A Personal Rant and Missing Trees.
Welcome to Willow’s weekly coffee and tea garden. My name is Paul and I’m happy to be here once again inside Willow’s home where it is nice and toasty, tending to your needs for a cuppa, and sweets. We’ve moved inside to beat the winter cold in the garden. I’d be pleased to bring a pot of whatever beverage you prefer – we have a wide range of teas and coffees to satisfy our world-wide readership. We can relax with a cuppa and calorie free electronic sweets while we discuss the affairs of the week both personal and/or worldwide. How has your week been?
On the news front, it appears to have been a rather slow week in general – a few hotspots in the world to concern locals, but no large issues. I get a lot of my news from Canada’s national newspaper – The Globe and Mail – and two of today’s articles on the first page of the e-edition are: “The cold hard facts about seven winter driving myths” and “Tedium, kids? It’s all in a day’s work.” Mind you, these are two small articles, but still they seem to point to a slow news cycle. Which, I would argue, is a good thing. Anything of interest happening in your part of the world? Local or national news that affects you?
On a personal front Friday night’s dialysis went poorly, very poorly. I upset one of the nurses; numerous attempts at inserting the dialysis needles failed; at which point the hospital RAN OUT of the type of needles I have used for 6 years. I threatened to leave; they scrambled and found two needles of which they only successfully inserted one; they tried to do the dialysis with one needle only partially working. This lead to successively poorer and poorer dialysis until after part way through, it failed completely (line pressures went out of range). They then insisted that they wanted to use a different type of needle. I’ve tried these before and because my fistula (the vein constructed just for needling inside my upper arm) is very mobile, they inevitably fail causing haematoma and a great deal of pain and swelling. I basically told them to stick it where the sun don’t shine (in a nice way) and expressed my disbelief and pissed-offedness (made up word there) that they had run out of the correct needles.
Steel dialysis needle – approx size
There was no real choice at that point but to stop the dialysis and go home. The nurses explained that this was my fault because I refused to use the steel needles (mine are angios which are flexible, once inserted, allowing the tips to move with my fistula). I told them that it was hardly my fault that they ran out of needles that I had used successfully for 6 years. Anyway, they removed me from the machine having completed only about 1.5 hours of a 4.25 hour treatment. And the part we did complete was very, very low quality, leaving me tired and sore. The way the treatment is structured, saline is used for starting and finishing – and there is a break-even point in the treatment such that it is only successful if that point is passed. We did not get past that point, meaning I actually came off worse than I went on. Not a good thing. There will be no more angios available until next week, so I couldn’t go back and re-dialyze over the weekend to make up for Friday’s fiasco. If it was life threatening, I could get treated at another local hospital but it is just painful and annoying, not life threatening. Have hospitals or medical facilities ever pissed you off? Any stories that have left you upset or angry? Or perhaps a funny or cheerful story to cheer us all up?
Well, that was quite a rant – I feel much better now, thank you. Would you like a cuppa refill and a sweet? You’ll need a piece of cake or a biscuit with your coffee in order to make it through the next topic, one of my regulars: The Squirrel Report. For some reason squirrels seem to make it into each post – not sure why.
So, Friday I arrive at the hospital and walk over to sit on one of the outside benches for a minute before heading into the building. On Wednesday I had noticed a construction fence had been erected along the walkway and behind the benches as far as the entrance driveway. I hadn’t thought much of it as there is always construction of some sort going on around the hospital. Friday it was dark when I arrived and I hadn’t noticed much detail. As I approached the benches, I realized that something looked different, not quite sure what yet. And then I stood facing the benches and the woods behind. The woods were GONE. There were a few trees left to shade the benches in good weather, but the forest was missing. From the building to the main street entrance, it was about 1⁄4 mile of woods and green space. That area is now completely lifeless, without a sign of a growing thing. It has been levelled, gravelled, covered with compacted sand and readied for paving. The whole front of the hospital property next to the main building has only a handful of trees left. This is the area where the squirrels had been gamboling all summer long; where they chased each other for our amusement; begged food from passers-by; where they raised their families; where they gathered their nuts and where they hid their nuts for the winter. All gone now. I hope the squirrels got out OK and that they manage to make it through the winter with the food they can find. Has your community lost any green space to development lately? How do you feel about sacrificing trees (and all their inhabitants) for pavement and buildings?
Winter has finally arrived to stay here – early this year. It has snowed and then turned to ice on the ground and stayed for a full week. Walking is a nightmare because of the ice. Next week appears to have only one relatively warm day and then more cold. Would you like another cuppa? Willow and I are honored that you dropped by today to visit. I hope you’ve enjoyed yourself and the conversation and please feel free to look around at Willow’s other posts while you’re here. Have a great week. We look forward to seeing you here for tea again next week.
Slightly Stronger Coffee After a Hard Week
IF WE WERE HAVING COFFEE: I would ask you if you would like another cuppa, or another cake . ! If we were having Coffee Original idea from http://parttimemonster.wordpress.com/
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