My teaching hobby

When I used to live with my dear friend Miriam, we were both studying at TWU: I was studying chemistry, and she was studying to be an elementary teacher. We had frequent arguments on the same thing: I was convinced that chemistry was the pinnacle of knowledge and actually made the world turn around. She didn't think so. One day, she spoke the final word that ended all our arguing. Heather, she said, everybody needs teachers. Even chemists are taught by teachers.
Even though I am working part time tutoring right now, I don't consider myself a teacher. Teaching is a hobby for me.
This week the word hobby gained a new definition for me. One of my students has been doing better in his studies, so his mom, not wanting to waste the money she paid for the term of tutoring, decided to send his teenage sister in his place. I'll call her Michelle in the interests of confidentiality. Michelle was not happy to be forced to come to the school.
She came in and I greeted her in French and she responded with rolling her eyes. I made the first mistake of the day by saying to her, "Hey, you look a lot like your mom!"
She glared at me.
"Your mom's very pretty." I said hastily.
She plopped down on the chair.
"Okay, let's see what you have for homework?"I asked (in French).
She pulled out her binder and shuffled her papers a bit.
"I want to play a game." She said in English.
I usually spend the last ten minutes of the lesson playing cards with my students, since they're often exhausted at the end of a long day. Sometimes we play bingo, or crib, and recently one of the younger boys has taught me how to play 'operation'. (scared the pants off me the first time I got buzzed!)
"Well, let's do some homework first." I said.
"I just have an English project." She said, pulling it out.
We were supposed to be speaking in French but everything I said, she answered in English. I decided not to push it, but keep answering in French.
"I need my textbook though." She said. "I don't have it here."
I saw on her sheet that she had to look up the definitions of some words.
"Why don't we use a dictionary for that?" I asked. "We can work on it together."
I got a dictionary and we looked up a few words. A couple of minutes later she slammed the book closed.
"I don't want to do this anymore. I want to play a game."
I smiled nicely.
"Well, there's not a lot of point coming here if we don't do SOME work. I tell you what, I'll give you three choices. We can either work more on your English project, or we can do some math"-
"I don't have any math" She interrupted
"Or we can practice some essay writing and translation." I finished.
She glared at me for a moment and then said, "Ok, writing."
I pulled out a story book and explained how we'd work on translating a short story together. We were three minutes into it when she suddenly threw down her pencil.
"I changed my mind. I'll do the math."
I tried to smile. I remembered Robin giving me some advice for difficult students: If they know you're FOR them, or there to help them, then they'll make an effort. I opened the math textbook. I knew she was working on fractions and algebra, so I turned to the chapter.
"I don't know how to do those." She said blankly, gesturing towards a simple 1/2 + 3/4.
"All right then, we'll work through them together."
I wrote out the question for her. Robin had made a really cool chart on fractions that I'd brought to work with me and I held it up.
"Okay, when you're adding fractions, the first thing is to look and see if the denominator is the same. Now, what number does 2 and 4 both go into? What multiple do they have in common?"
We worked through it.
The next question she wrote out wrong and I pointed it out and she said, "Who cares?"
She said she didn't know how to multiply fractions and when I showed her how to do it from Robin's chart, she wrote the problem out extremely slowly and then looked up at me.
"I'm going to do this one as slowly as possible." She said, "So it takes up our entire time."
I wanted to wring her neck.
We played cards at the end, and I asked her what her plans were for the weekend and she said she had a ringette camp and I said, that'll be fun! And she said, "No, it'll suck."
When she left I felt deflated. The school has a gentle black lab that they keep around to help the kids with anxiety issues, as they generally like to play with him, and his kennel is right beside my desk. I have 16 flea bites all down my right side from him and another 6 on my legs. He came up and tried to kiss me and I pushed him away.
I can't say that I totally agree with Miriam that teaching is the highest calling, although I better not say too much now that I'm married to an almost-math-teacher, (who does believe that chemistry is lower on the intellectual chain than physics and math), but I have to say that it is not really a hobby per se and it is one of the hardest callings. A good teacher deserves their pay, every cent of it. My kudos to all the teachers out there, to Robin, to Miriam, and especially to my mother who put up with me when I was exactly like Michelle.

Evaluating the program

Well, as some of you may have guessed, my comprehensive plan has been slightly modified by the vagaries of life. Being sick with the swine flu changed things; so did going down to Vancouver for the weekend and just plain old busyness.
The good news is that I have been doing better in some categories. For example, while not exactly meeting any of my goals, I have improved upon some of them. I am praying more. I can now do 3 chinups in a row. My French has improved.
I suppose that too is debatable, though. I had a new French student last week, and I was going over some spelling words for him. I pronounced the word 'parenthèse' and he turned and looked at me with a puzzled look.
"What do you mean?"
I tried valiantly to pronounce it again. His quizzical look vanished and he said, "Oh, you mean parenthèse!"
Yes, of course that's what I meant; that's what I said. But I think the difference was in my emphasis of syllables. Yvette corrected me on it the other day. One of the down sides of learning a language by yourself is not being able to predict the irregularities to rules. Take emphasis, for example. In English, different words have the stress in different places. 'wonderful', for example, has the stress on the first syllable. To say it 'wonDERful' would sound funny. 'Hallelujah' is pronounced 'HalleLUJah. 'Produce' can be pronounced two different ways- and the emphasis completely changes the meaning of the word.
So it is in French, I have learned. Unlike Italian, which has a predictable rule that (usually) the second-to-last syllable is stressed (think spaGHEtti), English and French change at will.
Sometimes I've had to choke back laughter listening to my ESL friends read out loud, now I have become one of them.
Years ago I read an inspirational quote: "Reach for the moon: even if you miss, you'll land among the stars".
I thought about it for awhile and then decided it was a pretty stupid quote. Anybody who had been through grade 2 knows that the stars are farther from earth than the moon. If you reach for the moon and fall short, there's no way you'll even be close to the stars. Not only that, but the chances of actually hitting another intrastellar body while aiming for something else that is lightyears away is pretty darn slim. I modified the quote to make more sense:
"Reach for the stars: even if you miss you might be the same distance from the earth that the moon is."
I suppose I've reached for the stars with my comprehensive plan. You may think I'm hanging around the moon's orbit. Actually, as we all know, there are near stars and far stars. I aimed for some pretty far stars, so hanging around Alpha Centauri suits me just fine.
Excuse me, I've got some chinups to do.

It's an idea.

Well, I'm still sick, but this time it is sort of self-induced: I got the H1N1 vaccine. The good news is that Robin is still quite sympathetic (as long as he judges that my symptoms are not just made up). I admit, I can be a bit of a hypochondriac. But this time, it really is bad.
Last week I didn't work all week and this week I worked two afternoons, so I've had lots of free time and it's been exceedingly frustrating.
I've always been a highly motivated and busy person so to be sitting around, feeling crummy, not having much work, is really wearying me. On monday I was talking with our friend Marlene and she commented on the necessity to enjoy the slow times because before you know it, you are overloaded with work.
I thought about that for the rest of the day and the next morning my thoughts had consolidated themselves into the perfect solution.
I began Heather's Comprehensive Improved Program for Total Betterment. It took me half the day to write up all the flowcharts and lists but I got it done. Lasting for 12 weeks, this program has several goals in different areas and delineates the individual steps needed to get there. For example, in the 'discipline my body' category, in 12 weeks I will have worked up to doing 12 consecutive chin-ups. Each week I add one on (this week I'm supposed to do 1 a day). In the 'challenge my mind' category, I have to listen to 20 minutes of French a day, write one French essay a week, learn 2 new Latin words a day, study one drug class, etc.
In the 'build my spirit' category I have various bible memory goals. In the 'channel my emotions' category I have to paint/draw one picture a week. It all started out fine. Because the first day was a half day, I cut myself some slack. I did the chin-up, listened to some French, worked on a memory verse.
The second day I was a bit busy with various things and only got 3 different things out of 20 done. I decided my goals needed to be attenuated a bit. The third day I drove to summerland and listened to 80 minutes of French but did nothing else but the chin-up. Today I'm feeling sick and my arm is burning from the vaccination so I doubt I'll even manage the chin-up. I decided that I don't like painting and the running is a bad idea when I'm sick and I don't feel like reading my old physics textbook.
When I first devised my plan I told Robin about it and begged him to tell me it was a good idea. He paused for a moment and then said 'It's an idea'.
I think I often shoot too high. It's better, I believe, than not trying at all, but sometimes I don't have a very realistic view of myself and my capabilities. If only I could take all my good ideas and actually make them happen....
At any rate since I'm sick at home today with not much to do I can do some of the more laid-back things. Perhaps I'll be feeling better tomorrow and I can catch up on the running and chin-ups. I'll keep you posted.

Being sick

Sometimes I forget to post on my blog because I think, nothing interesting has happened in my life, why would people want to read it?
Well, trust me, I'm not posting today because I have interesting things to say- it's just because I'm so darn bored.
My husband and I are sick, possibly with the H1N1 virus, and he got sick first (several days ago) which is a good or a bad thing, depending on how you look at it. From his perspective, of course, it's pretty crummy, but from my point of view, it has prepared him (who has many fine qualities of which sympathy is not one) to be caring towards me. His attitude, of course, is 'Poor sweetheart, I know just how it feels to feel so awful!'.
Actually Robin's lack of sympathy towards me in general is a very constructive thing. I am a natural whiner and yes, I will whine as much as I can get away with and then some. I can also tend towards slight hypochondrism (being convinced there is something deathly wrong with me when I just have a bruise or a split nail). God himself is a perfect mix of mercy and justice and the beauty of my marriage to Robin is that as we grow closer, we are being pulled away from the polar extremes of the spectrum and finding a home somewhere in the middle.
I would make a terrible judge or a police officer, I commented to a friend once, because as soon as I saw a crocodile tear I'd let everyone off the hook.
Robin, on the other hand, would probably be an excellent soldier or police officer (or a high school teacher) because he sees past all the fluff.
That all being said, being sick is an exercise in mutual compromise, because we have to take turns caring for each other, or sucking it up, whatever the situation requires and whoever is feeling more able at the time.
In the larger picture, being Christians is being members of the body of Christ and as such, we're all joined together and have a responsibility to care for each other as we are able. I read this morning in the Dr's office about a girl in Chile (Daniela Garcia) who lost all four limbs in a tragic train accident. She persevered against all odds to become the world's first quadrilateral amputee physician, married her boyfriend, and is very involved making other people's lives better. She does not feel sorry for herself: she is overflowing with compassion towards other people.
All that being said, being sick right now still sucks.

We're all in the same boat

Last night at work I asked the other woman working with me who would be coming in at 11 to fill the night shift. Usually there are two of us at night- a nurse, and a detox worker, who does bed checks and cleaning and helps me out dealing with problem patients. She told me the name of the girl and I remembered her as having just been hired- maybe this was her third day on the job?
She was 21 but looked 16; very pretty, very shy, very young. I couldn't believe that she had been hired to help look after dozens of big, rough-around-the-edges drug addicts in the middle of the night. Were they crazy? She looked like she would have trouble managing the vacuum let alone having to stand down someone being aggressive and threatening. She looked the very definition of naivety.
I thought I should give her the benefit of the doubt, though, and I said to the other girl, "well, I guess I'm pretty young too." "No, Heather, she said, you don't seem like that at all; you have life experience."
Life experience, how did I get that? I remembered my first day nursing in the hospital as a nursing student. I was 17, 5'3" (I'm still 5'3", unfortunately) and much much more terrified of my patient than she was of me. I stood in the nursing station with my instructor and a couple of other students and felt like walking down the hallway to meet my first patient would be like walking to the guillotine. I don't know if it showed on my face but my instructor looked at me, then took my hand, and put it in the hand of another student, and older lady named Shannon.
"Shannon, you are going to walk with Heather to room 503, and then meet me in 516, okay?"
So we walked down the hall together, hand in hand, and looking back at that moment I wish there was some way I could tell Shannon how much it meant to me. My patient was an older lady with dementia and I don't even think she knew I was there anyway.
Fast forward 8 years and I've navigated nursing and chemistry and medicine and several jobs and countries and relationships and adventures. The funny thing is, I still feel like that 17-year-old sometimes, I still have to swallow my nervousness and go and meet that person anyway, dive in with the awkward questions, have the courage to speak the truth. I don't think any amount of life experience can eliminate that queasiness all the time.
Last night sure enough I had a really difficult patient in the middle of the night and finally I'd had it with niceness. He had been going on and on about his anger and how he wanted to kill someone and all his life problems and how his Dad had abused him and how he hated the other guys here and he didn't want to watch tv with them because it made him want to kill them, and everything hurt so much and I just didn't understand and I should feel sorry for him and blah blah blah. What he was really saying was, I'm a victim, I deserve to get everything I want, and I'm angry at you because you aren't taking away my pain.
"Why are you here?" I asked Kris.
He stopped for a second and then said, "I want to stop using these @#%$%&* drugs, and I'm paying good money for you guys to fix me, and you're not giving me what I want!"
"Kris, it's not my job to fix you. I can't do that, that's your job. I am just here to facilitate it. You need to make up your mind that this is what you want, and then I'll help you."
"You don't understand!" He whined. "Everything hurts so much. Have you ever tried to come off 90mg of Oxy's?" (A pretty high dose of opiates similar in effect to heroin).
"Kris, you are the one that needs to take responsibility. I can help you, but I can't do it for you."
I gave him some suggestions that might help with his middle-of-the-night freak-out.
He swore at me, exasperated. "You sound just like my MOM!!!"
As he stomped away I thought, she's probably one cool lady.
I've written lots in my blogs about the pain that underlies addictions- how these people I work with are easing the abyss of suffering in their lives by dulling it with drugs or alcohol. But in case you get a lopsided view of addictions, in most cases, I have become convinced that there is some degree of choice involved. No matter what crap I get dealt in life, it's still my choice how I respond to it. That's what free will is, that's part of what makes us human. I don't doubt that some of my patients here are truly victims and have got to a point where it is impossible for them to help themselves. But for others, not taking responsibility and not accepting accountability for their actions has become a habit that has become a lifestyle.
So I guess that's an example of life experience, because before I worked here I had a narrow and inexperienced view of addictions- it was something so far removed from my life, it belonged to the people who lived on the streets on Vancouver who were nameless and faceless. Now I realize that we are in exactly the same boat. Perhaps I don't know what it's like to come off of 90mg of Oxy's, but I do know what it is like to suffer pain and make the choice to persevere.
And maybe I'm not as shy as the young detox worker last night, but I do know what it is like to be terrified of your patients and I think actually she's doing a great job.

Baker's anonymous

I’ve considered starting a support group for bakers like myself.
Hi, I’m Heather, and I don’t follow recipes.
This week Robin tried to convince me that Bob (our pastor) had asked to have a talk with me about my issues with cooking (i.e. not following recipes). For a second I felt as if I had been caught with my hand in the cookie jar and then I realized, of course he’s joking. It is not a sin to improvise with recipes.
Did Christopher Columbus use a map, I ask you? He MADE the map! Recipes, as I see them, are merely guideposts that suggest one plausible method of cooking the dish amongst myriads of creative possibilities. It is the cook’s prerogative, like the artist’s, to create, to experiment, to explore uncharted territory and through the lens of adventure to create masterpieces.
A friend gave me a postcard once of a black and white photo of a woman holding a cake. It said ‘if I can bake a cake, I can build a bomb.’
The problem is, I did my time studying chemistry and yes, I learned how to build bombs, but it doesn’t appear to have helped me in the kitchen.
Kim gave me some decorative (inedible?) gourds from her garden two weeks ago. Whoever heard of a gourd that was inedible, I thought, so I cut it up, boiled it, and baked it into pumpkin pie. Or if you prefer, inedible gourd pie. We ate it and I think it was quite good.
My crockpot meatballs last night were not that great. I didn’t have all the ingredients to start with, so I had to improvise a bit, but the meatballs came out looking fine and I FOLLOWED the RECIPE instead of my instinct and put them in the crockpot for 5 hours on high in a sauce. (Well, I did have to improvise the sauce a bit by putting in apricot jam and teriyaki sauce instead of cranberry sauce and sugar).
You can imagine my shock when I came home from work and discovered 5 hours on high had evaporated all the sauce and left sticky gooey blackish meatballs covered in a sickly sweet sauce. We choked them down with rice.
I made steak for the first time last night. Robin likes it rare but I sort of forgot it was on the BBQ, so by the time I got to it, rare was the last thing you could’ve called it. He made a show of trying to chew it but I think he liked it, after all, overcooked steak is better than no steak.
I could regale you with tales of failed meals or of successful meals. I’m actually having fun learning how to cook things and planning meals, I realize it’s an art and if you wanted to classify me as a type of artist I probably wouldn’t be one of the ones who designs advertisements or paints perfect scenery or sculpts matching wax heads for museums. I would probably be more in league with the huge piece of canvas you see in a hotel lobby that looks like someone walked up, threw seven different paint cans at the wall, walked away and said, world, if you don’t like it, you can stuff it. And strangely they get paid big money for their acrylic temper tantrums and in some lights it looks beautiful and sometimes people cry over it.
Yes, some people cry over my meals, too, I’m sure. As I type I have an apple pie in the oven and I’m convinced it’s going to be amazing, especially because I made up the recipe myself.

Those Crazy French

So the latest and greatest adventure I’m on: teaching French. It’s probably a combination of the economic recession, living in a smaller town, and the time of year, but I haven’t been able to find much nursing work here in Kelowna. In fact, not much work at all. My own call shifts for detox nursing are about one a week, but I’m lucky I didn’t get laid off like some others there. I am remembering being in Marseille, South France, where the unemployment rate is 40% and aimless youth wander around creating trouble. Or in Antigua, where a day’s wage buys 2 cans of coke. Or Africa, where people trade things for food that should never be traded, like sex, or their children, or their faith.
That all being said, I do have a part-time job, and I just got another, but in a totally different field. It’s not really so far off the charts, though. I’ve always been passionate about languages- in fact, as much or more than medicine, and I have had experience teaching piano, guitar, ESL, and chemistry over the years.
The only difference is that I taught myself French and I wouldn’t consider myself fluent- yes, I can speak it, but no, it’s nowhere close to perfect. Of course I’m not one to let something silly like that get me down, so I applied for a job as a French immersion tutor for high-school chemistry. The day I got the job I rode my bike over to Yvette’s house and said in a panic, I think I’ve got myself into a bit of a pickle. I have a job teaching a language I can’t speak.
Yvette reassured me and I thought, this is okay, I have two days to prepare, I’ll be okay. My first day was on Thursday and on Tuesday afternoon I was talking with Robin when my phone rang.
“Are you on your way?” My new boss asked.
“What do you mean?” I asked. “It’s not Thursday.”
“You were supposed to start Tuesday.” She said.
I opened my email account and stared in disbelief at the email. Tuesday. How had I misread it?
“I’ll be there as soon as I can.” I told her.
Traffic on the highway… I recited French words to myself and roared into the school parking lot in my red pickup. My students were waiting.
The first girl was not too bad, her French was terrible and we spent the hour pronouncing numbers. The second girl, however, was fluent in French and I had to stare at her mouth and ask her to repeat herself so I could understand.
She was asking for help with math. I didn’t even know what grade she was in, I hadn’t had time to read her chart and anyway, I haven’t done math for years. She showed me her worksheet and suddenly I felt my eyes go blurry. French math was not like English math. They use different symbols, those crazy people. Commas instead of decimal points. I had to look at it for a few minutes before I understood what the question was asking. But then how do I explain it to a teenager who can’t understand me?
“Tu utilize une calculatrice dans la classe?” I asked her. (Do you use a calculator in class?)
What are they teaching kids these days, anyway. Why can’t they just use calculators? No one does long division on paper or multiplies complex fractions. I tried to explain to her how to do the calculations. I didn’t know the French words for multiply, times, divide, subtract, add, plus, reduce, denominator, numerator, or anything that would’ve been useful, so I just put on my best sexy French accent and guessed what they were.
The hour went by painfully slow. I felt like the world’s biggest idiot and I wondered if I wouldn’t get fired if I went home and read my French dictionary cover to cover before the next class.
“Are you fluent in French?” My student asked me.
“No!” I answered, strangely relieved. “I understand and read it well, but I can’t speak very well.”
“Really? Well, I thought you were fluent. You speak better than any of my other French teachers.”
I stared at her in disbelief.
“Really?”
She packed up her books.
“Bonne chance avec ton examen.” I told her (Good luck with your exam.) Thank heavens I knew how to say that.
I read a quote today by Henry Ford: “Whether you think you can or think you can’t- you are right”.
I think I can teach French. I think I can teach chemistry in French. Maybe some day this job will lead me to bigger and better things, and maybe it won’t, but in the meantime it is a challenge and it is a change and it is pretty fun.

Chinese lanterns and symphonies

Around me the mountains are like a bowl,
That part feels like home
In the morning the sun shines in my kitchen window
And I hear the traffic outside but it has become a sort of music
The cars going by, the honk of horns, together with the dancing green leaves
On my balcony plants and the tree outside the window.
The hum of my fan joins the symphony, and early in the morning
The neighbor’s truck radio and the sound of birds
They make it a sort of music, they do.

The other night I stayed up late trying to fashion a Chinese lantern
Out of wire hangers and pink tissue paper
It is a misshapen mass, a joke of craftsmanship, a laughing matter
When I lit a candle, though, it was harder to see the imperfections
And easier to feel the beauty of the soft light glow.
A little bit like my life, I think.
I’m trying to find work and there’s none to be had
I learned how to can this summer and I’m learning how to be married
And struggling to feel like I’m worth something

I wonder if I’d kept on the track I’d been going on,
If I’d have been like a blazing fire, hot and white, that burned itself out
Instead I’m like the Chinese lantern, a soft and steady glow
Casting light and casting shadows, filling the room with warmth
Not burning out, just being.
Not amazing the world with my scintillating light
But lighting the way in the darkness, with the wafting aroma of vanilla candles
And the way the gentle light hides the dirt on the carpet and the marks on the walls

Sometimes you might think that putting a candle under the covers,
That it will hide it and extinguish it
But the paper takes a naked flame, cold and sharp
And turns it into a giant pink ball of soft light
That illuminates everything
And somehow in my bowl of mountains
Instead of fighting against the cacophony of the world
I am joining the symphony right outside my window

Collateral damage

In 1945 when the atomic bombs were dropped on Nagasaki and Hiroshima, 250,000 people or more died, most of them on the days of the bombing. But included in those 250,000 were 3,200 Japanese-Americans, Allied POW's, Korean and Chinese laborers, exchange-students from Malaya and a host of other unintended victims.
Not only that; it is more than 60 years after the events and Japanese people are still suffering the physical effects of radiation and the emotional effects of their country's destruction. In Hiroshima, in one day, 90% of the doctors and 93% of the nurses were killed. Most of the citizens had nothing to do whatsoever with the decisions being made by their government about the war. They were simply collateral damage.
It is true that we're each judged by our own actions and that before God we have to answer for ourselves and there is no such thing as blaming with him. We are responsible and accountable for our choices. But there is another thing to consider, and that is the far-reaching implications our actions have on others. That is why leaders are always (or should be!) judged more harshly. When you take leadership upon you, you also take responsibility for the outcome, whether it is good or bad.
Robin started reading a book this week about spiritual warfare and he talked to me about it, about the fact that when Christians investigate issues like that, they can expect to deal with some fallout. Satan would take advantage of the situation to attack us. We needed to be prepared for some blows. Was I okay with that, he asked.
We have some dear friends here who are so filled with the Holy Spirit, so overflowing with God's love and his GRACE, in every sense of the word.
But they've been through the fire. They have dealt with the fallout of every right decision they've made.
Am I ready for that kind of thing?
Last night at the girl's bible study I lead, we came up with a question that we couldn't answer. I felt the weight of it on my shoulders last night as I realized that I didn't know what to do, I had no idea, so how could I possibly model it for these girls if I didn't know myself? Are they going to suffer the collateral damage of me never responding to God in that particular area before?
Last week after one too many verbal assaults and behavior issues, I told a patient to pull his socks up. My boss called me the other day and discussed how this same patient has threatened to sue for the way he was treated by the night nurse (me!). Fallout. I wasn't prepared for the repercussions of my sticking-to-my-guns attitude.
I come home and tell Robin about my day, and he tells me about his, and we share them and we share the results (I told him before we were married that I needed to de-brief after work and actually from almost anything I do!) We carry each other's collateral damage, as well as the good things. Shared sorrows are lessened, shared joys are greater.

Addiction

Yesterday I went to work and barely got through half of the report before I had to take in a new admission. By the time my paperwork cleared up enough to be able to see over the top of it, I was busy assessing patients.
People withdrawing off of opiates like heroin and morphine have a decreased pain threshold, so everything bothers them. "My pancreas is on fire, I think I'm dying". "I have a splinter in my finger". "I miss my kids so much". "I hurt all over".
The withdrawal is tough; most of them turn into whining, sobbing babies. But I would be the same way, I know I would.
"The root cause of addiction", says Dr. Gabor Mate in his excellent book 'in the realm of hungry ghosts' "...is pain". Pain upon pain upon pain.
All my female patients yesterday had been sexually and physically abused. One young woman's father had taken a hammer to her head as a child, so now she struggled with multiple allergies and brain injury-induced epilepsy (daily seizures!) and coping with a drug addiction while trying to parent three active boys. She said she had a yeast infection and when I asked to examine her she refused, saying since she'd been sexually abused she had post-traumatic stress disorder and wouldn't let anyone touch her. (I've sanitized her reply a little bit!)
But the saddest story, the one that kept me awake last night, was a 58-year-old woman named Elise (not her real name) who was trying to detox off of alcohol. Her entire body was covered in bruises. Some of them looked like belt marks. She shook constantly and at the slightest touch or noise she would flinch. She was a little lady and she was unsteady on her feet and needed my help getting onto the examining table.
After we'd talked for some time and she was reassured that I wasn't going to judge her, I wasn't going to hurt her, I really cared about helping her, she told me that she lived with her elderly parents who were also alcoholics. When she drank her father would lock her in her room, and he often beat her. The details (which I'll skip) made me feel sick and I listened to her and comforted her and told her it wasn't her fault and that we wanted to help and that we could find her somewhere to stay. She was tearful at the thought of leaving her mother and said that her Mom needed her, and she couldn't afford to get her own place, and her Dad was always sorry the next day, and maybe she just needed to talk to them and lay out some rules for her living with them.
I encouraged her to write down what she wanted and later I saw her list. Point 1: No more locking me in my room.
Sandra was beautiful, too beautiful, and she radiated vulnerability and sleezy sexuality. Alone in the examining room with me her mask slipped off and she cried and told me that her common-law husband had given her an ultimatum for getting off drugs, otherwise they would break up and he would sell her show horse. But she was desperate to be taken care of. She told me how she had been sexually abused and how she needed to use drugs to have energy and happiness. She tried to stop her tears but they kept coming.
Last night I had a terrible dream and I was crying out and Robin woke me up and pulled me into his arms and held me. It was just a dream, he said. I told him about it and he prayed with me, and I lay there for a long time thinking about it and how lucky I was to have his arms around me, have him looking after me.
Isaiah the prophet talked about Jesus. "He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and familiar with suffering."
I told Elise yesterday about Jesus, how he was a friend that stood by your side no matter what you were going through.
"Like one from whom men hide their faces, he was despised, and we did not esteem him."
Do you think that God cares about these people who are living with pain, upon pain, upon pain? Does he see through their masks? Does he reach out to them in their crippling addictions and offer them hope?
"Surely he took up our sicknesses, and carried our sorrows.... he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed."

Yes, the wedding is over

Well, that's the end of my lengthy blog hiatus. However.... things might change now that I'm married. I'm used to writing about my life, my thoughts, my perspective on things and now I'm not just by myself anymore. It's quite a bit different and I'm still getting used to it. Sure, I can still write about Heather Mercer (who is the same person as Heather Davies by the way) but I have to be careful that what I write about doesn't violate the personal space of my other half. Of course, as always, clever readers can read between the lines.
We got married on Burnaby mountain which was not what I'd anticipated for a wedding but it was great nontheless. The sun was shining and nothing went wrong (imagine that!). No lost rings, no forgotten vows, the only thing to mar the perfection was the heat, which caused massive perspiration, especially on the part of the groom, whose deep emotions leaked through the front of his shirt during the ceremony.
The morning of the wedding Robin and I and our extended family had a leisurely breakfast and I jumped in the hot tub with Kiara and went for a walk with Robin so we could have some quiet space to talk.
Just before the wedding (about two hours) I was hit by a sudden case of the butterflies in my stomach. It felt like there were a million of them clamoring to get out and they were going to shoot out my mouth at any moment. I put on my wedding dress and my shoes and waited impatiently for everyone to get ready. I'm ready to get married, I told them. What a dumb idea to wait until 4:30 in the afternoon. My Dad couldn't find his wallet. He decided to wash his car at the last minute. One of the cars left without all it's occupants. I sat on the couch and sipped on water and tried to calm myself down.
On the drive to the mountain Dad was joking around and telling me it wasn't too late, he could still call the whole thing off. Daddy, I told him, what I need from you right now is for you to keep a strong grip on my arm and walk me down that aisle and don't tell me I can still walk out. He parked his car behind the garbage dumpster behind the restaurant on the top of the mountain. We waited in the shade of the dumpster and I watched my bridesmaids walk into the crowd of people.
We both cried when we walked across the grass together. Robin was there but he wasn't looking at me (he said I had a scowl on my face). And then we got married, just like that, everyone was smiling at us and I hoped that without microphones they could all still hear us, so I said my vows extra loud.
We took pictures in the rose garden and then went into the restaurant for our reception and it was lots of fun; noisy and the food was delicious and we talked and laughed and danced. At 10:00 or so outside there were fireworks going off in English Harbor and people went out onto the deck and they looked like colored stars in the sky.
We drove away.... (I'll just skip the next part of my narrative since no one wants to hear about our honeymoon anyway, even though they all ask how was it? Fine, I tell them. Do you really want to know what we did? No, I didn't think so. Well, we did go explore, and we slept in mosquitoville in Uclulet and got bitten from head to toe, and we read on Long beach, and we cycled in Victoria, and we Kayaked in Cowichan Bay...)
Now we're back home in Kelowna.
I've moved most of my stuff into Robin's apartment and I set up my plants on the back porch, but they don't look as spectacular as I'd hoped because the Zucchini didn't really grow this year. We still have things to do, like put pictures on the walls and figure out what to do with my car, which is broken down, by the way.
I'm taking a course this month but I haven't even started it yet and I don't feel really motivated to study. It has been a lengthy break for me and it's always a bit hard to get into it again....
Well, I'm not sure what you managed to ready between the lines in all this, because I didn't really intend anything beyond the english words I put down. I'll keep you posted, though.
Have a wonderful day...
love Heather

The wedding hiatus

I apologize for not writing for two weeks and please forgive the brief hiatus from Hullaballooing- it is due to the fact that I am ridiculously busy with wedding planning. I'm not sure if it will settle down once I'm married but at least then I'll have wireless internet in my house and be able to write any time if I wanted to.
16 days until my wedding! And not just a wedding. A life change. A name change. I'm not sure at this point if I'm nervous or excited or stressed or all three. A wedding is a horrible thing to plan; I don't recommend it unless you have a couple of years and infinite patience and only 3 relatives. Failing all those, it will be worth it if it's what's required to start life with the person you're crazy about.
I discovered there are ways that things are done and there are ways that things are JUST NOT DONE when it comes to planning weddings. For example, you have to send thank you notes for presents you receive. I didn't know about this custom and I am used to expressing my thanks verbally and in person, but I have been educated about thank you notes now and will most likely send them out asap.
I went into a florist's the other day to choose flowers for my wedding. AFter being told that I needed to order the flowers I wanted weeks in advance in the right quantities, colours, etc., and get them made professionally, I decided to just go on the morning of my wedding, pick out what looked pretty, tie it together with a bow and go with that.
It apparently takes a minimum of 6 months to get a wedding dress- it must be shopped for, ordered, sized, and altered. Of course, that doesn't count if you have a friend like Yvette Smith, who looked at a picture I tore out of a magazine, made up a pattern, and sewed the dress of my dreams in four days. That including a sewing machine breakdown and a simultaneous packing for family camp.
Of course planning a wedding in 8 weeks is not everyone's cup of tea, but from what I've seen in other friends, no matter what the length of time before their wedding, they get majorly stressed out. I was told, by the time your wedding comes, Heather, you won't care about anything except marrying Robin. It is true. At this point I just want to marry him. Perhaps the elaborate social construct of weddings and wedding planning and brides and all that fluffy lacy fancy crap just serves the purpose of making two people see that all they really care about in the world is being together, and if they can survive wedding planning they can survive anything.
So, yes, everything is coming together for my wedding and it's going to be a good time, I think. I told Bob (who's going to marry us) that if it rains during the ceremony our plan B is to hold umbrellas. And if he mixes up our names or nothing goes right during the ceremony or reception I don't really mind. It's just a wedding. I have the rest of my life ahead of me to be a family with Robin Mercer and that's what I care about most.
So anyway, I can't guarantee that in the next three weeks there will be any blog postings, but please do keep reading after that because I'll still be happy and I'll still be in a hullaballoo and I'll still need to write to get it out.

Of boats and weddings

Can you believe I'm getting married in less than a month? We contemplated taking our time and planning a wedding properly, but Robin described a wedding to me as a door to a house. Why would you spend years and countless stressful hours and so much money just building a fancy door and forgetting about the house?
But the reality is that I am going to have a fancy wedding. I squirm at the thought of it. Of course like every girl I like to dress up, and I used to dream of a fairytale day when all the littlest details would be perfect.
But when it comes down to it I just want to marry Robin Mercer and move into his apartment and be a family with him. And I'm much more comfortable in flipflops and a sundress. And I'm scared that the waitresses at my reception will be better dressed than me.
I suggested to Yvette that I was a classy girl and she laughed her head off. So maybe I'm not classy.... but maybe I can pretend that I am for a day and have a proper wedding.
We seriously considered eloping on our boat trip last week with my whole family. In the end I'm glad we didn't because after 8 days with 18 family members on a 30-foot boat, I just about went crazy. Add a honeymoon to that mixture and I'm sure I would've jumped ship.
We sailed around the gulf islands and fished and crabbed and shopped and slept and threw up (I did most of that on the boat) and explored and played games (including a 4 hour croquet game) and fought and laughed. (I'm pleased to announce that my fiance came out on top in the fight).
And I love my family a lot. They are not all easy (and you wonder why I get accused of being difficult! At least I come by it honestly). Yet they are my family, which is something you don't choose but get stuck with, unless it is your fiance, which in this case I think God chose us for each other and made it impossible for us not to get together. At any rate, they are my family, and I love how diverse we all are. I love that my brother Sam has the creativity to design a croquet game involving jumping your ball off a tire ramp through a hoop. I love that Alpha brought enough clothes for a month, which came in handy when I didn't bring enough; and somehow she seems stylish even when camping. I love that Will sat on the front of the boat with Robin and Alpha for 3 hours, getting soaked by waves and chilled by a bitter wind, while only wearing shorts and bare feet. I love that Kiara and Betsy are both so beautiful and cute but in different ways. One dark and exhuberant and the other blond and sweet. I love that my Mom can be suffering from a concussion and a detached retina and seasickness and mothering woes and the loss of her own mother and yet, hardly ever complain. She is a soldier in the truest sense.
I love that my Dad can pilot a huge boat that he's never had proper training for and he can catch pots of crab and do all sorts of things by the seat of his pants, and that he loves us all enough to do it for us. And that he loves me enough to plan me a beautiful wedding.
But I am a Davies first of all which is why I won't be surprised if a fight breaks out on the dance floor and the rings don't show up and our get-away car is an '87 Volvo and my siblings put money on who will be the first to cry during the ceremony. It's my last month to be a Davies. I am happy and sad all at the same time.

Pain

I always said I would never become one of those mean grumpy nurses. But now I understand them a bit better, I think. Not that I am becoming one, but at least I understand.
Because people lie and cheat and steal. And they hurt and call names and defraud and all that stuff. So nurses (and other people of course!) get hardened to it and become insensitive.
This week at work I had to be tough with a few people, and that's hard for me. I like to be compassionate and kind all the time, but sometimes that isn't the right approach.
Take, for example, my patient Robert. He went to take a bath with some epsom salts to ease the discomfort of heroin withdrawals. He'd been in the bath room for some time and I got this funny feeling about it. Maybe he was in there too long.
I went to the door and called his name. On the other side of the door I heard snoring.
I unlocked it with my master key and there he was, completely naked, sprawled out in the tub sawing logs.
"Robert! Wake up!" I said to him.
I threw a towel over him and shook him and he gradually came too.
"What are you doing?" I asked him. "You were fast asleep in the tub! You could've drowned!"
"Oh, it's not very deep." He said groggily. "And it feels really nice on my sore back."
"Get out of the tub." I told him. "I don't want you drowning in here."
"Aw come on, I'll be okay!"
"Get out!" I told him. "If you're sleepy enough to fall asleep in here, you can go to bed."
He got out. Later that day I had to kick someone out. And I had to tell him that there was nothing left I could do to help him unless he wanted to be helped. It was a hard thing to say. I wanted to put my arms around him and comfort his pain but I thought about something I learned in a nursing conference last week.
The number one factor that influences a person staying off drugs or alcohol permamently is whether or not they feel enough pain. Pain they've caused those they love; pain in themselves from their choices. And if health care professionals (and christians, and counsellors!) work too hard to eliminate people's pain and suffering, we may actually be short-circuiting the process that will set them free.
I'm sorry that you are hurting, I say to him. But it is that hurt that will continue to worsen, that will eventually make you change.
So maybe on the surface I will appear to be a mean grumpy nurse. But inside, I'm really kind and compassionate.

Beds of daisies

I had detailed plans for today. I had promised my sister Hannah that I would take her shopping and we both like schedules, so I helped her write a list of everything we were going to do. I got up early, read my bible, went for a run, showered, had some breakfast. Got everything ready to go and then headed out to the car.
Instead of 'old dependable' (my giant silver volvo), I was driving Robin's little green tercel for the weekend. I got Hannah into her seat and buckled and then tried to fit her wheelchair in the trunk. It wouldn't fit. It was simply too big for the space. I sweated and pushed and tried to turn it around and take it apart and I finally wrestled the whole thing in and managed to slam it shut. I got into the driver's seat, turned my key in the ignition, and nothing happened.
I remembered suddenly that a friend had told me the night before that my lights were on. Obviously I had drained the battery. There were no other available cars to jump-start it. The only live vehicle on the street was Mindy, Will's little blue car with only three wheels. But it was across the street. I got out of the car. Got Hannah out. Wrestled the wheelchair out of the trunk and reassembled it. I told her we would walk to the mall. It was already getting hot and I envisioned myself pushing her the kilometer and a half uphill.
I was starting towards the house to get my flip-flops when my Mom came out.
"Heather, there's a battery charger in the garage that might work."
Sure enough, there was a car starter kit with cables and everything. I hauled it out to the street and popped the hood. My neighbor Albert was out watering the lawn and he came over and helped me hook it up. After a few minutes the car started.
I wrestled the wheelchair back into the trunk and got Hannah re-buckled in and we drove off.
We went shopping and sat and had milkshakes together and talked and then I brought her back home and went off to meet my friend Anna. I had to pick something up in the mall and we walked around quickly and then she had a lab appointment and I sat in the waiting room. I had planned on meeting Miriam at a certain time but I watched the clock on the wall tick and felt I was wasting my time, I should be doing something. I had nothing to read, nothing to knit, nothing to do. Nothing but wait.
Sometimes life is like that; you rush and rush and then there is nothing to do but wait.
When I finally left I fought through afternoon traffic to get to Miriam's and suddenly there was no more rushing, no more wrestling with things that didn't fit. We went for a walk and bought popsicles and lay on the grass in the park and strung daisies together into chains. It was wonderful.
Sometimes life is like that. I have rushed and rushed for many years. I will be married by 16. Okay, 18. Okay, 21. I will be a doctor by 23. Okay, 25. Okay, 28. I will try to fit myself into something that doesn't fit, like the wheelchair in the trunk. I have tried to start things that wouldn't start, like the car. I have struggled through traffic and fretted while waiting in labs. I've had to let go of 'doing'. I'm afraid there is more of that lesson to be learned, unfortunately.
But why? All I really want deep inside is to lie in a bed of daisies, to talk about interesting things, to enjoy friendship, to listen to children playing in the background and know that everything is all right.
Today I thought about becoming Heather Mercer, sometime very soon. I'm hardly getting used to being Heather Davies, it seems. Perhaps it takes a lifetime to get acquainted with oneself, to figure out what you really want.
I heard Hannah crying in bed just now and I went up to see her and I asked her why she was crying. After a long while I finally understood what she was trying to say between tears.
"You're going."
Yes, I am. But it's okay. I'm still me, and I'll be back to visit. I gave her a kleenex and as she fell asleep I thought about the adventures I've been on and the ones still to come and how sometimes the adventure is just seeing for the first time what has been in front of me all along.

New things

I recently did several things I haven't done before that had not quite the outcomes I was expecting.
1. Robin and I bought a red truck for a pretty good deal. Plus it comes with winter tires and a canopy, so we can go winter camping in it, or if times get tight, we can live in it year around. Unfortunately the red truck broke down. Fortunately Robin and his friend Rick fixed it today.
2. I bought a rocking chair at a garage sale and Marlene gave me an old stool and I decided to sand them down and paint them red and white. Unfortunately the paint cost me double what the chair cost. Fortunately I have lots left over to paint other things.
3. I decided to make a type of strawberry trifle/pudding the other day. Unfortunately it looked like baby puke. Fortunately it still tasted very delicious.
4. I spent an afternoon and evening with my future in-laws. There is nothing unfortunate to say here: despite all the stupid movies about the in-laws from hell, all of mine are wonderful people and they like me and are happy I'm marrying their son.
5. In an effort to have our girl's bible study in a more interesting location, I led us all to the beach on thursday night, and straight into clouds of mosquitoes. We quickly relocated to a grassy hill which turned out to be some kind of ant-hill. Fortunately the ant hill did not stop us from having a good bible study.
6. Someone called me on my cellphone in the middle of the night this week. I tried to answer the phone but the display light wouldn't come on. Finally I got tired of trying to punch the buttons in the dark and I sat up and turned on my light. Unfortunately I wasn't holding anything in my hand; I had dreamt the whole thing.
7. I didn't have any work scheduled this week or next week. Perhaps something will turn up; I don't know. But it's okay. I have lots of interesting things to do, like work in my garden and paint my furniture and cook.

People

I rolled out of bed the other morning feeling like a truck had run over me. I knew that this was one of those mornings that even a pot of coffee couldn't do the trick.
I showered and read the bible and prayed. Help me to love my patients the way you love them, Lord. I dressed for work and then rushed through breakfast and made a lunch. Maybe today would be a super slow day at work, I thought, so I threw my knitting needles and a couple of magazines in my purse as I went out the door.
Work started with a bang and didn't let up all day. I had ten patients and they were almost all nuts. One older guy approached the nurses quite distressed; he couldn't sleep at night, he said, because he was a cross-dresser and didn't have any ladies clothes to wear, and could we please find him some ladies underwear so he could sleep at night? I hardly knew what to say.
As I was getting ready to give some morning pills I noticed one of my patients was very drowsy, more than normal. He looked like he was going to pack it in and I elected not to give him his usual sedative. He has long flowing hair, glow-in-the-dark barcodes tattooed under his eyes, and blue barcodes tattooed on his chin and forehead. In his ears he had rolls of tape instead of earrings. At first glance he wierded me right out. But later I found him sitting in front of the tv and I talked with him about his childhood, how he had a muscle disease that prevent him from gaining weight and he was so insecure about his looks that he did anything to fit in- including taking drugs and drinking- but even then, he could never fill the hole in his heart.
One very disturbed young lady kept repeatedly vomiting and asking me for medication to stop it. After giving her two rounds of anti-nausea injections and she was still vomiting, I sat down on the end of her bed and asked her, "Laura, are you making yourself throw up?"
"Of course I'm not! What do you think, I'd do something stupid like that?"
Yes, I did think that. She was manipulative, angry, and so desperate for attention that she was capable of just about anything. I told her not to eat any more and just to stick with fluids until we could get the issue settled. Later she came by the nursing station with a shirt showing her belly. Rules are rules; I told her graciously to go change her shirt. She yelled and swore at me and said she wanted to go slash her wrists but she went off anyway. She came into the nursing station later doubled over in pain and almost crying. Her abdominal pain was a repeat issue and she'd been to the hospital and they were hesitant to operate because was there really a problem?
I'd already given her pain medication not too long before and I lay her down and examined her and then sat down next to her.
"Laura, I believe that the body and emotions and spirit are all intimately connected. What goes on in your body affects your emotions, and what goes on in your emotions can really affect your body."
She nodded understandingly.
"I think it's possible that what's going on with your stomach is less physical, but may instead have it's root in the stuff that's going on in your emotions. And unless you deal with what's going on in your heart, your body is not going to get better."
We talked about it for awhile and she gradually sat up and stopped crying and finally went out, not complaining about the pain at all.
Later I heard her clattering down the hall and she appeared wearing a skirt that barely covered her behind.
"Laura, go change into some pants." I told her firmly.
"They're all in the laundry."
"Well, I'll give you some pajama bottoms, then, but you can't wear that in here. There are other people with all sorts of addictions and we need to be considerate of everyone."
She cursed me as she went away but I stood my ground, feeling frustrated and annoyed. I did my other work and thought, she's not going to get any sympathy from me.
And then as I sat there at the desk God began to change my heart. I got up and went out past all my other patients to where Laura sat on the patio alone, a cigarette between her shaking fingers. I sat down next to her.
"This is not okay." I told her. "I am not trying to make things difficult for you. I am on your side and I want to see you get well. I can try, but really there is only so much I can do for you unless we work together."
She began to cry and I put my arm around her.
"I just feel so all alone. I just want someone to love me."
She began to pour out her heart, about the boyfriend who was cheating on her and the mom who taught her to shoot heroin, and the little brother who was on the streets, and all the pain that was like a deep black pit. But deep inside she wanted someone to notice her, and love her, and take care of her. I talked to her about Jesus and about him being a friend that never leaves you and sticks by you through it all. I talked to her about letting go and asking for help.
"I can't ask for help." She said. "I have to do it on my own...."
"But you can't do it on your own." I told her. "None of us can."
We walked back inside together.
Later that evening I sat with another woman whose husband didn't want her to stay in treatment and I tried to convince her to tell him no and to stay.
"You need to decide for yourself what you want." I told her.
She was like a shy little mouse; she couldn't bring herself to look me in the eye. I wondered if she had ever said no to anyone in her life, let alone the angry husband who was trying to keep her from getting well. She held the phone in her shaking hand and cried as she tried to tell him that she wasn't coming home yet.
It's a long journey, I thought. All these people are desperately suffering. If I only hung out with people whose lives seemed together I might have an easy life. But I would lose sight of the thread of suffering that runs through all of us, and of the truth that it is only by the love of God that there is hope. A perfect life forgets that it needs God. Suffering people help us see every day what it means to need God, and what it means to love God by loving each other in our frailty.

Interesting things

1. I had a crazy patient named Nate this week. He is very talkative and a little bit nuts and he was hit by a train last year. He rolled up his pantlegs to show me where they'd put the pins in his leg, and then told me to put my hand on his head. There was an area about 4 inches square that was missing the skull and I could feel softness through it. "Now feel this" he told me, and strained down, and as he did, his brain bulged out the hole. Talk about gross.
2. I had a dream today that I was a spy and I was hiding down the side of a building with my head turned all the way left so I was flatter. I woke up to find I was in the exact same position on my stomach in my bed. Only the tree that was suffocating me was actually my pillow.
3. I went to Sam and Yvonne's house for dinner and decided to make a cake. Because Marlene's kitchen is under construction I made it in the toaster oven, in a bundt pan. It rose properly, browned properly, and tasted great.
4. Last night Robin took me hiking up a mountain and on a bridge over a river he gave me a pretty little ring and asked me to marry him. I said yes, of course.
5. The whole purpose of this blog entry was to tell you that I'm engaged. And that I'm ridiculously happy about it.

Addictions

I started my new job this week and it has given me lots to think about. I'd like to tell stories about my patients but in the interests of keeping their confidence I've changed their names, in case you wonder.
The place I work at is a medical detox facility that helps people withdraw from drug and alcohol addictions. Most 'clients' stay for a week or less and although they are free to leave at any time, the place is locked up and under pretty tight regulations. In the morning I key in a password and I monitor the security cameras and try to keep pretty strict boundaries. There are times when it is alright to let people into your life and trust them completely, and there are other times when you have to keep a bit of distance. For example, one of my clients this week has court charges pending for sexual assault against children.
I struggle to look in his eyes and say, this is a human being, created in God's image, who I am called to love and respect and offer him dignity as he suffers. We are all working through addictions in some way or another. Some are just more on the surface than others.
One of my clients came into the nursing station yesterday and I brought him into the examining room. Ben is only 22 and was brought to the hospital by police last week. On our checklist of illegal drugs he's taking just about every one. His family is all messed up and he was trying to committ suicide so he was put on a suicide watch.
"I'm feeling terrible." Ben told me.
He sat on the examining table with his head hung over, his face pale and sweating and his hands shaking.
"I need something... Can you give me some more Valium?"
I took his pulse and blood pressure and temperature and all that, and assessed several parameters that help us determine his reaction to the withdrawl. I had already given him a sedative a couple of hours before and felt that he wasn't as badly off as he felt- the big issue was his psychological dependance.
"Ben, you're used to popping a pill or having a drink everytime you feel crummy." I said to him.
He nodded. "Yeah, I just know that drugs would settle me down right now. I don't even want them, but I don't know what else to do."
"And you've gotten into that habit of using them to cope." I continued. "But you can't do that anymore, right? You need to find other ways to cope with that feeling. What do you think are other things you could do to help when you feel that way, instead of taking a pill?"
He shrugged. "I dunno... listen to music. But I get sick of that. There's nothing on TV. I've read all the magazines I can."
"What about exercise?" I asked. "Sometimes a run can help... or watching a movie, or eating, or praying..."
"What do you do to help cope?" He asked me.
I reached over and closed the examining room door quietly.
"It's my belief, and that of the other staff here, that the reason people do drugs and alcohol is because they have a hole deep inside of them that they're trying to fill."
"That's exactly how I feel." Ben interjected. "It's like there's this hole in my heart that I keep trying to satisfy."
"I'm techinically not supposed to talk to you about my personal beliefs," I told him, "But we've all got that hole inside of us. I do too. And the only way it was filled in me was by experiencing the love of God and having a relationship with him. People try to fill that hole with all sorts of things, but the only real way is to know God's love for you, and that no matter what you've done, he loves you unconditionally."
"My mom is a christian." He told me, "and sometimes I listen to worship music on my walkman and it really calms me down. But I don't want to believe in it just because she does. I guess I haven't yet found that for myself."
"Have you ever prayed and talked to God?" I asked him. "Why don't you try?"
"I'd like to." He told me.
We talked for some time longer and then he got up to go out, his eyes bright.
"I feel like I hit my rock bottom." He told me. "And I feel like things are getting better. I have reasons to live and I don't want to die anymore."
As Ben left I looked tentatively at the other nurses to see if they had overheard our conversation. I don't want to get fired from my job, you know? But 7 days of medicating someone so they come off of alcohol is not the answer to the hole in their heart. I feel like if I just did that I would be putting a bandaid on a big, gaping wound. I want to give them hope. I want to really love them.
I heard a funny noise in the hallway and I rushed out in time to see Christie, a high-strung skinny street lady, projectile vomit all over the floor. Her roomate was a middle-aged mother that has had her life destroyed by alcohol and is trying to put it back together, and she was very distressed.
"Oh, you poor thing! You're really not feeling well, are you?"
I rushed to help her. Sometimes showing love is a more practical thing, and I settled her in bed with gravol and water and told her everything was going to be okay. I don't know if it will be, but I know that it could be, so that's what I say. I know that 97% of the people who come through here end up back on drugs or alcohol. My hope is that I can be part of helping that 3%, yes, but also for the 97% I want to love them as much as I can while they are here and if they don't choose to grab ahold of the hope I offer them, I'll still love them.

Lost and at home

It occurred to me the other day that in the last 2 years I haven't stayed in the same place for more than 3 months. In fact, I've slept in over 25 different beds (including a hotel in Paris, a tent at Paul lake, my sister's bed, an old crack house in Chicago, the couch at my brother's house, a mickey mouse bed in New York, a plastic mattress in Antigua).... and now finally, the blue room in Bob and Marlene's house.
My ritual is usually the same wherever I go: I spread my purple quilt cover over the bed. I put my little clock, my bible, and my little green notebook at the head of the bed. And I tell myself, it's going to look better in the morning. I cut myself a bit of slack for the first couple of days cause I know that I find change hard and might be feeling blue for the first little while.
And somehow, some way, God is always good to me.
I was hesitant about my potential job in Kelowna but I had an interview this monday and the manager hired me on the spot and we spent ages getting to know each other. She told me I could work whatever shifts I wanted, I didn't have to work nights, and best of all, there is an entire 62 hours of job training in the next two weeks that alleviates all my concerns about being inadequately prepared for the job. I'll be working in a detox center and I am looking forward to the change of pace from all previous medical experiences. I am going to learn a lot, and I am going to be challenged and rewarded.
I left Vancouver with blossoms falling off the trees and a gentle warm sun, and up in Kelowna it is cold and still a little gray. My room is lovely and I unpacked my boxes (well, most of them....) and made a little home for myself. Yesterday I drove around and got groceries and this morning I went running and I feel like I am getting the hang of this place a bit. It's not a huge city, although I did get lost once yesterday. I made dinner and took it up to Robin and Sam at the house they're painting and on the way back home I did some giant circles around town. Was this the right road? That one? I stopped at various intersections and deliberated about turning left or right or pulling a U-turn. Finally I lifted my gaze up to the mountains and knew in my heart that if I went towards them, I would find the road that led North and led home. And I did.
When I came home I sat with Bob and Marlene and I told them about a difficult decision I had to make and asked for some counsel. They gave me the same counsel my parents would have: they told me God would speak to me, and they prayed for me.
In my dream last night I fell through an icy lake and couldn't find the surface and by the time I was dragged out by a friend, I was unconscious. I awoke in a strange bed with people trying to warm me up and my lungs thick with fluid. I felt distressed and a friend sat with me and began to explain what had happened. As I listened I realized that the story of me falling in the lake was deeper. I hadn't fallen; I had thrown myself in. And not once, but twice. As we were speaking, another friend burst into the room and began to tell me things, giving me advice and telling me I was wrong about this situation and that, and here was why..... I began to feel as if I was swimming under the icy water, trying to find the surface, but not knowing which way was up and which was down.
Suddenly I thought about the fact that I hadn't fallen into the lake; I had jumped in. I had allowed myself to enter that place of confusion and doubts. I looked him in the eye and I said, "that's not true what you are saying. You are wrong."
And then I awoke from my dream. Perhaps this sounds kind of flaky and wierd to write on my blog, but I need to sort if out somehow. There was more to the dream but this morning the answer to my dilemma the night before was crystal clear.
And just like being lost on the road yesterday, I need to find the road that leads North and stick on it until it leads me home. Taking the side roads that seem familiar just leads me in circles. It is the same as centering myself when I move to a new place: I put my blanket on the bed, I put my clock by my pillow. And I tell myself, don't worry about how you feel, Heather, because eventually it will make sense.
My centering point, my North Road for the dilemmas of life is the time I spend alone with God where I listen to HIS voice, and only HIS. It comes when I 'lift my eyes up to the mountains, to where my help comes from'. And once I lift my eyes up and refuse to be drawn into the icy waters of confusion and doubts, then I can find my way home.
Although as a side note, there are other places to get lost, like in the lobby of Robin's apartment building the other day. I actually had to call him on my cell and get him to come find me. Oh well.

Unhappy Heather's trip to the dentist (x3)

Since I’m moving up to Kelowna, I’ve been tying up some loose ends here. One of those included booking an appointment at the dentist.
I’d been feeling like I had a cavity and it had been awhile, so I went on Monday this week. Let me first preface this by saying that I am a fastidious tooth brusher. I brush my teeth about three times a day, and boy, do I ever scrub them. I rinse my mouth out after drinking coke or coffee and I chew gum all the time (which, by the way, prevents cavities). I realized it had been too long since I was at the dentist when the bristles of my toothbrush started coming off in my mouth.
I lay back in the dentist’s chair while they made small talk (just like hairdressers- it must be a required part of the job description). They took a couple of X-rays and then the dentist held them up to me.
“You have 4 cavities.” He said. “And your teeth need cleaning. And you have serious gum recession that is unusual in a person so young.”
“Can you fix it all?” I asked hopefully.
He laughed. “Well, we can fix the cavities. As for the gum recession, if it doesn’t get better within 6 months, we’ll have to take a skin graft from the roof of your mouth and put it on your lower gum.”
I’d never even heard of gum recession before.
“I brush my teeth all the time.” I told him. (Okay, so maybe I’m not so good at flossing, but seriously, who is?)
“It can be caused by brushing too hard.” He said, “Or not brushing enough. There’s sort of a fine balance. But it is compounded by the fact that you have a type of saliva that is more prone to get cavities, and no matter how much you brush, you can’t really prevent them.”
I knew of course that my problem was brushing too hard. And all this time I was concerned about having white teeth.
So he froze my bottom jaw and then the hygienist applied that horrible instrument of torture called the rubber dam. I tried to be brave but it hurt going in and then she stuck a wedge between my other jaw and asked me how I was feeling.
“I feel like I have a basketball in my mouth.” I said to her, but I think it came out more like “Gurbledy gurp.”
They drilled away. I stared at the ceiling and at the sharp shiny things going in my mouth out of the corner of my eye, and tried to think relaxing thoughts, like pretending I was lying on the beach in Antigua again.
Then they finished the filling, but Oh Joy! There was more. The hygienist took out the rubber dam and wiped the humiliating saliva that was drooling all over my face, and the dentist froze my upper jaw, and then the hygienist put in ANOTHER rubber dam on the top.
“Does that feel all right?” She asked.
“Please can you suction the saliva that is running down the back of my throat and choking me?” I asked. Gurbledy gurbledy gurp.
Then the drill again. I thought about my poor little sister Hannah who can’t have dental work done the conventional way- she has to go under general anesthetic and at the very moment I was lying in the comfortable chair, she was being intubated at Children’s hospital. Some people’s crosses are heavier to bear…. I didn’t feel like whining.
They finished the second filling and then the dentist told me to come back later in the afternoon for another couple of hours, I had been lucky enough to get a spot right away. Might as well get it all over with, I thought.
I had some errands to run and at the bank I used sign language and at the store I smiled with half my mouth and pretended I had Bell’s palsy or something. The cashier responded well to the sad look in my eyes.
Back at the dentist I got into the reclining chair and decided it wasn’t my favorite place to be. There was a different hygienist this time; and she wasn’t quite as intuitive to my pain threshold. She cleaned my teeth with something that felt like a wire brush digging into my gums. Because of my gum recession problem, the tooth roots on two of my teeth are exposed and exquisitely painful. I begged her to give me some freezing but nothing seemed to cut the pain.
“You’re quite a sensitive girl, aren’t you?” She asked, accidentally spraying water in my nose. I stared at the ceiling and thought happy thoughts.
They told me I was lucky enough to get an appointment the next day, too. Back at home I sipped tea and felt a little sorry for myself.
Today I went back to the dentist again for my third dose of punishment, on the other side of my mouth. I feel like all I’ve been doing is hanging out in that quiet office with the whirring drills and polite small talk. The hygienist led me to the torture chair and removed my personal affects. She tilted the chair so I was slanted upside down and told me to open my mouth. My jaw was still stiff from the day before but I did the best I could. Another needle. She started to put the rubber dam in again and I had it with politeness and happy thoughts.
“It hurts.” I said. Gurbledy gurp.
“It’s not too bad?” She asked.
“No, it hurts!” I said. Gurbledy gurp. “I don’t think I’m frozen yet.”
Another needle.
“I’ll put it in first, then adjust it.” She said.
I glared at her, and then the ceiling. And I made pained noises at every single tooth she touched. She went out and left me for a while to let the freezing take effect. I sat there alone for what seemed an eternity. This is not fun. I hate the dentist. I could see my reflection in a mirror in the corner of the room and my face looked like a garish skeleton with a rubber mouth and large tacky sunglasses. How would you feel, Miss hygienist, if someone stuck a rubber dam in your mouth?
The dentist came in and started doing the filling. My neck was cramping and I tried to move a bit. He hit a nerve root and I moaned.
That filling done, the hygienist took out the rubber dam.
“I’m going to put Dura-seal on your teeth next.” She told me. “Try not to touch it.”
She told me to open my mouth wider and she painted something on my teeth and started drying it with cold air. Cold air, just like cold water, causes excruciating pain on the tooth roots, I don’t know why she didn’t know that, but I let her know with loud, pained moans.
“What’s wrong?” She asked.
“It hurts a lot!” I said. Gurbedly gurp.
“Oh, I’m just putting air on them to dry it.” She said.
“I know you are,” I said, “But it is extremely painful.” Gurble gurp gurble.
My sense of humor had evaporated with my sense of longsuffering. The Dura-seal seemed to take forever.
And then the dentist came back in and froze my mouth again. And I kid you not, the hygienist put in ANOTHER rubber dam.
I pushed her away.
“I need more freezing.” I told her.
“The Dr. just gave you some.” She said.
“I know, but I can feel everything. I need some more.”
He put in another syringe-full of novocaine and then the rubber dam went in. This time I think the freezing went right to my head. I began to get dozy. Or maybe it was the whirring sound. Or maybe slanted upside down, all the blood was rushing to my head and I was passing out.
I awoke from garbled and confusing dreams to find the hygienist snapping the rubber dam out. I was in too much of a stupor to care and the dentist wiped the drool and blood off my face. He inserted a piece of blue paper in my mouth (to check tooth surfaces) and told me to bite down. I did.
“Grind from side to side.” He told me.
I did. He took the paper out.
“Hmmm…. Try again.”
I bit down, and ground side to side as hard as I could. He removed the paper again and looked puzzled.
“Dr.,” the hygienist said, “I think she was biting her tongue, not the paper.”
Yes, I must have been biting that thick numb thing that didn’t belong in my mouth.
They ground some more and painted and then the hygienist told me I could go but I felt unsteady on my feet after so many hours lying upside down. I went out the door and I couldn’t even say thank you or goodbye.
The freezing has all come out now, and I’m wondering which quadrant of my mouth hurts the most. Or maybe my tongue. Or maybe my neck, it’s hard to tell. I wonder why it costs so much to spend several hours being tortured by a smiling person in a white coat. I wonder if it would be better just to get dentures. Then I could greet people at the door with them sideways in my mouth. Or I could take them out at night, pop them into a glass by my bed, roll over and say to my honey, “Sweet dweams, deaw” and smile with a lovely toothless smile. Yes, I might just ask them to pull them all out.

Meditations on Matthew

This winter when I was in Champaign I read a book that touched me so deeply, bringing together in my soul questions that I had hardly dared ask aloud. It was a book called 'Things Unseen', written by a Vancouverite named Mark Buchanan, and the chapter that stuck with me the most and had me thinking this week is about Jesus and John the Baptist.
The story in Matthew goes like this: John the Baptist, the incredible prophet who understood who Jesus really was more than anyone else ('the greatest of these was John'), was languishing in prison, an imprisonment that would eventually culminate in his death. He sent his disciples to ask Jesus, "Are you the one who was to come, or should we expect another?"
Jesus answered back by detailing all the miracles he had performed- the lame were walking, the blind were seeing, the dead were raised... but then at the end of it, he spoke a cryptic sentence that pierced to the heart of John's question.
"Blessed is the man who does not fall away on account of me."
I've read that verse before but skipped over it because I didn't really understand it's significance. But the author of this book gives it his interpretation.
Here was John in prison, surely he didn't need to be educated on the miracles Jesus was doing. Of course we all know about them. Have you heard about people being healed of cancer in Africa? Have you heard of the revivals in South America where the dead are being raised? Have you heard the stories of those who were miraculously given jobs when they prayed, whose cars kept going when they should've died, whose mothers got saved on their deathbeds?
So then why is our friend Kathy, who has a 6-year-old son, why is she suffering from breast cancer? So then why is my sister Hannah still disabled? Why am I still praying for friends to become christians when I am seeing their lives fall apart over and over again? If Christ can do those miracles, why isn't he doing them for me? Why wasn't Jesus doing something for John, the great prophet, while he rotted in prison? Why hasn't Jesus done something for me?
"Blessed is the man who doesn't fall away on account of the One who does all this for others, but who sometimes leaves you- you!- in your prison, with death just outside the door."
"The answer must be", the author says, "that those who never see, never touch, are being forced by a divine austerity, by a God who remains elusive, to grasp the substance of faith..... Jesus calls miracles 'signs'. The writer of Hebrews calls them 'shadows'. Miracles are meant to point to something bigger, more real, more alive, than themselves.... they are fingerprints of God, a clue to his presence, but they are not His hand."
"Blessed are those who don't need the sign, the shadow..... they have not fallen away on account of Jesus. They have grasped that a relationship with Jesus is different from a bargain or a contract with Him... they have understood that a miracle is as much a veil as a shrine, that it conceals God as much as it discloses Him, that it can become not the 'sign' that points to God, but the diversion that keeps us from Him."
And I believe Jesus is saying the same question to us today. Are you going to fall away (to become 'scandalized') because you have heard of God's miracles- and yet never seen them in your own life? When your deepest prayers remain unanswered and your most painful wounds are struck again and again, are you going to fall away from God on account of One who does something like this? Or are you going to embrace his invitation to believe in him- not in spite of his lack of miracles- but because he does not exist to satisfy us with his mere fingerprints- but rather the very substance of himself?
Blessed are you if you do not fall away on account of Jesus Christ.

Happy Heather's soap opera

I have now been blogging for 2.5 years, at least once a week. My blogs have changed considerably over time: in the beginning I wrote pithy little pieces about scientific facts and theological ideas. Gradually my blogs have become more and more like diary entries, and more and more personal. Sometimes I feel like I am just talking to myself and I have no idea who might be reading it; other times I am extremely careful with each word because I imagine who might be reading it. Once in a while I bump into someone who mentions something I wrote in a blog and I feel startled that they know such intimate details about my life.
But there are a couple of areas of my life that I have never written about in my blog entries. Never ever, and for very good reason. It is because they are too personal. After all, it’s one thing to make people laugh about my adventures cutting up cadavers or nursing patients or selling teapots, but it’s quite another thing to share with the world how I feel about having my heart broken by a guy or how much I’ve agonized about my decisions with school or those days when I feel like life is crashing all around me and I’m a horrible person. But they happen, and they happen to everyone. Not only that, but I know my friends and family care, and I know that to the degree I am vulnerable, they are encouraged.
Of course some people can read between the lines. Perhaps you might have guessed that something is going on between me and someone named Robin Mercer living in Kelowna. My sister, who is my fashion consultant and my advisor on social graces and appropriate behavior, has counseled me that I should stop introducing him as my friend because after all, we’re in love.
I met Robin 6 years ago in Calgary at a conference where it snowed buckets, and we ended up eating pizza in a hotel room with friends and family in the middle of the night. The first moment I saw him I felt like he would one day be my husband. Yet we’ve taken a long and tortuous path to get to each other. Last summer I was sitting with my friend Yvette, crying my eyes out because my heart had been broken by yet another man. I told her, “I’ll never fall in love again”. She said, “Heather, there’s plenty other men out there who would be lucky to have you”. “There was only one other guy I was interested in” I told her, “and that’s Robin Mercer, but I’ve totally lost touch with him”.
“Robin?” She replied. “He was at our house for dinner this week.”
So we started out as facebook friends, oddly enough. Last summer we lay in a parking lot and watched shooting stars and he held my hand and I thought perhaps I’m crazy to be falling for him, I don’t know if I can handle having my heart broken again.
Except he hasn’t broken my heart. He is kind of quiet, which is nice, because we don’t have to compete for space to talk, and he is tall, which is good because I fit under his arm perfectly when we walk together. He tells me I am beautiful when I feel I am not and he is very clever and knows most of my interesting facts before I tell them, but he listens anyway, and doesn’t mind hearing them again.
We’ve spent most of our time apart the last several months, but I am moving his way soon and even though I grew up in Vancouver and almost everything I love is here, in a way going to Kelowna is a kind of coming home too. Last summer as I prayed about my future I begged God to give me someone to share my adventures with. I stood on a street corner near my house and as I watched, several planes flew past with their landing gear down, towards Vancouver airport. In my heart the Lord’s still voice spoke. I have more solitary adventures for you, Heather.
Last fall in Antigua and this past winter in Champaign, I truly understood feeling alone; feeling invisible in a room full of people, feeling abandoned in a quiet room all by myself day after day. My own thoughts echoing in my head and making me feel like I was going crazy. I have to admit my blog entries were much more chipper than I was feeling. Who wants to read about me whining, anyway?
But I also learned what it is to be quiet with God, and to know he is there even though you cannot feel him, and to trust in his love when it doesn’t feel loving.
My plans for my life have been dismantled, little by little, but it is okay, I have the feeling deep inside that the adventures God has planned for me are far more exciting than the adventures Heather Davies had planned. And best of all I have the company of someone dear to share them with.
So there, I’ve broken my rule and told you about my love life. Perhaps you’ll stop reading now, which would be too bad, because I have an interesting potential job in Kelowna which should supply hullabaloo-like fodder, and who knows, I might end up working in the hospital or doing all manner of things that turn out more unusual than expected. At any rate I hope to greet those adventures with a smile on my face and a laugh from deep within.

To sell a teapot

I was working at Surplus Sam’s the other day and I was having a great time. Because one of the full-time cashiers left, Austin asked me to work upstairs as a cashier and doing customer service, something I was more than happy to do. I love talking to people and helping them, and I discovered something else: I love selling them things.
Honestly I can sell stuff at Surplus Sam’s in good conscience: I truly believe that the prices are good, and the store carries merchandise that is one-of-a-kind and would be hard to find elsewhere. Something for everyone, I tell them.
My remarkable sales of the day included convincing a lady to buy a broken hammock because it was a good deal and easy to fix; and convincing an old man to buy 50 yards of white leather so he could upholster all his furniture to match another chair we were selling.
But the last sale of the day was the best. I had been sorting through a showcase and found a teapot and sugar bowl set hiding behind some other dishes. Jonny and I had moved furniture around that day and put a stone table in the middle of the room. I put the teapot and sugar bowl on the table along with some other sets of plates and cups. It was a lovely teapot; a gold handle and lid, with bright blue and orange and yellow patterns of an ocean scene. The sugar bowl was a little different but also beautiful (albeit in a garish sort of way). It was an expensive set, too: the price on the bottom of the bowl was $93.74. Who on earth pays that much for a teapot, anyway?
A slimy sort of guy came in just before closing and was trying to convince me to buy loose leaf tea from him. I was behind the counter and his eyes lit on the teapot.
“How much is that?” he asked.
“It’s $93.00 for the set.” I told him. “Isn’t it beautiful?”
“Ninety three dollars!!!!” he exclaimed. “What’s it made out of, gold?”
I talked up the teapot for awhile and he carried it over to where I was at the counter and was looking at it.
“I don’t want the sugar bowl.” He said. “Can’t I buy just the teapot?”
I considered it for a moment. I knew we weren’t really supposed to split up sets, but the sugar bowl did look kind of different, and after all, I was sure I could sell it.
“Okay.” I finally agreed. “I’ll sell it to you for 2/3 the price…. Which is a pretty good deal. $61.00 plus tax.”
He opened the lid and saw there was a little chip in the rim.
“It’s damaged! Can’t I have it cheaper?”
I hadn’t noticed the chip and probably would’ve already discounted it further if I had…
“No, that’s already a pretty good deal.” I told him. “Look at what an amazing teapot it is! You can probably get matching cups off of ebay.”
I tried to convince him a bit longer but he finally put it down.
“I don’t want it.”
Another man came in and the two of them started looking at cameras in the display case where I was. I turned to the second man.
“Yes, that camera is a pretty good deal. But what you really need is this teapot. Take a look at it. The shape, the bright blue and the gold. Tell me, where would you find another teapot like that? It’s one of a kind. I myself was thinking of buying it today. What, with my staff discount, it’s a pretty decent price. Someone’s going to snap this one up real soon.”
He started to laugh.
“So, if I get that teapot, will it make me more popular with the ladies?”
“Well,” I said, “ I’m already taken, but if I wasn’t, and you had that teapot, I’d definitely go after you.”
The first guy picked the teapot up again.
“All right, I’ll buy it.”
I gloated as I rang up his sale. I gloated as I wrapped it up for him and he went out the door $68.00 poorer. I gloated as I closed up for the day.
Seriously, what an amazing sales woman! I sold a garish teapot for $68! And I still had the sugar bowl to mark up and sell the next day!
It was probably because of my exceptional talking abilities, my extraordinary communication skills, my way with people, my knack for seeing what things were worth and just what people needed and wanted. I smiled all the way home and as I recounted the story to my sister.
The next morning I came into Surplus Sam’s.
“Where’s that little sugar bowl I put here?” I asked Austin. “I sold the teapot yesterday and I’m going to price it separately.”
“Oh, the blue teapot?” He asked. “Heather, that wasn’t a set.”
“It wasn’t?” I asked.
“No, they don’t go together. They are both Versace pieces and they’re really expensive. The sugar bowl is $93.74 by itself.”
I suddenly felt as if the giant balloon that was my ego had been deflated.
“How much was the teapot?” I asked in a small voice.
“We’d marked it down to $270.00 because it had a chip in it. The original price was way more.”
“You’re kidding me.” I said. “The teapot was HOW much?”
And suddenly I didn’t feel like the world’s best saleswoman anymore. I had just sold a $270.00 Versace teapot for $68.00. And that man had walked out of the store and I had thought I was something special but actually he was the one who had got the good deal that day. I felt like I had been stung. Perhaps I should donate the next 3 days of labor to Surplus Sam’s. Perhaps Austin would want to fire me. Perhaps I should offer to forgo my lunch breaks for the next week.
And so I learned an important lesson that I should’ve learned before. It seems that it is a repeat lesson, one that takes the shape of a broken-down Volvo and a Versace teapot and I suppose whatever other object God would like to use to teach me the lesson. Pride goes before a fall, and the more I allow my pride to get inflated, the bigger the fall is going to be. Pride is expensive, I have been told.

The silver bullet rides again

After my last success playing the mechanic, I felt confidence oozing out of my pores and decided to brave the 4 hour journey from Vancouver to Kelowna in the 'silver bullet'.
"Your car doesn't have an e-brake?" Miriam asked dubiously when we planned our trip.
"No worries," I told her, "Brakes failing only happens in the movies."
Little did I know the drama that awaited us.
Miriam and I left on friday in my old Volvo, and we took turns driving and listening to music all the way to Hope. We stopped in Hope to go pee and buy coke and then hit the road again, Miriam driving. We were chattering away in French and everything was going fine until about 20 minutes outside of Merritt while snaking up the big hill, Miriam suddenly exclaimed, "The car is smoking!"
"Pull over!"
She pulled over onto the narrow shoulder and just before she shut the engine off I saw the thermostat needle all the way up. I popped the trunk and billows of smoke came out. Great. I couldn't see where the smoke was coming from but after it cooled a bit I called my Dad on my cellphone and described the situation to him.
"You're probably out of coolant." He suggested. "Wait til the engine cools down and then put a couple of water bottles in."
I remembered filling the coolant last week (yes, with water instead of antifreeze) and seeing the liquid disappear down inside. Perhaps it was lower than I had thought.
We used up all our water in the engine and I contemplated pouring my coke in, but the coolant reservoir still wasn't full. AFter 15 minutes I started driving again, babying the car up the long slow hill. Within five minutes the needle popped up to the danger zone again and I had to pull over.
"Maybe we should flag someone down and ask for water." I suggested.
We popped the hood and stood behind the car waving our arms. Within 3 minutes a truck pulled up behind us and an older man got out.
"What's the problem?"
He fortuitously had 4 liters of windshield wiper fluid in his truck and he came around and poured it into the engine for me.
"Uh oh." I suddenly noticed a puddle beginning under the car. "It's leaking right through."
"It looks like your water pump is cracked."
Suddenly a cop car pulled up behind the truck and a police officer got out and came towards us.
"Is everything okay?"
"My water pump is gone." I said morosely. "I think we'll have to get it towed to Merritt."
A third truck pulled up in front of us and a man got out and started talking to the police officer.
"Oh, so you finally caught up with him, did you?"
The two men started arguing. "You almost killed me!"
"Get back to your cars!" The police officer was saying "Both of you! Get inside!"
Miriam and I looked at each other. Maybe we should get back in our car too. We climbed in and watched the police officer talking to the two men separately with his ticket book out and meanwhile we called BCAA, thanks to Miriam's membership card. The tow truck would be there within an hour. It would be a free tow to Merritt, or $300.00 to Kelowna. Friday night. What were the chances of getting a water pump installed at this late hour? We would have to stay over in Merritt. We had only planned a two-day weekend anyway- as soon as the car was fixed we might as well just drive home to Vancouver. I felt like crying.
I sent a text message to Robin Mercer telling him we were going to be late and then he called back.
"We're getting towed." I said, depressed. "We'll probably have to stay in Merritt overnight."
"No you won't," He said, "I'll come and get you."
Now this was turning into an adventure.
The two men had driven off and the police officer came back to the truck.
"Sorry about that." He apologized. "My bad luck to have to deal with that. Are you going to be all right?"
We assured him we were fine, even though we were a bit confused as to what had happened. We sat in the car and talked and read for the next hour.
When the tow truck showed up I jumped out and ran to meet the driver.
"Boy, are we glad you're here!"
"Don't you recognize me?" He asked. "This is the second time I've been here today."
I suddenly realized he was the second man who had stopped for us that day.
He winched the silver bullet onto the back of his truck and then while we sat in the cab on the way to Merritt he explained everything. He had been driving home when the first man had cut in front of him and nearly made him have an accident. He had called 911 to report his dangerous driving. The first man had stopped to help the two damsels in distress, as had the police officer, as had the second man, and it was just the luck of the draw that they all happened to recognize each other on the side of the highway. The tow truck driver had driven back into Merritt and then got the call to go pick up an '87 Volvo and he had laughed cause he had just been with us.
Well, he dropped our car off at an auto shop that would fix it the next day, and then he drove us across town to the Starbucks to wait for Robin. Miriam and I both had cards that had been given to us and we sat and drank tea until Robin came to get us in his Toyota Tercel.
By the time we got to Kelowna it was late (we both forgot the way back to our car) but we stayed up anyway for a few more hours.
All in all we had a wonderful weekend, although slightly dampened by the fact that Miriam had to take the greyhound home on sunday, since I was obligated to stay and wait until my car was fixed. Apparently there were no water pumps in Merritt and they had to order one in and in the end it was my most expensive trip to Kelowna ever.
But educational, yes. I learned all about leaking water pumps and why you should always make sure that when you fill the coolant reservoir, whether with water, antifreeze, or wiper fluid, you actually fill it, and don't just pour it out onto the pavement like I must have done the week before. I discovered how romantic it is to be rescued by a handsome young man in a green Tercel (who said anything about a white horse, anyway?) And I finally followed my Dad's lifelong advice, and yes, before I left Kelowna, I purchased a year's membership with BCAA.