Three times, uncharmed.

Bad things happen in threes and then they’re done, right?!

1. Over the (Canadian) Thanksgiving weekend my husband’s aunt passed away. She had lung cancer but was making a “good” recovery. Unfortunately, she developed a blood clot that led to surgery that led to her becoming brain dead in the OR. She was on life support for a few days before her family made the difficult decision to let her go.

Despite the cancer, it was still quite unexpected and sudden for all of us. She was still a young woman in her early 50s. Her youngest child is only 17. Because of the suddenness of her death it took awhile for any kind of memorial service to be planned. That took place last weekend.

2. My husband’s grandfather (the father of his aunt) has been in ill health for several years but very much wanted to go to his daughter’s memorial service. My in-laws decided to drive to Saskatchewan to get him and drive him to the service in Vancouver. En route, in Calgary, my husband’s grandfather developed severe pneumonia and other pulmonary problems. He was immediately hospitalized in Calgary where he still remains on full oxygen (mask, tubes etc) and IVs in an ICU. They don’t let him eat or drink anything.

Because we did not go the memorial service (but everyone else did – perhaps another post on that!), we made a trip to Calgary last weekend to visit him in the hospital (yes, the insane pilgrimage that many Albertans have experienced – to Calgary and back in one day). Due to black ice, and extreme prairie fog (very weird to see – once in a lifetime, perhaps!), we apparently missed a 27 car pile-up on our province’s “beloved” QE2 highway by less than an hour, but we did manage to get stuck behind a four car accident that had us sitting on the highway not moving for about 30 minutes. In typical Alberta fashion, once people passed the accident, they continued driving too fast in order to make up for the time lost. We played a fun game of “count the vehicles in the ditch” and saw a rare sighting – a rolled over holiday trailer in the ditch without an attached vehicle!

The hospital visit itself was a terrible scene. This poor man is now unable to do much of anything on his own and may very well be in the final weeks of his life. He is in a strange city where he hardly has anyone visiting him (one grandson and a friend of the family). His quality of life is simply awful. Perhaps because of the timing I couldn’t help but think that here lies a man reduced to an embarrassing state (he is a very proud man and hates to be seen ungroomed and “weak” especially in front of women), but who spent years of his life as an air force fighter in WWII. It seems weird to survive something like that and be reduced to the state he is in now. “No rhyme nor reason.” Anyway, he is rallying and we hope for a full recovery, but it is up in the air.

3. This week, our 16-month-old niece got sick with some type of flu or cold. The daycare called my brother-in-law to pick her up early on Thursday. He decided to bring her to a medi-clinic right away. As he was driving there, she starting having seizures in the car and then passed out completely. He got to the clinic, distraught with his unconscious baby, and the staff there called an ambulance immediately. Tests have been run with more to come, but apparently some kids are prone to “febrile seizures” that occur whenever they experience any kind of extreme body temperature change (i.e. fever). The day this happened they were told it likely wouldn’t happen again, but it all happened again the next day. Doctors are still thinking it is “febrile seizures,” but a whole battery of tests are going to be run to make sure there isn’t something more serious going on. We are all pretty upset about this. I can’t imagine what they are going through - the fear and panic of what it must be like when the seizure is actually happening and to see your baby unconscious. It is so hard to see our niece sick enough that she is just completely not herself. I have heard all kinds of examples about how once you have kids you don’t hear any story/anecdote about kids the same way because you can’t help but think about your children and what you would do . . . it’s true, but even more so when something is happening in your own family.

So that is what the past few weeks have held for Momily et al. I have just begun 4 days of solo-parenting as D. Sr. is way in balmy CA for awhile. I’m quite anxious this time, as although I have now solo-parented several times, this will be my first stint where I am working. I am wondering how getting myself to work on time and assembled will happen when breakfast and daycare have to happen as well. I’m guessing I will be getting up at 5:30 am on Tuesday.

So, as you can guess, there likely won’t be many blog posts in the near future!! Til then!

ASIDE: Has this been getting much media play anywhere else? I wonder why I live here sometimes. Then I jump in my SUV, go buy expensive electronics, roll around in our money and remember. I'm kidding, really. . . .