Monday, October 31, 2016

Little red Riding Hood - Modern


She's already at the age where smiling for photos is considered a no-no. Also it was like 8AM, so she looks annoyed. However this is her costume for Halloween as a modern day little red riding hood. Would you believe she fits in Debbie's Doc Martens. Note the footwear!

Painkiller live at the Katacombes

Today I've got this Judas Priest cover stuck in my head:


Sunday, October 30, 2016

Trip to St Denis and St Laurent

We went shopping. Terry wanted to check out screaming eagle as he would like a leather vest to play drums in and he recalled they had nice vests. He didn't see one he liked yesterday.

We also went to Rio and X20 on St Denis to check out the funky goth/alternative clothes, which inspires my sewing and look at the doc Martens. A new pair of Docs came home with me.  Cherry red with a zipper and 14 holes.

I was also hungry and right across the street from Rio is a place called Hippi Poutine.  They have 4 completely vegetarian poutines.They have a list of about 20-30 different type of poutines.  I had the Athena, I believe it was called. Basically it's like having a greek salad with French fries. It was delicious. Terry had a traditional poutine. He said it was excellent. If we are in the area again, we will Hippy Poutine again.

Friday, October 28, 2016

Tofu Jerk

I found some Jerk seasoning that did not contain any sugar at Sheng Tai market That inspired me to buy some  tofu and marinade it. I also added some sesame seed oil to the Tofu. Was absolutely delicious. I like this Jerk Seasoning.

Thursday, October 27, 2016

Miso soup

Yesterday I went to the new McGill Superhospital for the first time, on 1001 Decarie. It's BIG! I always get a lot of anxiety going to a new place and this was no different.  We ended up about 20 minutes late too due to the crazy levels of traffic on Decarie that morning. We found the parking, which is excessive. Anything past 90 minutes you are charged for 24 hours, that is $25.

I found that if you enter the building by the front door, volunterrs are really helpful finding your way. However if you come from the parking you can wander around aimlessly for some time before finding the adminssions to get your hospital card done.

Also the receptionist at the chest insitute really seemed to hate her job. Kept grumping at people to will till they are called, but the sign that said to wait was not easily visible. Especially when disoriented and lost from the size of the hospital when it's your first time.

The technician for the sputum test was really nice and once all was done he told me I could now get myself a giant cup of coffee. When I told him it would be tea, we got into a long discussion about tea.

After we were done, since we are near Decarie and Sherbrooke and there's this Korean/Japanese market on Sherbrooke near grand with my favourite MISO soup I made a pit stop and bought 5 packages of each time of the Mishima instant Miso soup. They only carry 2 types of the Mishima Miso soup. The mixed one and the white one. I used to be able to buy this Miso soup in more flavours at March Kim Hoa, but after Shang Tai opened across the street they could not compete.  And while Shang Tai does carry 2 brands of instant Miso soup, one is loaded with both sugar and MSG, the other is GMO but loaded with sugar :(


Tuesday, October 25, 2016

You can go and hang out with cats!!!

Montreal boasts not one but TWO restaurants where you can go to eat and hang out with cats!!!! This concept comes from Asia where some companies allow you to bring your cat to work!

There is the Happy Cat Cafe on Duluth street. They have some food that is gluten free and vegan! They  have 8 cats that hang out. I believe they even have one called Sheldon. I'm sure Dr. Cooper would love to hang out with them!

Then there is  Le Cafe des chats de Montreal on St Denis street. They have mostly beverages with some sandwiches on the healthy side. They also have 8 cats that hang out.


I saw a plate from NUNAVUT!

I was stunned this morning. In DDO on the corner of Churchill near Sources, I saw  a car with a Nunavut plate! Long drive. Not as long of a drive as the woman from Alaska in Cape Breton, but still a long drive.

Monday, October 24, 2016

Some words leave a bad taste!

I've been doing interviews for interns again and  I interviewed someone from a university with a borderline GPA. He's at the lowest cutoff. Of course that doesn't concern me  so long as I can hire the person and they do the job I want them to do.

One of the questions I ask these days is "Why should I hire you instead of any other student at your university in your program".  I guess he figured since his grades are lower then many of his classmates, he was going to play with that. So he said that  he actually understands the material. That he doesn't memorize it the night before to vomit it up for the exam.

Yes he used the word VOMIT.  Usually people use regurgitate, since it's closer to the actual process.Either way, you shouldn't use the word VOMIT in an interview unless it was brought up by the interviewer. I figure in some fields, like janitorial, it might come up in interviews. Or even in nursing......

But when applying for an internship in an engineering company the word vomit, has really no place in the interview. I was on an empty stomach at the time and the word affected me adversely.  Hell it's 2 weeks later and that's all I remember about this interview. He didn't stand out as being knowledgeable or interesting. No he stood out because he used the word VOMIT.

In case you're wondering, I actually felt nauseous after this interview.

Friday, October 21, 2016

A week of Antibiotics. Bleah

Today was the last of the antibiotics. I have been so nauseous, had heartburn, and all sorts of stomach pains, cramps and diarrhea.  Taking antibiotics often feel like you are being burned from the inside.

But my lungs feel good. I'm not spitting up anything other then clear mucus. I guess I did have pneumonia, even though I had no fever and no big difficulty breathing like when I had pneunomia in 2003., That time I'd been on asthma meds for 3 weeks by then and had had a low grade fever.

Here no fever, just some nasty coughing but no real issues breathing. No wonder they called it ATYPICAL!


Sunday, October 16, 2016

Pajama pants

Over the past few months I've made 4 pairs of pajama pants for Terry. There are two pairs camouflage skulls, one pair of black flannels and the last pair is black & white bones, which is the pair his daughter calls his Jurassic park pants.

Friday, October 14, 2016

Don't I look thrilled?

Just a few minutes before I was discharged from the Hospital.

So I spent the night at the Lakeshore General Hospital

Last night around 9pm, I was sitting around listening to music and I had a coughing fit, at which point I spit up mucus, that had some fresh blood in it.  After checking it wasn't bleeding nose, or bleeding gums, and it happened a few more times, Terry insisted we go to the hospital. We arrived at the Lakeshore General Hospital at 10:20. and I was  # 98. Whether it meant I was the 98th patient they saw at the ER that day or if their numbers restart at #1 all the time?  No clue.  I was seen by the triage nurse around 10:30 and by the emergency registration person 5 minutes later. They confirmed the info they had on file for me was still accurate and printed me a new hospital card.

I was seen around 1am by a resident doctor who asked me a plethora of questions. She decided I needed blood tests and a chest x-ray.  I had chest pains on the right side, which I had assumed were more muscular from banging into a glass door at lunch time yesterday, because I assumed it was unlocked. It was locked.  After the blood in my mucus I didn't know anymore.   I had to wait another 30 minutes until the intern consulted the night ER doctor to make sure she hadn't overlooked anything. Then the nurse came in and took 2 vials of blood from my left arm and left a giant bruise that's still coming out today.  After which I was sent to Xray. No lineups there, and we returned to the ER desk to give them the XRAY tags, after which I was sent back to the waiting room and told to wait till I was called.

There was signs up saying that blood tests results take 2 hours so I figured I'd be there till 4, but around 3:30 they called me in. I was told I showed signs of being a long term 'heavy smoker', and that I needed a CT scan first thing in the morning, like around 7am. I asked if I could go home to sleep, I was told they wanted to keep me  in case the coughing up blood got worse so they could monitor me. That they would find a spot where I could get some Zzz's. Terry went home at that point to put Zoey to bed and came back after she was sleeping.

They had found a stretcher in the corridor near the nurse's station marked by the letter "L", where I was put at that point. I was told I had to wear gown but I didn't need to remove my pants.  So I took off shirt, put on gown and tried to sleep. Terry came back and found me.  Stayed with me till 4 and he went out for a smoke and said when he came back I was sleeping under the watchful eye of a nurse, so he went back home to get sleep figuring I'd call him the minute I woke up. 

At 6:30 AM they got another patient and moved me to "N" instead, and moving me is what woke me up. I was asleep cradling my purse. I'm surprised I slept in a corridor for about an hour in a half. But after I was moved I was put under bright lights and the person that got my spot was this moron heading to Cuba who got so drunk at the airport, he fell on his face and the plane would not left him on, his choices were probably police or ambulance.   He kept saying he wanted to leave.....

At 6:45 a nurse came to take my pressure and temperature and otherwise check my vital signs. Around 7:45 AM the head day ER doctor came to tell me I was still on the list for the early morning CT scan, asked me about the coughing blood the night before and if I was still, I told him yes. He said that I looked in really good health and that the CT scan should provide answers after which I'd be seen by a lung specialist.

I was pretty anxious at that point, especially since my phone was dead, so I had no way to keep my mind from thinking the worse. What comes to mind when people cough blood is lung cancer.  I didn't think though that someone that sick couldn't be in as good a health as me. I went to see Egypt Falls and did the skyline trail in Cape Breton in early August. I also did this advanced trail in Mauricie national park earlier in the season. Both were up and down very mountainous trails and while I had to stop to catch my breath at times, I have always had to do this going up mountains even as a teen.

I had the CT scan around 8:30AM. When I was about to be put in the machine, the nurse looked for a tube in my arm and no one had prepared me. So she put a tube in.  Where they put iodine inside you  for the scan. It feels weird when they put the iodine you feel like you're about to pee yourself and drool all over yourself. Sensation lasts for 30 seconds but it's weird.

ARound 9:45 the lung specialist came to find me and asked a bit of my history again. Said it was possible I have atypical pneumonia and also bronchiectasis.  That the bronchiectasis was caused by some really bad infection I may have had years ago and that due to that, I have parts of my lungs that have a harder time clearing the crap inside the bronchi and that it could cause bleeding.

I have been put on 2 types of antibiotics. One in the penicillin family and the other in the tetracycline family. I was given more blood tests, 5 more vials were taken out of the tube left in my right arm after CT scan.  I am also going to have to go take a sputum test at the chest institute. They will call to give me an appointment.  I will be seeing the Lung specialist again 2 weeks after that test. He also told me to call if the bleeding got worse.

It's stopped for now thankfully. It's really unerving to cough up fresh blood even in small amounts. And while I thought it was the right side ,where I have some muscular pain and it hurts at time to breathe, the bleeding is coming from left side.   Could be near where I broke the ribs. He noticed I had "Overlapping" ribs. Told him I had broken a rib back in February, but I hadn't seen anyone for it.  He commented "There's nothing we can do for a broken rib except to give pain meds"

So I was discharged around 10am. Was there 12 hours.  I'd have more heavy coughing since the laryngitis a few weeks back and I'd commented more then once to Terry that I wondered if I might not have pneumonia. I had some of my work colleagues and underlings who have been commenting the past few weeks how my cough wasn't improving. The irony is that I hadn't coughed as much yesterday and I thought I was finally better!

Tuesday, October 11, 2016

bad day

Should never blog or talk when I have a bad day.

Friday, October 07, 2016

My baby is 28!!!

My baby, Isabelle turns 28 today. I hope she has an awesome birthday!!!!

Tuesday, October 04, 2016

Assad is a genius

Assad is pummelling the fuck out of Aleppo so much he expects all the rebels to join forces, including Daesh and Al Quaeda.  This way eventually the rebels will be people no one wants to support, so everyone will support the wonderful government of Bashar Al Assad. He will be seen as the BIG SAVIOR of his people.

Except that he's the problem not the solution. I mean if he really cared would his army consistently bomb hospitals? If there's something the Syrian army knows is maps of Syria. They know where all the hospitals are.  So if hospitals are targeted, you can believe it is done purposefully. 


Monday, October 03, 2016

It's not war, It's EXTERMINATION

I'm still pissed at the Assad loving folk who felt the need to tell me that their beloved "Bachar" has not hurt 1 Christian. That it's those torturous rebels that have been killing indiscriminately.

Funny I rarely read reports about the rebels blasting hospitals to smithereens. However the Regime, headed by Bashar Al Assad, is excellent at finding hospitals and destroying them.  His method works awesome. First they bomb some rebel area. Wait an hour, then they bomb the neighbouring hospital. To make sure anyone left alive, any first responder, nurse, doctor or aid is going to get it for intervening. And then if they can, they will find the nearby border or refugee camp where people are fleeing and bomb the crap out of them.

I remember in 2011 and 2012, the folks from Aleppo going on about how Bashar was their hero, that the great Aleppo would not be touched by the war, brought about by the Muslim brotherhood. I wonder how many folks from Aleppo support Assad now? 

The way it looks from the outside, Assad is systematically killing anyone who disagrees with him. My ex used to tell me how dangerous Syria was and I thought at first he was a bit paranoid. In retrospect he was pretty fucking brave to go into that country, considering what could have happened to him.

It's not civil war anymore. It's a war of extermination. Those idiots here in Canada who keep saying, "Why don't those Syrians stay home and fight Assad" - because  most of them know what Assad is capable of, most of them don't want to be forced to go into Assad's Army and any boy of age is immediately conscripted.

I love it but does it love me?

I found this at the grocery store a few weeks ago. Cocoa, with peanut butter, sweetened with coconut sugar. It's delicious. Not quite Nutella delicious but close enough. On gluten free bread is totally divine. Of course my tummy doesn't always like it. But once a blue moon, it's delicious.


Now I am thinking about this song: