Toronto – Page 56

Waiting for news

November 21, 2008 by Tricia

Chris and I are just sitting here are home for news about our friends surgery. We haven’t heard from our friends husband or Chris’ brother in law who came into town earlier today to be with him.

We did call the hospital a little while ago and we found out that our friend who had open heart surgery today is in recovery. So hopefully that mean the surgery was a success!

Chris and I will be the main people visiting the hospital over the next week, so we’ve decided to stay home this evening to wait for news. Her husband is with Chris’ brother in law and another friend, and of course our friend that had the surgery … well we probably wouldn’t be able to get in to see her tonight anyway … so baring any emergency calls we’ll sit tight for tonight.

I hate waiting for news though. I wish someone would call us to let us know how the operation went.

Update: We just heard from our friends husband and it sounds like the surgery went as planned. No complications. He got to see her in the ICU for a few minutes and he’s feeling better now too.

Our friend is about to have heart surgery

November 20, 2008 by Tricia

A couple of weeks ago I told you that one of our friends would be coming to Toronto to have major heart surgery. Well, the time has come. She should have checked into the hospital earlier today, and tomorrow morning she’ll be undergoing heart surgery.

She is so scared of the surgery that she doesn’t even know enough about it to tell me exactly what kind of surgery she’s having. I’m a nurse – I could help ease her fears if I knew what was going on … but she’s the kind of person that when she’s afraid of something doesn’t want to know anything more about it. I think that just serves to make one more scared! I’m sure her imagination is going wild.

All I know is that she has some scar tissue or thickening of the heart muscle and has to have surgery to correct it. That’s the most I could get out of not her ….

You might also remember that when I wrote about her earlier in the month I’d extended an invitation to her husband to stay with us while she was in the hospital. Well .. they never really got back to us about it. Chris had to call them several times before our friend finally told us her husband would be staying in a hotel near the hospital.

Nice of them to let us know, eh? I know they were probably both scared about the surgery and were in avoidance mode, but for me who’s sick at home, it’s a very big thing to invite someone into my home for an unknown period of time. My regular readers know I’ve been going through a bad Crohn’s flare and haven’t slept well in weeks so having a guest in our home would make things more difficult, but I offered because I wanted to help them out.

So as much as I hate to admit this, I’m a little ticked off. I mean, all we were trying to do was give him some support and companionship during this scary time and help him save some money (he doesn’t have a job) … but if that’s what he wants to do I guess that’s the way it will be.

I think her husband staying in a hotel is partly my husbands fault though. He kept telling him that he could take the subway from our house (small town folks are afraid of the subway! not all, but these guys probably are) and that it would take 20 minutes to get to the hospital. Well .. it only takes about 10 minutes and we’re very close to the subway … so I’m sure the travel from our house will be equal to the walk he’s going to have from the hotel (there’s no hotel that I can think of that’s closer than a 15 minute walk to the hospital).

On top of all that my friend who’s having heart surgery wants to diet while she’s recovering! She told me that she visited this page that lists the best diet pill and wanted my advice as to which ones she should buy. I told her she’d better check with her doctor on that. Some diet pills can be hard on the heart and that’s the last thing she needs while recovering from open heart surgery!

When Chris gets home from work we’ll call the hospital and see if we can talk to our friend. If she’s up for visitors we’ll probably go there for a short while. I don’t know if she’ll want visitors tonight though, she might just want to spend some time with her husband before her surgery.

I’m sure I’ll be on edge all day tomorrow wondering how her surgery is going. When the surgery is done the doctors plan to keep her sedated and intubated for a few days so that she can rest and recover. I’m sure that part will freak her husband out as there’s nothing like seeing someone you love unconscious and intubated.

An Autumn Outing

November 16, 2008 by Tricia

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For many of us it’s beginning to get cool outside, for some it might even be snowing.

Actually it’s snowing here right now as I write this …. but even though it’s cool outdoors do you ever stop to take a look at what’s left of the flowers and trees in your area? That’s one of the things I enjoy about Autumn. Looking at how plants change as the weather cools. I love looking at flower seed heads, leaves changing color and so on. Don’t you?

Near the beginning of November Chris and I decided to go to Taylor Creek park here in Toronto with our dog. We figured it might be her last outing in the forest while the weather was still kind of nice. While there, I took some time to take some photos of our surroundings.

One of my favorite plants to play with as a child in Autumn was always Milkweed. The pods that were once green would die down and turn grey and then burst open to let loose thousand upon thousands of white feathery seeds.

I’m surprised that I didn’t pluck this Milkweed seed head from it’s stem once I’d taken it’s photo, only to blow on it and release it’s seeds into the wind.

Do you remember the pictures that I posted of the interesting natural water filters that I call “The Elephants” in early October?

Well here’s what they looked like a couple of weeks ago, surrounded by trees with leaves of red, orange and gold:

They do kind of look like elephants, don’t they?

I know this is a Green Thumb post, but how could I not include a picture of our dog. I mean, she’s the reason we went to the park in the first place and that’s why I managed to get these great pictures …

Here’s Midnight, the Yuppy Puppy (nicknamed because she’s spoiled), coming out of a pond that she discovered after a quick dip in the cool water. If you look closely you can see the water still dripping from her legs.

And here she is a short while later, still wet and perhaps finally getting a little tired after enjoying a nice romp through the woods.

Chris and I might go to the park this afternoon if it’s not snowing or raining. It’s a nice place and it’s definitely a good outing for an energetic puppy!

It’s going to SNOW this weekend???

November 11, 2008 by Tricia

I was just looking at my desktop weather widget and it says that we’re expecting snow/rain all day Saturday, Sunday and Monday! Ahhhh! Scary forecast! More than likely if it snows it will melt pretty much right away, but soon enough the snow will be here to stay.

Speaking of snow and bad weather … Did you know that there’s supposed to be a shortage of snow tires here in Canada this year? Why? Well, the province of Quebec is enforcing a new law that requires all vehicles in the province to have snow tires and that’s created a shortage in the rest of the Canadian provinces that need them. I wonder if there will be an increase in the sale of tire chains due to the winter tire shortage in some areas of Canada where winter tires are truly necessary?

Here in Toronto it’s not really a MUST to have snow tires. As I said earlier it snows here and then it often melts away fairly quickly … well, except for winters like last year! I think most people in Toronto use All Season tires on their cars, but Chris was talking about getting snow tires this year. One way or another we’ll need to get new tires soon – All Season or Winter – as our tires are kind of old and starting to go bald. Definitely no where close to winter safe.

I guess we’d better start looking for new tires soon (and the funds to pay for them!).

Do you change over to winter tires in the winter time?

Toadlilies – Gorgeous Fall Flowers

November 9, 2008 by Tricia

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My garden is finally starting to die down. I just took a peek out the window at my backyard and it looks like there are only a few stubborn “dumb” roses, Monkshood and a few of my New York Asters still blooming away as if it were still summer or early Autumn.

Some of the roses that are still blooming look so perfect that I think I might even go outside and cut them and bring in a final small bouquet of roses to enjoy indoors. Unfortunately, if I do that, they’ll probably drop their petals once they are greeted with the heat indoors!

One of the flowers that I enjoy each fall is the Toadlily. It generally blooms from sometime in September until Mid-October or so, but this year my Toadlilies were blooming up to sometime last week. We had a little heat spell here last week (not hot, but warmer than usual weather) and that might have marked their demise as they are no longer blooming and the plants have started to die down for the winter.

Aren’t they just gorgeous little flowers? I love the spotted petals and I assume that’s where they got “toad” from in their name.

I sometimes wish that the toadlilies would bloom in the summer so I could enjoy them while spending time in the garden during nice weather, but they definitely brighten the garden in Autumn when most of my other flowers have stopped producing blooms.

Waiting for news

Our friend is about to have heart surgery

An Autumn Outing

It’s going to SNOW this weekend???

Toadlilies – Gorgeous Fall Flowers

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