4.5 hour session in ER cost $13.50. At night. The gouge you something fierce there. It was crazy. Anyway, I was finally on the road at 2:40. The time lapse from leaving ER to getting out of the parking lot was spent trying to find the exit to the parking lot. Poorly labelled, with construction going on blocking exits, and stupid arrangements of parking meant that 20 minutes was spent just getting out of a parking lot. Yeah, I’m that pathetic.

I got home, Tweeted and Facebooked the news and also texted the news to Boy. He was having a difficult enough time trying to sleep on his friend’s couch. This added to his inability to sleep. Poor kid. At least I managed to convey that he shouldn’t put too much effort into worrying (not that it would help anyway). Of course, being Boy he worried anyway and I was answering texts until 4 am.

I had to be up at 7 am to get ready for work. We were going out to <"http://www.wanuskewin.com/">Wanuskewin for a Correctional Services of Canada presentation on the 20th anniversary of <"http://www.csc-scc.gc.ca/text/prgrm/fsw/choices/toce-eng.shtml">Creating Choices. Creating Choices was the result of both a rather scathing report by the Commission of Inquiry into certain events at the Prison for Women in Kingston (Prison for Women was also known as P4W) and the Task Force on Federally Sentenced Women. The task force travelled across Canada talking to women who’d been in P4W as well as interested stake holders like the Canadian Association of Elizabeth Fry Societies, Native Women’s Associaiton of Canada to name just two.

The event was organized by two women at Parole, the supervisor of parole officers and one of the program workers. The host was the supervisor of Northern Saskatchewan parole. Also slated to speak was the head of the Saskatchewan Elizabeth Fry Society, a former prisoner who now works with women at the Prince Albert YWCA and with prisoners in the federal and provincial corrections systems. She was truly inspiring as she spoke of her life from a young child being taken from her parents to a residential school, to being given to a man she didn’t know by her mother, her abusive relationships with men and how she spiralled into a cycle of drug and alcohol abuse and prisons. She spoke with amazing candour about her attitudes of that time in her life and how, one day she decided to change and used the healing lodge in southern Saskatchewan to help herself make the changes she wanted.

Another speaker university professor, Colleen Dell who has done extensive research with women offenders (both provincial and federal) as well as working within the CSC system as a parole officer. She also was involved in the research that created as part of the end findings a song and video “From Stilettos to Moccasins”:

The final speaker was an Aboriginal woman who now works at the men’s healing lodge at Beardy’s First Nation. She spoke not just of the Creating Choices successes and challenges but how important the document and direction was to the healing of Aboriginal people and communities. Of course there was so much more that she spoke about and I wish my memory was better. Suffice it to say that she’s truly a treasure that I hope CSC is grateful to have.

All in all it was a very interesting day and despite having less than 3 hours sleep I managed to stay awake through the entire thing. That says a lot to not only my interest in the subject matter, but to the speakers themselves. We had lunch at the cafeteria at Wanuskewin (pronounced wan-us-kay-win). I had the three sisters soup (beans, squash and corn) with buffalo meat and a ham and cheese sandwich (that was today’s special) and my two co-workers had the buffalo burgers. They were less than happy to discover the burgers were cooked to medium rare. Neither like their meat to be pink (get your minds out of the gutters people). I’m waiting for the unfortunate side effects of the beans to take effect.

I took photos of the statuary, all except one of a medicine man wearing a white buffalo hide holding a buffalo skull aloft. I don’t know why I didn’t take a picture of that, but for some reason it felt wrong. So I went with my feelings and didn’t take a picture of it. Here they are:

So there you have it. That was my day. Now I await Boy to get home from the hospital after visiting his Dad. I was too tired to drive and rather grumpy. I made sure that most of the items Bran wanted were sent along with Boy so that at least Bran wouldn’t be bored (music, phone charger, something to read). Boy will be bringing home subs for us to eat and then I’ll be going to bed. Speaking of bed but has nothing to do with it. It’s murder and mayhem night. I’m going to turn the TV on and veg out.

There’s been both nothing to write and so much change in the past while since my last posting. After being moved to the cardiac ward above ground, Bran has improved dramatically. His spirits lifted with the ability to go for a walk. He now has a little bag that holds a monitor which transmits his heart information over air waves. He goes for short walks, generally 2-3 troops around the ward. This has helped his blood sugar control, his blood pressure, not to mention his morale.

He hasn’t had the second stent put in yet. They planned it for today and had him fasting in the morning, but something (probably an emergency procedure) pushed him off the schedule. We’re hoping for tomorrow. He was feeling somewhat low tonight so I texted him offering him a sugar free cake with a file baked in it. At any rate, hopefully tomorrow will be the magic stent insertion. That would mean if all went well, he’d be coming home on Saturday.

They’re still trying to poison Bran. Night before last, for supper, they gave him (a diabetic) sweet and sour chicken on white rice. Yeah. The nurse hunted down a meal that Bran could eat without sending him into a diabetic coma. He got cream of wheat again as well. What is wrong with these people?! They’re supposed to know what the fuck they’re doing and yet they make such frequent mistakes I have to wonder who’s running the show. A friend of ours is in another hospital in town. She has a severe wheat allergy. She got cream of wheat too. I guess it’s their way of cleaning out patients. Kill them.

I have a bit of a full day tomorrow. I have to pick up a package from the post depot. Then I have to get a script filled and request the pharmacist fill one of Bran’s. Then it’s off to the university to have the department head sign my withdrawal letter. Then off to visit Bran…unless he’s downstairs having the stent put in. If he is then I might just go home, leaving Boy there, and get more sleep.

I’ve not mentioned Boy much in all this. He’s been exceptional. Not that it’s unusual for him to be so, but even more than the usual exceptional-ness. He’s gone to visit his Dad on his own, is cooking for himself because I’m not home to do so, and is generally helping out a whole lot which reduces my stress levels considerably. He’s been the joy of joys of my life. He’s also helped me hold myself together. It distresses him to see me distressed and he does his level best to ease things for me. I couldn’t have asked for a better son.

Today I went to training at the CSC training centre. It was presented by two police officers (one from Saskatoon, one from RCMP in Regina) and one CSC analyst. It was all about organized crime and street gangs in Saskatchewan. It was an extremely interesting presentation by three very intelligent and savvy men. Saskatchewan has it’s share of the well known gangs like Hell’s Angels, but vastly outnumbering them in membership is the Aboriginal gangs like Native Syndicate, Indian Posse, former Crips now Cash Boyz, and Terror Squad. Some of the gang members, some rather high ranking members, have come through the centre for urinalysis or as part of their reporting requirements. We’ve never had trouble with them, but the potential issues are rather scary. We never house known and active gang members at the house…thank goodness, but we don’t have control over who comes on for extra reporting requirements.

Anyway, after that it was my regular shift. Thank goodness everyone was in a good mood. One guy is going to find out the hard way next time I’m on evenings that doing his laundry in the evening means getting it done before 11, not ignoring it and then “remembering” that it needs to be dried for the next day. It’s all about responsibility. He’s always trying to get away with short cuts and special exemptions. Tonight I was just too tired to care. I won’t be so forgiving next time.

In a few weeks I’ll be going to a “Creating Choices” thing at Wanaskewin. This one will be focusing on women prisoners somehow. If you google Creating Choices you’ll encounter a document created by CSC (Correctional Services of Canada) in response to the scathing Arbour Commission Report (that you can also google) about “certain incidents” at Prison for Women at Kingston Penitentiary (aka P4W). Of course, being a large bureaucracy they’re very adept at making it look like they’re making progress in terms of positive change without actually doing anything. Canada went from having a central prison for women to having 5 prisons for women as well as healing lodges (low security prisons for Aboriginal female prisoners that should be focusing on Aboriginal traditions and healing). The healing lodges are all on reserves.

Anyway, I hope it’s as interesting as today’s stuff was.

I’ve decided, after talking it over with Bran, and much thought and consideration (redundancy can be fun too), to withdraw from the graduate studies program. After Dad died it became somewhat pointless and now with Bran becoming sick it’s just one more pressure on me to try and deal with.

I was going to take a year off to consider my options, but the requirements to get that year off are far too intrusive on my privacy to even consider. As someone who’s been on welfare and had that department’s nose in my life, I have no wish to have another bureaucrat decide things for me. So I’m going to print up the withdrawal letter tonight, get the department head to sign it and turn it into the grad studies people and be done with it. Maybe I’ll regret it and try again at a later date, but somehow I doubt I’ll want to.

Now I’m home after 16 hours of work. I’m trying to wind down but it’s not working very well. I guess I’m over stimulated or something. I’d love to have a cup of coffee right now but that would screw with my sleep and it’s stupid enough right now.