The Joy of Friendship

I just came back from a wonderful evening out. You have no idea how much I needed this evening out.
It started out when my new friend from Quebec, in the Mom's group, invited me to go see The Vow with her, as she had a 2-for-1 coupon. So I of course said yes, and looked forward to the time out with her. Then another friend from Mom's Morning Out was coming, too. Awesome! :) Then SHE posted to the while Mom's group. We ended up a group of 5.
It was so much fun...the theatre was mostly empty...I think there were maybe 4 others in the theatre with us. We laughed, we commented, we groaned and moaned and sniffled and sobbed and passed kleenex to each other and even laughed at each other.
Just that part of it was wonderful...to be able to go out with a group that is around my age, no husbands, no kids, and just fool around, have fun, and relax together.
The movie ended around 8:10, so we decided we weren't ready to go home yet. So we fooled around in the lobby, posing with the 3 Stooges giant punching bag and taking pictures with it, then shivered in the parking lot for a few minutes, debating where to go. We first tried a Tim Horton's, but there was no seating. So after about 5 more minutes of debating and joking, we headed out to the nearest McDonalds instead...except that I took a wrong turn and so arrived about 5 minutes after the rest as I drove up and down streets that annoyingly had no break in the median that would allow me to turn in the right direction. Even that was fun, as I was driving someone else in my van, so we laughed at our winding little adventure, and eventually did get there.
Inside McDonalds, we all ordered a hot drink, and most also got a muffin or cinnamon bun. We crammed into a booth for 4 with a chair at the end and we talked...and laughed...and joked..and talked..and laughed some more. We got to know each other better and had a wonderful time.
And then when it was time to go home, we stood there another few minutes, discussing how to make this a regular thing. I think maybe we ALL needed a night like tonight.
There are no words to describe what a wonderful time I had tonight, or how good it feels to be building up such a wonderful group of friends. I'm so glad I have started stepping out of my shell...the risk certainly has been worth it so far! :)

Continuing to Grow

I wrote last month about joining a Mom's group at my church, about how hard it is for me to step out and set myself up to be rejected.

Things have continued to go well. Having taken the step to get out of my comfort zone, I have found that I LOVE going to the group. I love spending the time with the other ladies, I love chatting with everyone, I love the feeling of actually CONNECTING for once, with the ladies of my church and age group.

A couple of weeks ago, at the Mom's group, I met another lady, a few years younger than myself, but still close to my age (I believe we are about 7 years apart, though I could be wrong). She just recently moved from Quebec, and she doesn't feel she can speak too much English yet, though the English she speaks is very good, in my opinion. In any case, I was really excited to have met someone else who could speak French...she as her native language, myself as a second language. So I took the big step of approaching her and asking her a question about herself...in French. She was delighted! Since then, we have friended each other on Facebook, seen and talked to each other at church, and are set to have coffee tomorrow morning. And we always speak in French. Which I LOVE!!!!

I was also able to help her out in an unexpected way...she just got a job and so will need child care. Not having used child care myself, I didn't immediately know of any way to help her...and then it occurred to me...I knew someone who had been in my Chorus who had done child care, AND she had a French background, so was completely bilingual. So I once again stepped out of my comfort zone and phoned this person, which was REALLY hard for me to do. It's weird...I have this phobia of phoning people, even when I know that person. And it turned out that yes, she still does childcare, and yes, she DOES have spaces. My French friend was over the moon when I told her and gave her the name and number.

I have started accepting (AND receiving) more invitations to events, and so am getting to know people better, and meeting more people as well...and I guess having people know more about ME in the process....at church yesterday, when I stopped to talk to my friend, there were two other francophone ladies that I knew from the 5 years I have been at that church who were THRILLED (and surprised) to hear that I knew how to speak French. And who said we should speak in French together sometimes. (Yesssssssss!!!!) Last night, I went to a Pampered Chef party where it was a room full of people I had never met or really didn't know past sight...and I was there 3 hours and talked to at least 1/4 of the ladies there in fair depth.

It's still really hard to step out and allow myself to be seen, heard, and take the risk of being rejected or ignored, but I'm finding that when I do manage to take that step, that it is, for the most part, turning out fairly well. I still sit alone at church. I still don't feel comfortable with inviting people over for coffee out of the blue (and my house is not exactly in "come on in" condition...still have slob tendencies)....but I think, given time, I'm going to get there.

Stepping Out, Stepping Up?

In the past years, I have noticed a certain trend in my life. I used to move around a lot, and every place I ended up, I made new friends. I still have good friends from every place I have lived from Grade One through university. But then there was a very disturbing trend.

I got married. I am still married. and he is a great guy. But though we moved several times, I can't really say I made many new friends. I have no friends from the first place we lived, two friends from the second place we lived (and even then, our communication is spotty...one of those friends has had cancer for at least a year, and I had no idea, the other I "talk" to on Facebook, but I wouldn't say we are CLOSE friends (not that we have a poor friendship, but I'd say we border on friendly acquaintance at this point)), and we have lived in our present city since summer 2001 and I have to say I don't really think I could say I have any real FRIENDS here. I have a lot of people I am friendly with. In Chorus, we all get along, and they are SORT OF friends...we have a lot of fun together at rehearsals, performances, competitions, and parties....but outside of that, we don't really interact. We don't go for coffee one-on-one, we don't phone each other to chat, and in fact in the past little while, I've been the youngest, to the extent that I think they all are closer to my parents' or grandparents' ages. I have one person from my old church here in town that I get together with for coffee once in a blue moon, and interact with on Facebook...but again, she is more of a mentor-friend. She is my Mom's age, or close to it.

It seems that since I got married I kind of folded in on myself, didn't reach out to find someone to connect with. And since my husband is a bit of a loner himself, it's not like we go out with anyone our age together, and with him being so busy, he often doesn't have time to just HANG OUT with me. And lately that has really been getting to me. I have been feeling really alone, really isolated, and with the issues I have had at church, I have been feeling really frustrated, depressed, and especially lonely. I don't think people MEAN to do it, but people sort of avoid me, because they aren't really sure what to say or do to help us. I can clear a whole section of the church easily...I sit and by the time church starts, the majority of the people are sitting in a different section.

So anyway. Just before Christmas, someone I know on Facebook (and at church), invited me to a potluck for something called "Mom's Morning Out". Until then, I had been under the impression that it was for moms with little ones. Which makes sense, considering pretty much all of them DO have little ones. But I was assured that any mom could come. So I went. And I met a few people. And I got invited to a cookie exchange. And I joined the group and so went back today (the first meeting since the potluck). I knew most of the ladies there. I think most of them are a few years younger than I am, but they are a lot closer to my age than the people in Chorus, and even though my children are in school, and past the "little people"stage, I was able to blend in, converse, not look like a total dweeb. And it was wonderful.

I think that this is the first step in a good thing. In taking that big step to get out of my comfort zone, not hide, and GO to the group, I think I have opened the door to maybe making some good friends again. I hope so! Also, it will be nice to have a place to go, where everyone understands the challenges and frustrations of being a Mom, where we can talk and come up with good advice for each other.And I got to hold babies today. :) I don't want any more of my own, I'm done with that, but it's fun to hold and play with the little ones, to make them smile and laugh.

I'm glad I joined the group. And here's hoping I can get back into the swing of things and make some friends in my own age group, my own stage of life...maybe even make some REALLY good friends, in time. I hope, I hope, I hope.

A Tale of Two Kitties

This year has been a rough one in terms of the health of our cats. We have two. They are members of the family, as we have had them for 13 years now, or more specifically, my husband has had them for 13 years, and I have been a part of their family for roughly twelve and a half.

This summer, we noticed one of our cats had become very skinny. We had not noticed her slow decline, as she had been hiding out under beds a lot, I'm guessing because she was feeling so poorly. She also began to vomit yellow bile. So we rushed her off to the vet and shelled out a lot of money, and had the news given to us that she had pancreatitis, which had two possibilities...well, three...one was to send her off to some specialty vet place that would cost us thousands for some groundbreaking treatment (uh, no...mostly because we don't have that kind of handy cash), we could give her pills and she would get better, or we could give her pills, she would NOT get better, and we'd have to put her down.

So we got the pills and went through the exciting adventure of trying to force feed a cat food and pills. For anyone who has never done this, believe me, this is a challenge worthy of the olympics because
1) The cat does not want you to catch her
2) The cat does not want to be held once you catch her
3) The cat does not wish to eat because she feels bad
4) The cat definitely does not want to swallow pills and
5) The cat has 5 pointy ends (4 paws and a mouth full of teeth), knows how to use them, and has the wiggly snake move down pat.

But we managed. She took pills for probably about two months, and then got a clean bill of health...and since then has become somewhat chubby. Not enough to worry about, but at 13 years of age, I'd say she's allowed to roly-poly her way through the rest of her days if she so chooses, as long as she doesn't go to extremes.

Now this past week, the next adventure began. Our OTHER cat began to look skinnier than usual. His was not such a large drop in weight before we noticed, as he is a much more social animal, sleeping on the bed with us at night, instead of under.

So we took HIM to the vet and shelled out large amounts of money to have him tested, expecting the same result...but it was not to be. Our fluffy baby has diabetes.
What does this mean, I asked the vet? Let me just say that life over the next few years will be drastically different.

First of all, we had been giving the cats their daily allotment of food in the morning and letting them nibble on it throughout the day....now they get fed twice a day, at 12 hour intervals, they eat different food, what they don't eat is put away, instead of left out, after about 20 minutes. And the amount he gets is carefully measured, as is the amount he leaves behind. They are both having a rough time adjusting to this one, as they haven't quite come to grips with the fact that if they walk away from the food, it doesn't reappear until much, much later, instead of being there for their easy convenience.

Secondly, once we determine how much he ate, we have to carefully measure out his medicine. Twice a day. Every 12 hours. He has insulin shots. I must say that giving a cat an insulin shot is a lot easier than it sounded when the vet first told me about it. Because it just goes under the skin, and not into a vein or anything, you just grab a handful of scruff, stick the needle in, pull back the plunger a bit to make sure you didn't hit any vessels (make sure no blood in the needle), then push it in, pull the needle out, and the cat is good to go. Doesn't hurt him, so he just kind of sits there while I do it with an "Are we done yet?" bored look on his face.

Thirdly...the hard one...he needs blood glucose tests every few days to make sure his dose is right. How to get blood from a cat. Yeah. Poor guy gets to have pierced ears. There is apparently a teeny vein by the edge of a cat's ear, so you have to stick a lancet right through the ear at this spot, hope you hit the vein, and get the blood onto the test stick. First of all, this vein is tiny, so if you miss, you have to keep poking your cat in the ear. Secondly, this DOES bother the cat to have something sharp poked through his ear. Thirdly, the cat doe not want anyone touching his ears to begin with, so THIS is a two person job...one to hold the cat, one to poke the cat and get the blood. Then one of the two has to be able to swoop up the tester and get the blood on the strip before the cat decides to sprint off to parts unknown.

Saturday is going to be very interesting...we only had to do it once today, but Saturday will be the one-week marker of the start of his insulin, which means he needs to have a blood glucose curve plotted....meaning we have to test his blood glucose every three hours from the time we get up until the time we go to bed...about 7 times. Something tells me he is not going to be volunteering to come after the first two or three.

Fourthly...snacks and treats. We used to give them a small dribble of milk or the water from a can of tinned fish, kitty treats....that sort of thing, once in awhile. We are no longer allowed to do any of that because it will mess up his blood sugar.
Fifthly, all trips will have to be planned out in detail...daytrips will require us to leave home after 7AM, and back before 7PM. Longer trips will require a stay at a kennel that is able to give him his shots and such. So basically no big trips for a few years, probably, as that gets very pricey, as they charge by the shot, and he likely has a few years left in him.

The vet says that 1 in every 5 cats seems to miraculously get rid of the diabetes, but to not hold our breath on his being one of them. I still hope he will be that 1.

Caribbean Cruise 2011

I promised some people I would keep a journal of my first ever cruise. I'm glad I did, for my own memories, and here they are for you, too. :)

JULY 30- Well, here we are in Orlando! It has been a VERY long day, to say the least. It was hot at home, and we got up at 3AM to catch our plane, so sleep was evasive. The storm at midnight didn't help either. I found, just before we left, that the storm broke our back fence. So I tied it with rope to hold it while we are away.

There were trees, branches, and signs blown down all over the city. On top of that, the taxi driver had to make a big detour on the way to the airport because of a horrible accident that had the road blocked off by the police.

The trip itself went relatively smoothly, as is to be expected from WestJet. The only snags we had there were a late departure from Calgary because the engine needed a minor repair (Better we leave late with a fixed engine, I say!)and we had one lady have, I think, a diabetic seizure while flying over Tennessee, requiring the crew to ask if a doctor or nurse was on board (a nurse was indeed there) and for us to wait upon arrival for them to get her off and to the waiting ambulance crew in Orlando.

The heat and humidity here were a bit of a shock after 10 hours of air conditioning. It feels like a sauna. Not uncomfortable, just...strange. Like you can grab it in your hands.

There was a shuttle train from the arrival gates to the baggage claim, like a metro, but, well, I guess like a monorail.

The hotel is very nice, with a couch and coffee table, king size bed, 3 lamps, a desk, TV, fridge, coffee maker, safe...and lots of space in between to rearrange the luggage for tomorrow.

The hotel is connected to the mall, so we don't have to go outside to shop. The mall is really big and super easy to get lost in. BUT it has Cinnzeo, Cherry Coke, M&Ms World, and the most amazing Italian restaurant...Buca di Beppo. All the dishes are served family-style...small feeds 2-3, large feeds 5-6. We also had bread with oil and balsamic vinegar. Our meal was Quattro di forno: cheese canneloni, chicken and spinach manicotti, cheese ravioli, and stuffed shells. For dessert, we shared a slice of gigantic cake, which was lemon with marscapone cheese and cream filling with raspberry sauce. The whole meal was AMAZING, and came to about $20 each, drinks and dessert included.

M&M World was cool...giant statues and all the memorabilia you could ever want, plus an entire WALL of serve-yourself M&Ms of every colour and type imaginable, including colours I had never seen before, like aqua and lilac. I got pressed pennies for the kids and I and a pin with my name. :)

Now I shall collapse from exhaustion and sleep well tonight, and dream of the fun yet to come.



JULY 31- We had a GREAT sleep last night. I reset the air conditioner from 12.5C to 20C. The bed was nice and comfortable, and the room nice and large.

Upon discovering the mall did not open until noon today, breakfast at the hotel to be $13.95 each, and our bus leaving around 11:45AM, we headed out the door to find the McDonald's that was maybe 10 minutes away.

8:30AM and the heat was stunning. Our glasses actually fogged up on walking out of the hotel. The humidity was so high you could literally touch it in the air.

Portions at McD's here are truly bigger than back home. So my coffee was larger than expected. No complaints there. :)

On the way back, we saw what looked like perfectly smooth, oval stones. It turned out they were some sort of nut that grows on the local trees, and fall by the thousands.

The bus trip was interesting. So many trees!!! And in between them all, you could sometimes get a glimpse of a plantation, a shack, a bayou. I saw a number of birds, but have no idea what they were.

It was quite the view when we finally pulled in sight of the ship. It is HUGE!!!

We let them have our luggage, then joined the cattle drive of people checking in. Once on the ship, we found our room, which is very nice. #6296.

Our floor "helper" is Marvin, and he is a hoot. Almost every time we left the room, he was there doing something for someone and would ask what we were up to or joke "There you go again!". He is Jamaican.

Lunch at Windjammer (the buffet) was very good, the cheese plate from room service was delicious, and supper was AMAZING!!! I had hot and sour shrimp soup, onion rolls, prime rib with vegetables and baked potato, and chocolate pot a creme. Mmmmmmmmm.

We both got a souvenir cup with our Coke allowance. Bought a pin and inflatable ship. :)

The balcony is very nice. 2 chairs and a little table. Very hot during the day, but nice at night. I saw a shooting star and heard a whale blowing, something large leap out of the waves, and a few times of whalesong.

Watched the Dreamworks Experience Move It! Move It! parade. Cute, but I didn't get very good pictures.

Played minigolf on one of the top decks.

Going to bed around 00:30. It doesn't feel that late.



AUGUST 1- Today was a day of a few surprises and various changes. After a good night's sleep, we woke to the combo of Hubby's phone barking like a dog and the ship's wake-up call. We ordered room service for breakfast, so had an absolute feast of eggs, bacon, baked tomato, hash browns, pastries, fruit, juice, milk, and coffee.

We then headed off to CocoCay, Bahamas, for the day. It was so hot, I was literally dripping sweat. We went on the nature walk, which was very interesting and fun as we learned of trees that could heal warts, headaches, sexual issues, lady issues, and so on, as well as a tree that had poisonous bark. We heard of one couple that had carved their initials in one of the bad trees, and ended up sick and covered in horrible sores that leave a permanent scar. We saw a HUGE iguana and some teeny lizards the size of a finger joint, as well as chickens, frigatebirds, and the "hamburgull"...their gulls are ferocious scavengers. Their feeding frenzies if a tourist plate is left unprotected put sharks to shame.

Hubby went snorkeling while I hid in the shade and tried to cool off. They had a drink on the island, CocoLoco...but I declined it because the virgin one was $6. Bought a $15 t-shirt instead. :) It has the island name, a happy face in a rasta hat, and says "Smile, Mon!" Their sand is very fine and white, like flour.

They had a buffet lunch on the island, so I had chicken, ribs, a burger, feta, corn, and a few other little things before heading back to the ship for some a/c and a nap.

We discovered that, due to very bad weather involving the possibility of a cyclone or hurricane (Tropical Storm Emily), our Eastern Caribbean cruise will now be a Western Caribbean cruise. Goodbye tall ship, St Thomas, and St Maarten, helloooooo Cozumel, Mexico, and Grand Cayman Island.

Tomorrow is a cruising day, so Hubby and I will find fun things to do on the ship.

Dinner was formal tonight. I wore my long blue dress. We took pics of each other because we couldn't find our attendant (Marvin) and the professionals charge a fortune.

I had sushi as a snack today, and then dinner was lobster bisque, roasted duck with blackberry sauerkraut and croquettes, and a chocolate souffle with espresso sauce. And their American version of iced tea. Oh yes! The Windjammer Cafe also had oxtail soup and creme caramel. I snacked a lot today.

Marvin is so funny. He came in to straighten the room while we were at dinner and created a funny creature (a dolphin) on my pillow with a bath towel and my sunglasses. :-D

We sat in the hot tub for a few minutes, but then they turned out the lights, so we figured it was our cue to leave. It was about 11PM.

One thing with dinner is that we eat at 8:30PM and finish around 10:30PM, so have to stay up late to digest.

Stood out on the balcony again tonight. Too dark to see, but heard another splash, heard distant whalesong, and heard a humpback talk. :)

Hubby looks very burnt on his back from snorkeling. He has a spot on his incision, about 3 fingers wide, that is swollen, so I have forbidden him to swim without a shirt for awhile. Hopefully it heals fast and has no further complications.

Sleeping with the curtains open so I can see the stars and maybe sunrise. To bed at 00:45.



AUGUST 2- Today was a cruising day. We slept until 9:15, although I was awake long enough to see sunrise as Hubby's phone started barking.

We ate breakfast at the Windjammer today. So much to choose from! Today I had eggs, french toast with strawberries and cream, fruit, corned beef hash, pastry, coffee, and milk.

Bought 2 t-shirts on Deck 11 at a sale- 2 for $20. One for Mexico, one for Grand Cayman. Hubby bought 2 for himself and 2 for the kids- a glow in the dark pirate one for Son and a turtle one that changes colour in the sun for Daughter.

Attended a really good seminar about speeding up your metabolism, then went for lunch. LOL. Had lamb skewers on a curried veg and bean base. That was in Leonardo's.

Took salsa dancing lessons. It was a lot of fun. Almost 10 years of learning choreo sure helped in learning the steps. :)

Watched "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows(Part One)". Again.

Off to Windjammer for a snack...oh wait, that was before the movie. I had some cake and custards.

Got dressed for dinner (smart casual...black dress t-shirt, knee length black and white flowered skirt, sandals), then off to the show- the Scintas. They were hilarious and awesome. :) Comedy and singing and piano.

Off to dinner- I had a crab cake, sole filet with asparagus and artichoke hearts, and orange chocolate parfait.

Back to the room. Despite watching off and on all day, no visual signs of life on the ocean. But at night I always stand on the balcony and listen hard over the breeze. Tonight I heard a tiny bit of whalesong, plus two types of whale calls. One was a loud "ORRRRR!" and one was an "OOooooooo!". I also saw a few shooting stars tonight. Definitely worth going out there each night to stand in the dark and look and listen.

Marvin made me a towel lobster with my sunglasses tonight.

Bedtime snack....spinach and artichoke dip. Bedtime: 11:36PM



AUGUST 3- Up with the barking dog alarm for room service breakfast and to watch Grand Cayman get nearer in the distance. We took the tender over at around 8AM and wandered the streets for awhile. We kept stopping in shops to take advantage of the air conditioning. I also got a t-shirt and 3 pins.

When it was time, we lined up for our excursion. It was really hot and humid out, so I was soaked with sweat. Ew.

Got on our lovely air conditioned bus and took a ride to a rum factory. For obvious reasons, Hubby and I stayed outside to look at their mini zoo- tropical birds, peacocks, super fat pigeons, a rodent that looked like a tiny capybara, and huge iguanas.

There was a giant spider that got into the bus. Very freaky, like a tarantula, but no hair.

One funny thing about Grand Cayman is that chickens are EVERYWHERE, just wandering around, like pigeons and seagulls do at home.

The second stop was on a semi-submarine boat. We saw tons of fish and coral. We did get stranded out in the bay for about 10 minutes, but it all got sorted out.

We then went to Seven Mile Beach and ogled at the fancy places all along it. We also stopped for a few minutes to dip our toes in. The water was nice and warm, the sand white but coarse, and I found a really neat piece of brain coral, but wasn't allowed to keep it.

We then took the bus to a turtle farm. The oldest turtle there was 78 years old and weighed almost 600 pounds. We saw small ones, too, and I got to hold one.

Then we ate a turtle burger and turtle soup. Different, but pretty good.

Our last stop was the town of Hell. We, of course, had to buy and send the kids a postcard from Hell. :) It was named that because of the brimstone formations there.

Back to the port, we joined the line to get back to the ship. It was really long. It took about 20 minutes to get to the front of the line.

Once back on the ship, we went up to the Windjammer for something to eat and then watched Shrek, Shrek 2, and Shrek 3 before dinner.

Dinner for me tonight was cream of mushroom soup, pea pods, green beans, wasabi mashed potatoes, beef filet, shrimp, and coconut creme brulee.

We then went to the Love and Marriage show where Hubby won us a place on stage by yodeling like Tarzan, ripping his shirt pen (in the process losing ALL the buttons), and throwing me to the ground.

We were both asked 3 very embarrassing questions each (Like the Newlywed Game). We didn't win, but we got a gift basket for participating, which has lots of Royal Caribbean cool stuff, like travel mugs, carry bag, luggage tags, magnets, umbrella, mini backpack, and travel neck wallet.

No whale sounds tonight- it's too late to be out there and too humid anyway.

Marvin made me a bat with my sunglasses on today. He even hung it from the ceiling with a hanger. :-D

Bedtime 00:31.



AUGUST 4- Up around 7:30. Arrived in Cozumel, Mexico, around 9. It was a very busy port, thanks to Tropical Storm Emily. 2 Carnival ships, us, and the Oasis of the Seas. Double wide, same height, nice boat.

So hot and humid. Humidity around 80%. UV Index 10+ Extreme.

So many people, so many shops, so many pushy vendors. I went to a Dolphin Encounter excursion. I got to pet, kiss, be kissed by, dance with, and have my hand in the air touched by the nose of a dolphin. Very cool. Wicked, horrible sunburn because it was all done outside, in the ocean, which I didn't know. Not so cool.

They took really nice pictures of me and the dolphins (John and Eddy), but were charging $60, and wouldn't sell them separately. So no pics to show for it.

Ate a real Mexican burrito plate and got pesos for change. :)

Bought a keychain for Daughter, a pen for Son, and a bobbing head turtle for me.

Hubby did a helmet dive excursion. He enjoyed it very much and got a picture CD.

I came back, guzzled down a drink and watched "Journey to the Center of the Earth" 3D. Very good movie.

Saw a great magic show tonight by a guy who was on America's Got Talent- Drew Thomas. Very good stuff.

A lot of people recognized us from last night. How embarrassing.

Dinner was calabrese salad- tomato, mozzarella, onion, olive oil, and balsamic vinegar with pesto, garlic tiger shrimp, and mint chocolate cake.

Marvin made an alligator today.

So tired and burnt, not even going out on the balcony. Vegging with TV instead. Sleeping in tomorrow.



AUGUST 5- Today was very painful. I was up around 5:30AM because my sunburn hurt too much. I dozed a few times during the day, but had to do cold compresses, aloe burn relief spray, and Tylenol to keep the pain to a tolerable level. My shoulders are already starting to blister. That is what you get from UV 10+ Extreme. Hopefully I can get some sleep tonight and heal fast, too.

Had breakfast at the Windjammer and then Johnny Rockets for lunch. Had a double burger (which I could not finish), a root beer float, frings with ranch and a plate with a smiley face of ketchup, and a chocolate soda. The staff there dances every 20-30 minutes out of the blue. :) And every time someone comes in or out, the staff calls out "say hello!" or "say bye!" and all the customers call out hello or bye to the person coming or going.

Found the area where teens can go hang out. Very cool.

Watched "How to Train Your Dragon" 3D.

Dinner tonight was formal. I wore my short black dress, had my hair up, and had a pearl and diamond necklace (fake) and the new pearl earrings Lloyd bought in Mexico for me (real).

Had seafood salad (shrimp, scallops, smoked salmon and greens), fisherman's plate (veggies, potato, shrimp, and lobster tail), and the desert sampler (cheesecake, some spongy cake with fruit, and flourless chocolate cake). Very yummy.

While standing on the balcony this afternoon, we saw dozens of jellyfish and two green things under the surface (fish? plant?).

Went to a musical tonight. It was based on fairy tales and used popular songs like "Everybody Dance Now" (Cinderella ball scene) and "I Need a Hero" (Rapunzel).

Marvin made a monkey tonight.

To bed at 00:10. Wish me luck!



AUGUST 6- Not a good night. Shoulders very badly blistered.

Did the Walk for Wishes this morning- 4 laps around the jogging track in special t-shirts. $10 each, proceeds to make a Wish.

Didn't do much today. Took a swing dance class. That was fun. Danced to "In the Mood".

Went to Chops for dinner. Had oysters, mixed grill (lamb chop, apple chicken sausage, veal tournedos, bacon, bubble and squeak), and mushrooms and leeks, which had a wine sauce. I got tipsy from the sauce. So funny. Felt sick on the way back to the room. Not so funny. Oh yes. Had chocolate mud pie. Waaaaaay decadent, like the cupcakes we had this afternoon. Too much sugar!!!

Packed and ready to go. Cloudy out. Maybe it will rain. Sailing very slow as we are closer to Port Canaveral than our schedule says, due to the change in course plans.

Hope to hear whales tonight.



AUGUST 7- Up at 6AM. Not a good night again. I was actually up at 3:30.

Watched the ship dock in Port Canaveral. Pretty cool to watch the ship rotate so it was in stern (back) first.

No whales last night, as the water was too choppy.

Off the boat at 7:30 AM. Then we sat on the bus that would take us to our hotel for about an hour. Then the bus actually started to drive. That took another hour. We got to the hotel around 10AM, so I guess it took about half an hour to get through ship security and find our bags.

The room wasn't ready (no big surprise), so the hotel stored our bags and we headed out to Disney World, to Magic Kingdom.

It really was too hot and humid to have been there. Being an icy Canuck, I need to do that sort of thing in Florida's winter. But we rode the rides, reveled in the air conditioned ones, and drank lots. We still had fun. Had beef nachos and a bacon cheeseburger for my meals there.

Saw at least some of the Main Street Electrical Parade- it was delayed by about 30 minutes due to a thunderstorm, and we had a bus to catch, and it was a bit of a commute from the parade to the bus, so I think I missed about half of it. What I saw was nice, though. Waiting for the bus, we could see the fireworks, too. Those were pretty cool, including coloured-in star shapes when they exploded.

The bus ride back took about an hour, in which I was exhausted and headachey. Unfortunately, Hubby was overtired as well, and we had a huge argument in the hotel room over nothing.

Also, the front desk told us the wrong hotel room, so we walked in on some poor fellow in his room. We got Starbucks vouchers for our trouble. I hope he gets a free breakfast or something, especially since it was at around 11:30PM!!!

Repacked everything for tomorrow's flight. Off to bed very late...I think about 1AM.

Today I bought Bullseye (the horse), 2 pins, 3 antenna toppers, and a t-shirt. I THINK that was all.

At Disney World, we were approached and complimented once again on our performance on the ship. We are never getting away from our fame (notoriety?) from that Love and Marriage show!

One more memory from the ship...by our elevators, there were two window boxes. Inside were scenes. One was a mermaid brushing her hair, the other a crab playing a fiddle. You turned a crank, and they moved. Very cool.



AUGUST 8- Saw alligator roadkill. The flight home was long but pretty uneventful. I got body scanned and my hands swabbed, and both checked bags got hand inspected.

Bought a pound and a half of M&Ms at M&M World. Chocolate, peanut, dark, coconut, almond, peanut butter, and pretzel.

So nice to be home. So much laundry to do, though.

Next cruise we will take the kids AND do all the Disney World Parks.

Update on Angry

Time has passed, things have happened, and answers have been given.
Life is much less stressful now, and we can continue without things pressing down on us so much.
My husband went in for his surgery on April 26th. We went in at about 9:30AM, and he was wheeled into the operating room around 12:45. Lucky guy has no real memory of most of the pre-operative time, as they gave him a sedative an hour and a half before he was wheeled in, and he basically slept all the way to the surgery, without having any memory of being put under general anaesthetic either. (He was, of course)
I wandered for a few hours, trying to kill time, but not willing to leave the hospital, in case he was out early, or they needed to get in touch with me or, worst case scenario, things went horribly wrong. So I wandered and munched on things and drank bubble tea and read a good chunk of a novel and watched soaps and daytime talk shows in the waiting room...and finally at about 5:30 the surgeon phoned me (not sure why he didn't check the waiting room) to tell me my husband was out of surgery, in the recovery room, and would be in his hospital room in about an hour or two.
They had removed a mass the size of a mandarin orange, but the mass did not appear to be cancerous. They had to send it away for testing, to make sure and to find out exactly WHAT it was (they still didn't know).
The first night, they had him in the Cardiac Surgery Unit. I guess that would be their equivalent of one step below ICU...his surgery was pulmonary, not cardiac, but that was where he'd have the best care, I suppose.
The next afternoon, he was moved to the cardio-pulmonary unit down the hall. He was definitely a candidate for the Sesame Street song "One of these things does not belong here"...every other patient on that ward was at least 40 years older than he was. I guess lung surgery is usually not performed on younger people.
He had a few very uncomfortable days, as he was originally hooked up to an IV, a catheter, a lung tube, and oxygen. He very quickly managed to heal enough to have all but the chest tube removed...probably about 3 days, I think. He worked really hard at healing. Hospital beds are not very comfortable when you are 5'11".
Once he was off everything but the chest tube, he started walking around the ward. He was supposed to...kept the blood flowing and helped his lung to drain. He did overdo it a few times, though.
Once the chest tube was out, he was up and out, walking the ward as much as they would let him. All he had to wait for at that point was an xray and the surgeon to look at it and say he could go home. He had his chest tube out on Sunday (May 1) and his chest Xray that night. He was told that as soon as the surgeon looked at it and gave his okay, he could go home, and the surgeon was usually in early in the morning...so we expected him to be home by lunchtime on Monday at the latest.
Nope. The surgeon did not show up until 6:30PM. Interestingly enough shortly after I made it abundantly clear to the nurses that if the surgeon didn't come, I was taking my husband home anyway, permission or not. :-D
So about 7PM we were on our way home. I think he was very glad to be sleeping in his own bed, though it took a few nights for him to find a comfortable position, and he had a hard time remembering not to overdo things....the biggest issue was the stairs. It's easy to forget how taxing going up and down the stairs can be when you have spent a week in a hospital with no stairs.
He had 27 staples in his back from the incision and a few stitches in his side from the chest tube. These were all removed a week later, on May 9.
Since then, he has more or less returned to normal...he still hasn't got full lung capacity yet, but I think he's close, and he still overdoes things some days and ends up sore, but he is back at work, he can ride a bike without pain, and if you didn't know he'd had surgery, and met him on the street, you'd never know.
He's never going to be swimsuit model now, though. :-D
We got the results, finally, on the mass, last weekend...apparently there was some sort of irritant that got into his lymph node in his lung lining, and as far as we can understand doctor-speak (they didn't explain it in layman's terms), his body just started wrapping the irritant, like a cocoon, and kept going and going and going. Now that it has been removed, this SHOULD be the end of all of this.
But no signs of cancer, whatsoever. Big sigh of relief.
He returns to the surgeon to have a fresh xray done, and hopefully to be given a clean bill of health and permission to fly this summer, on June 8th.

Angry

I am angry. And sad. And scared. Life just isn't going the way I thought it would, thought it should. Why is it that it seems that the people who haven't done anything to deserve it get hit with the worst things?
A few months ago, we were going along as normal. Hubby had a cough that just didn't seem to go away. Not a huge deal, it had become somewhat of the norm...several times a year he would come down with bronchitis. Or so we were told. But this time, the cough stayed. He had antibiotics. It stayed. He had inhalers. It stayed. It got worse. Finally we realized this cough had been going for a good 6 months or so, with the doctors continually giving him something that did nothing. Finally a doctor took him seriously and took an xray. That is when the nightmare began.
I call it a nightmare because it just doesn't feel like it's true. This just doesn't seem like reality...and yet it is, and I just can't wake up from this nightmare. They found a mass. Approximately 3 cm by 3 cm by 4 cm. It doesn't seem that big, but in proportion to a lung, it's got some definite heft to it.
So he was referred to a specialist. The speed in which things have moved along since that xray should have clued us in. The xray took place in late February, I believe. The specialist called us a week later. A week after that, Hubby met him, had some tests done. A week after that, he was in for a CAT scan and needle biopsy.
He was told at that point that it was likely not cancerous, because of its shape. Two weeks later,this past Monday, we were told that the biopsy came back inconclusive. We were told they didn't know what it was. But that we would be referred to a surgeon who would remove it. He was referred on Monday. The surgeon called Thursday. For an appointment on Friday.
I went with him this time (I wasn't able to on the other occasions). The surgeon showed us the images from the CAT scan, which were a huge shock to me, as it showed just how big this thing really is. Then he explained to us what inconclusive really meant. I wish the specialist had read the biopsy report a bit better and explained it properly.
The biopsy showed necrotic tumour cells. The inconclusive part referred to the fact that they had not determined what KIND of tumour cells they were. He explained to us that the cells were very suspicious and that they honestly DO think that the possibility of it being cancerous is quite high.
He will go in for surgery in about a week and a half, exact date to be determined this week. They have to go in and remove a portion of his lung that the mass is attached to (a wedge resection). While he is still under, they will test it, and if it is cancer, they will remove the lower lobe of his left lung (a lobectomy). If it is not, they sew him up after the small piece is out, and he stays in the hospital about a week. If it it is, they remove the large chunk, sew him up, and we look at the possibility of a month in hospital and several months of recovery time...and hopefully that would be the end of it. Because if it isn't, we add to that the possibility of radiation or chemo or other such things.
My husband has never smoked. Ever. He does not live in a smoking house. Neither set of our parents smokes. We do not have friends who smoke. We do not hang around in smoky places. He is otherwise completely healthy. There is no good reason for this. It just isn't fair. And there are so many risks and possibilities and plans that may change. So I am angry. And sad. And definitely scared.