As this fine Monday* draws to a close, I will list for you a handful of things that are Totally Awesome**.

• Feeling relatively fine*** only to suddenly find myself in so much excruciating abdominal pain that I can barely walk or move.
• Trying to wait out the pain while simultaneously thinking about how I’m probably about to die at any second.
• Picking up a very worried Hayley from school**** at lunch time so that she and Breanna could go over to George’s parents’ house.
• Driving to the hospital in far more traffic than you would expect at lunch time on a Monday.
• Walking in to find the E.R. packed.
• Waiting an hour and a half just to see the triage nurse. In MASSIV PAIN.
• Waiting about three more hours in the E.R. waiting room (in MASSIVE PAIN) while trying not to breathe too much so I could avoid catching someone else’s problem.
• Finally making it into a room with a bed and seeing a doctor who chose several different tests to check things out (which was actually awesome) including a “girl exam” (which is never EVER awesome).
• The “girl exam”. My happy place is hard to bring into focus during those.
• Getting to have a blood draw, filling up some urine sample cups, and going for x-rays.
• Getting an I.V. with a morphine-gravol cocktail, only to find myself freaking out (which was admittedly more likely a panic attack over the thought of morphine than the actual effects of the morphine itself) and having to get them to shut it off after ten minutes.
• Getting an ultrasound which is only fun when you’re seeing a baby, and not fun at all when you’re worried about what they might see.
• Being told that they aren’t really sure what’s wrong, only that my stomach was distended even though there were no other associated problems.

Ah well. After a whopping nine hours at the Jewish General Hospital, I was free to go home. The pain was much more manageable, either because of whatever morphine I got or because of time. Now I’m just sore in general but nothing like earlier. I told the doctor I had never experienced pain like that in my life. It felt like someone reached through my belly, grabbed everything, and just twisted and scrunched it all up as hard as possible. Fun stuff.

Although they don’t know what’s wrong they were able to rule out obvious things (like a UTI, etc) and they also ruled out scary things (like kidney or liver problems) so at least it doesn’t seem to be anything too serious. I thought it might be an ulcer since I’ve had that problem once before but there were no signs nor were there any perforations. I was just happy to get to come home and eat since I hadn’t had anything much; I ate a piece of toast this morning at 9:30 and I had a small bag of chips in the waiting room because I was starving. I finally ate some supper at 10:40 pm!

*By “fine Monday” I really mean “this day is totally fired.”
**By “Totally Awesome” I really mean “Not Awesome in ANY WAY.”
***I went through a cold, sinus thing, and gastro in a week-and-a-half period and had just thought this morning that maybe I was all done being sick for the whole winter. Murphy’s Law laughed.
****She was really worried but also kind of happy to not have to go back to French class.

And finally, an important lesson I learned today: If you think, “nahh, I won’t shave my legs this time” you really should because if you don’t, that’s when you’ll be walking around a hospital without any pants.

And now I’m going to go rest my sore stomach.

At 6:30 tonight I tried to find the channel that was broadcasting the Grey Cup, Canada’s answer to the Superbowl, so I could watch the final CFL game since it featured the Montreal Alouettes (yay!) versus the Saskatchewan Roughriders (boo!). Much to my distress and mounting tension, it was only airing on the English and French sports networks, neither of which is in our current cable package.

After some serious gnashing of teeth and wondering if I was going to have to get George to call our cable company to switch out one of our bonus channels for TSN, I discovered I could watch the game as it was being streamed live on TSN’s website.

I missed the half-time show since it was bedtime but I watched the rest of the game right here on my laptop (and wow, have streaming shows come a long way because it was just as crisp and clear as a TV).

I hope I didn’t wake any of you up or disturb your day-to-day stuff as I screamed, moaned, hollered, and screamed some more while watching the game. At one point I was watching through my fingers while wondering if someone could peel me and my nerves off my living room ceiling.

Poor George. If there’s anything in life that interests him less than Facebook, it’s sports and every year he has to put up with me screeching over the Grey Cup, the Superbowl, and the Stanley Cup. Hockey usually finds me standing on my couch, but football will do as well.

In the end we won. Montreal beat Saskatchewan 21-18 and it was so close that I may have to go and have my blood pressure checked tomorrow, but dammit WE WON. What a game. That’s two years in a row!

Whew. I still haven’t calmed down. Maybe by tomorrow?

Today was Hayley’s last day of school for this week. I like to pretend it’s in honour of American Thanksgiving but it’s just because today was Parent-Teacher night at the school so they put a ped day for Thursday and Friday.

Hayley’s report card was excellent. It wasn’t that I have low expectations for her or anything, I know what she’s capable of, but from the way Hayley was talking sometimes I wasn’t sure WHAT to expect. Her grades were fantastic. She was above the class average in almost all her subjects but what made me especially proud was that it included French, a subject that stresses her out tremendously.

I’m still sick but George is far worse off, feeling pretty much the way I did yesterday so I told him to just stay home and I took Hayley with me. Her teachers had great things to say, both telling me Hayley is creative and eager to learn. Her biggest issue in French apparently is not asking for help when she doesn’t understand. The teacher is indeed French but speaks English perfectly well so she can easily explain anything that needs clarification.

We went upstairs to the library and I bought Hayley a book from the Scholastic book fair while we were there. She had bought two chapter books during the day but she had also really wanted to get a special interactive fairy tale book. It tells part of the story but she gets to fill in the blanks and draw pictures, and so on. It’s exactly the kind of thing that she enjoys; she has tons of notebooks full of short stories that she’s written. I figured it was a good present to give her after such good results.

As for me, I survived. I don’t mind grumbling about being sick but I don’t like to LOOK like I’m sick so I pulled myself together and resisted the urge to go up unshowered while still wearing the jogging pants and George’s flannel shirt that I’d been wearing for two days. Instead I managed to wash my hair, poke contacts into my eyes, and I slapped on a bit of makeup and faked being perfectly fine.

Hey, at least I survived. But hoo boy, did I have those comfortable clothes back on in no time flat.

Perhaps an early bedtime is in order. While I feel more functional than the write-off which was yesterday, I would really like to feel 100% human again soon; perhaps I could even manage to take Winnie for a proper walk again. Yeah. Bedtime it is.

Despite the fact that I know there are serious health issues all over the world (the cholera outbreak in Haiti springs immediately to mind as a tragic example), I am feeling compelled to whine about my own health.

I’ve been fighting down a cold for a week or so, and it finally reached a rousing crescendo this weekend, complete with sinus pain and a complete lack of energy (or ability to breathe without copious amounts of vaporub on my nose).

This morning when I woke to a damp and rainy day I still felt run-down and had to pop two cough drops before it was even 7:15 am just to try to ease the mass irritation going on in my throat. When I got Hayley off to school and had finished taking the dog out I figured a hot coffee would help my throat pain and also warm me up since I couldn’t stop shaking. I drank it while lounging about with my book and hoped I would soon feel better.

The problem was Breanna had woken up the night before just as I was heading to bed. Since George was still up he brought her out to the living room and sent me off to sleep. I crashed immediately. I was then yanked out of a zombie-fueled dream (and as an aside, wtf is up with that? I never had a dream about zombies in my entire life that I can recall and since I started watching The Walking Dead I average one or two per week, sheesh!) at one in the morning as George announced that Breanna had just puked all over the blanket on the couch. Ah. Okay.

She was only sick the one time but complained of a tummy ache for awhile afterwards and into today. A bit of good old gastro we figure.

And so of course, on top of the cold-turned-sinus-and-pain-disaster I got gastro as well. I feel like absolute hell and spent most of the day in bed. Shortly after putting my book down this morning, I suddenly felt awful and sat on the floor in front of the toilet for awhile. I eventually came out with a bucket in hand and told George that I was lying down in the bedroom. I felt bad because I had wanted him to go take a nap since I knew he hadn’t slept much the night before but I was pretty much non-functional. I alternated between reading my book, reading my camera manual, surfing the net on my iPod, and dozing. For all the resting I did I still don’t feel much better.

Getting sick with something new while still sick with your previous ailment is seriously not cool. I know that there’s little as boring as reading about someone’s whiny sickness on the Internet but there you have it. To quote Tiffany quoting Temerity Jane, “It’s NaBloPoMo, and they can’t all be winners.” Indeed.

On Sunday, the day after Breanna’s birthday party, we got up fairly early for a post-party day because we had another full day of excitement ahead of us. Our friends were having a birthday party for their daughter that day and because she’s half fish they had decided to have the party at a fantastic indoor pool called the Aquadome. I had heard of it before and had seen a few pictures but I had never been before.

We started off in a party room for some lunch, music, and birthday cake. Breanna made me laugh because she came up to get me so I could take a picture of her piece of cake before she ate it; I have NO IDEA where she might get that from. Ahem.

Afterwards it was time to get the kids changed into their bathing suits. I hadn’t brought mine because I had already packed it away and didn’t remember which storage tub it was in, and I was coming down with a wicked cold. Let me tell you, I was full of regret when I walked out of the locker room and saw the “pool”.

(you can see Breanna on the far right in the photo above)

What a seriously fun place. They have a huge section that is quite shallow so kids who are young can splash around. Breanna stuck to that area and spent some time on a small slide that they had. There was also the big umbrella spilling water down, which was shallow. Then there was an area that Hayley played in that was a bit deeper but only about 3 feet so she felt safe and comfortable. They have a huge spiral slide that I am dying to try if we go back again. On the opposite side of the complex is a section for swimming laps, and there’s apparently a large deep pool with diving boards, but I didn’t see it since I was sticking close to my kids even if I couldn’t be in the water with them.

They had a total blast and really, can you blame them? I really want to go back at some point. The room is super warm and mildly humid (but not to a point of discomfort) and the water is heated so it’s perfect for winter swimming.

Since we weren’t too far from my parents’ place we stopped by after we left the party. My parents couldn’t be out this way for Breanna’s party so we went to see them so they could give Breanna her gift. Breanna had really liked the Club Penguin toys they got for Hayley (she plays too) so they got her three different ones. She was pretty happy with her present as you can see in the big hug she gave my dad.

(I think my dad was pretty happy with the hug!)

We only stayed for half an hour since we were all tired and it was a school night. Not wanting to pick up something for supper only to have to cook it when we got home, we picked up some Kentucky Fried Piegeon Seagull Chicken and had that. It was nice and fast and easy.

Breanna played quietly with her new Littlest Pet Shop toys while Hayley had a quick bath and then I got them into bed a little earlier than usual. Both of them were asleep so fast it wasn’t even funny. Hayley looked nice and awake when I got her up for school and Breanna actually slept in – I got Hayley ready, got her to school, and walked the dog before she woke up. She ended up sleeping almost 12 hours so I guess she really needed it.

It was an exhausting weekend and I’m glad they aren’t all go, go, go like that but once in awhile they’re a whole lot of fun.

Last night I kissed a four-year-old girl good night. She was very excited, full of anticipation for Saturday, the day she knew carried the number 20 on the calendar.

This morning I woke up to a five-year-old girl. Somehow, in some insane way, my “baby” is five.

We had a party but it’s late and I’m tired and we have another big day tomorrow so I’ll leave it at that and give you a couple of pictures from yesterday when she helped me make her cake.

I don’t know where the time has gone.