Serene Reflections

"Serenity is not freedom from the storm, but peace amid the storm." - Anon

Here amid the beauty of Belmont Lake I sat at 6 o'clock this morning and began my period of pre-birthday self-reflection.   Fifty-eight looms on Tuesday.  These last few months, I've been feeling every one of those years.  I've been to the emergency room three times in the past seven weeks, twice for my shoulder and once for my eye.  I've seen an orthopaedic specialist twice, this last time for another look at my shoulder but also to talk about the damage to my ribs from my fall last week.  In the end he decided there is no point in investigating the ribs further.  They are probably fractured but as there is nothing to be done about it, there is no reason to find out for sure.

One disturbing part of my health issues lately has been the toss away comments of the doctors.  The ortho doctor told me my rotator cuff tore because my body is wearing out.  The eye doctor told me the separation of the membrane in my eye is associated with aging.  Seriously?  I know I'm not thirty but I haven't even hit sixty yet.  At this rate I will be a real mess by the time I make it to ninety.

Eventually my ribs will heal and I will, no doubt, get used to the veil on my eye.  I'm counting on adjusting quickly and moving forward.  Every new malady has strangely made my world feel smaller like it's shrinking to accommodate the limits ordained by my problems.   I am naturally far-sighted but now find myself having to pay extraordinary attention to the minutia of my surroundings lest I trip over the sidewalk again or slip on the stairs.  I can't walk down the street absorbing the wide view I have enjoyed all these years.  I don't like dwelling in the small world.

It is a cloudy day at the lake.  The air is heavy and cool.  It is the kind of day best spent reading and thinking.  In a couple of hours I will pop the cork on a bottle of prosseco and think about the past year and the one to come. Birthdays are a good thing and I plan to have lots more of them. 

Falling

"Go ahead.  Fall down.  The world looks different from the ground." - Oprah Winfrey

If there is a proverbial wall, it came in the form of the sidewalk at Front and Simcoe which I hit with full force yesterday.  I am a bit tired.  Our English guests have been with us for almost two weeks now.  Jon moved in early last week for what may be the summer and Courtney paid us a visit.  They are all certainly welcome here but the house is in chaos and I'm not so much used to the frenzy anymore.  Feeding and cleaning up after six, and sometimes seven people, has worn me out.  Merv left on Monday for the balance of the week so I'm doing it on my own.  I'm a bit old for so many eighteen hour days in a row.

Yesterday Emma's cousin Lena visited from Tennessee.  Lena used to live in Toronto and she arranged for Emma and Neil to have a tour of the CBC where she worked for many years.  Touring a broadcast studio is a bit old hat for me having been an executive in the broadcast business in my previous life.  But I did want to meet Lena and I was trying to be a good sport.  After the tour we headed along Front street for lunch.  It was a beautiful bright day.  Unfortunately I haven't been able to quite adjust to having a veil over my left eye and it is impairing my depth perception particularly in bright light.  I missed seeing the lip on the pavement and went crashing down.  Somehow I managed to bring Lena down too and she fell on top of my chest with a thud.

A skinned knee, bruised leg, skinned hand, skinned and bruised forearm and extremely sore ribs are my souvenirs this morning.  I think I'll live but my pride did not survive.  At least Lena wasn't hurt.

It has been a full couple of weeks.  We took Emma and Neil to Niagara last week.  Cath and Stan hosted us at their lake house as well.  We did A Taste of Italy on Sunday as well as the Distillery District.

The book I have a little piece of, Contagious Optimism, was released on Saturday.  It was exciting but my enthusiasm was tempered by the fact that I haven't held the book in my hand yet.  It won't be on the store shelves in Canada for a couple more weeks.  I downloaded it to my e-reader and ordered copies on-line but they have yet to arrive.  I'm expecting them today.  Though my part of the book was small, it feels good to be part of a group that is trying to promote positive forward thinking.  I'd like to think my story will inspire a few people who are facing difficult times.  If you are interested Contagious Optimism can be ordered from amazon.ca, amazon.com, chapters.com or downloaded from kobo.com.  In a couple of weeks you can buy it at Chapters, Indigo or Coles.

Priorities

“The most important thing in life is knowing the most important things in life.”  - David F. Jakielo

In about a half hour, Merv and I will leave for the airport to collect a young couple who will be our house guests for the next two weeks.  Emma is the daughter of Merv's best friend Myron.  The last time she was in Toronto, she came for our wedding.  She was nine.  Emma will be accompanied by her husband Neil.  He is a nice young man who we had the chance to meet when we visited England a couple of years ago.  Emma and Neil have been planning this trip since last fall.  I had a whole host of plans of my own - all the things I wanted to get done in the house before their arrival. The good news is, the guest room is ready.  The bad news is, nothing else got done. 


It is as if the gods have conspired against me in the last six weeks.  I had great plans to overhaul my office, rearrange the main floor family room, clean all the closets and the fourth bedroom on the second floor which is filled with junk.  Then, I tore my rotator cuff.  For a month, it was all I could do to meet the tasks of daily living.  Then work got away from me.  Other things arose.  One of my young friends needed to be accompanied to her oncology appointment which ended up taking a whole day.  A couple of friends needed an ear.  The rummage sale at Mom's nursing home was scheduled for last Friday.  And the issues with my eye kept me at the hospital for the whole day yesterday.  I can't complain.  My news at PMH and at Toronto Western was good.  My young friend also got an all clear at PMH. 


Emma and Neil are a lovely couple.  Maybe they won't notice the clutter or maybe they will be kind enough to pretend they don't notice.  Either way, it will be fine.

Don't It Make My Brown Eyes Blue

"I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead; I lift my eyes and all is born again."            - Sylvia Plath

It has been a long day.  I started first thing this morning with my annual oncology visit to Princess Margaret.  On the way downtown, I left a message for my GP.  A couple of days ago, my left eye became saturated with a whole batch of floaters.  While sitting in the theatre on Tuesday night, my eye started to flash.  I've never experienced anything like it before.  I thought it might be that I was very tired so after the show I went to bed expecting that in the morning, it would have resolved.  But the flashing continued all day Wednesday and this morning.  I wanted to know if my GP could arrange for me to see an eye doctor or whether the nature of this problem merited a trip to the emergency room.  If emergency was the choice, was I better off at Mt. Sinai or at TGH?  My GP's assistant left a message on my cell phone which I picked up after leaving PMH, grateful for another all clear.  Her message was adamant - I was to go immediately to emergency at Toronto Western as that is where the best eye clinic is in town. I was experiencing the symptoms of a retinal tear, hole or detachment.

Toronto Western is an interesting place.  They probably have the worst intake system of any emergency department I've been into in Toronto.  Just getting registered to be seen for screening took over an hour.  There were a lot of people there who were clearly "regulars", the staff asking them why they were back again today when they've been seen this week already.  The reasons were bizarre.  One woman said she had a cavity and needed pain medication and a bus ticket.  She was about seven months pregnant.    I was amazed that they gave her the pain meds considering I couldn't even get Tylenol 3 when I tore my rotator cuff and was in unmitigating agony.  After a couple of hours I saw an emergency room doctor.  He was a very nice man who looked into my eyes and declared that I needed to see a doctor in the retina clinic immediately.  He believed he could see a tear in my retina.

An hour later, my pupils were dialated and I was told to sit in a waiting area.  There were about thirty people in the area who were there for scheduled appointments.  The lights were bright and hurt my eyes.  My head started to pound and my stomach growled.  I called Nan to ask her to come to the hospital.  I had no way to get my car home as I wasn't going to be able to see well enough to drive.  The receptionist told me it wouldn't be long.  Unfortunately, I was put at the end of the list.  I didn't see the doctor until the other thirty people had been seen and sent home.  Nan waited with me, endlessly patient.  We were there for hours.  I finally saw the specialist. He was in awe of the number of floaters he could see in my eye.  He could understand my description of seeing through a dark veil.  He could explain the flashing.  The good news is, there is no retinal tear.  The bad news is, nothing can be done.  He told me to expect to look through the veil and experience the flashing for the rest of my life.  A membrane in the eye has peeled away.  It happens to people sometimes as a part of aging.  

In time I suppose I will get used to it.  I imagined today, this might have been the view through my black bridal veil if I was the bride of Chuckie.  I also thought that it probably doesn't make sense to give myself a life sentence here, even if the doctor was prepared to do it.  Just because medical science doesn't know how to make the floaters go away today, doesn't mean someone won't figure it out tomorrow.  As for the flashes, I'm going to think of them as fireflies.  I loved watching the fireflies flicker in the backyard on hot summer nights when I was a kid.  Now, no matter where I am or what the season, I will have my own private show.