Tricia's Musings

Random Thoughts about life in general, living in the big city of Toronto



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The garden looks superb but my back is shot

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I think I’m still recovering from the long weekend. Ok I know I am.

Since we had fantastic weather here in Toronto (seriously 25 C (77 F) is HOT for April here!) I spent a lot of time outside in my garden. My husband and I started tidying up the garden beds on Thursday evening when he came home from work and we continued working on the garden on Friday and Saturday.

14 yard waste bags later and we’re done!

Yes you read that correctly … we managed to collect 14 bags of leaves and uh rose branch trimmings. Yes it’s a little early to trim the roses, but most of them actually have leaf buds or actual leaves now … so I think it’s ok. LOL

My back is done too. Each evening I had to lie down with a heating pad to ease the spasms and ache in my lower back and hips. Luckily my back is a bit better today, but I sure did a number on it.

I’m sure not getting enough sleep over the weekend didn’t help either. My bedside lamp, a really nice one from Ikea that I’ve been using for a few years started humming or buzzing. Why do Ikea lamps buzz? Well, it’s not the actual lamp, it’s the attachment near the end of the plug that buzzes. Grrrr

It bothered me enough last night that I went looking for new lamps online and I found some wall scones at Hinkley lighting that might work if we place them on the wall on either side of the bed. That way my husband will finally have his own light. Not that he needs one … he tends to fall asleep most nights as soon as his head hits the pillow and if he’s not asleep in 5 minutes he thinks he has insomnia. LOL

Anyway … the good weather is over for a few days. We’re back to closer to normal temps and it’s raining raining raining oh and gloomy. Oh well it’s good for my garden (which has plants coming up that I don’t normally see until May!) and it will give my back a few days to get better before the garden lures me out there again.

Did you have a good Easter weekend too? Was the weather great or what?





It’s been a busy few weeks!

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I’ve had a busy couple of weeks! I guess that’s one of the major reasons why I haven’t been writing all that much.

1. Our terrible renter neighbors moved out on the 19th of March. This was after a terrible week or so of cars parking in our driveway at all ours of the night and tensions going up and up. It’s certainly a relief to see them gone!

2. As I mentioned in earlier posts I had pneumonia – probably thanks to having two bad colds in a row. So that slowed me down and made it hard for me to get anything done.

3. Then I got knocked out my that aural migraine last week. The next day I happened to have an appointment with a neurologist to see what was going on with my numb thigh (it’s a compressed nerve in my hip that’s causing that awful burning sensation!) so I mentioned to him that my migraines had been getting worse and that I was starting to have lots of visual symptoms so now he’s sending me for an MRI and made some suggestions as to how i can try to combat the migraines without adding more medications to my already huge amount of daily meds that I have to take. Did you know that 300 mg of Magnesium a day might help migraines? I didn’t – but I’m trying it out. I’ll let you know if it helps.

Oh and before I can get my MRI I have to have my eye sockets xrayed. Why? Well if you’ve ever had an MRI they always ask if you’ve had metal in your eyes and unfortunately my answer is always yes. I used to be a jeweller. A Diamond cutter to be specific – which means I cut designs in gold with a fast spinning diamond. Naturally that caused tiny pieces of gold to fly around and even though I always wore goggles sometimes a tiny piece of gold would get inside the goggles and stick in my eye. This would result in my blindly making my way down several flights of stairs in the Jewelry building that I worked in in downtown Toronto to see an optometrist who would then pull the pieces of gold out of my eyes. I’m pretty sure that I don’t have gold in my eyes anymore – but it’s best to check before I have an MRI of my head.

4. The other big thing that’s kept me busy in the last three weeks is that I’ve been editing every single page of my reptile care page. I had an offer from Google Adsense to optimize one of my websites so I’ve been working with a really nice guy from Google, even had a phone consultation with him, and I’ve been slowing working his suggestions into my huge HTML based website. Do you know how long it takes to edit every single page of a huge HTML website? Forever! LOL

Between being sick, stressed and doing a huge amount of work on one of my sites I feel like I’ve been on a treadmill in the last few weeks.

Hopefully things settle down and get back to normal again soon!

I can barely see thanks to an aural migraine

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I’m not feeling well today. I’ve had a headache all day and it’s getting worse. Even more troubling is that along with the headache I can barely see from my right eye!

Yep .. I’m having those nasty aural migraine symptoms again. I’ve had migraines since I was about 12 years old .. thankfully though they seemed to stop when I was 25, but they’ve come back in the last few years and now, since July, I’ve been having these optical or aural migraines.

Usually when I have eye symptoms I don’t have an actual headache …. not pain wise anyway … the migraine sometimes comes later. The vision problems in the last few months have usually only lasted for fifteen to thirty minutes – but today the vision problems have lasted all day and there’s no sign of them going away.

It’s almost like I have a translucent object in the center of my right eyes vision. I can see through it but it makes all my vision blurry. Kind of like those pop up ads that say “click here” on some websites that come up just as you’re trying to read something. LOL

I’m seeing a doctor on Friday at the hospital about the numbness and odd occasional burning sensations in my lower left thigh (started in December) to see if it’s coming from a nerve in my back or my hip. I think the doctors a neurologist and if he is I think I might try to talk to him about these aural migraines while I’m there.

Hopefully these vision problems really are just aural headaches but it’s troubling when you start getting new symptoms. I’d certainly be happy if the doctor I see on Friday suggests I get a CatScan or MRI.

Good news for balding men

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The other day when my husband and I were driving around in the car I heard an interesting news story on the radio. It was a good news piece for balding men.

Studies have apparently shown that men who are almost completely bald by the time they’re in their 30’s have a much lower chance of getting prostate cancer. I believe the story said that men who are balding in their 40’s also have a lower chance of getting prostate cancer as well.

So while I know most men don’t want to be bald .. why else would there be so many hair loss for men products out there if you all loved being bald … at least there’s some good news healthwise for those that bald earlier in life.

I just thought I’d pass that on!

Why do I enjoy watching so many medical dramas on TV?

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You’d think that since I’m an ER nurse (well one that’s on medical leave) I wouldn’t be all that interested in watching medical shows on TV, but they are still one of my favorite form of television watching.

I used to love watching ER. Oh I’ll admit the early years of the show were the best, but I watched every episode right until the series ended last year.

Now this year a new crop of medical TV dramas are on ranging from more nurse oriented shows like Mercy, Nurse Jackie and HawthoRNe to Trauma which covers the paramedic side of medical drama. I even watched the short HBO series Bloodletting and Miraculous cures – mainly because it was a series that developed from a book written by one of the ER doctors that I’ve worked with for several years.

I also watch House regularly, although as with ER I think the earlier seasons were better than what’s being produced lately. Likewise with Grey’s Anatomy and Private Practice. Geez there’s a lot of medical shows isn’t there? Maybe they all just need to take a multivitamin and they’ll get better?

These shows are full of errors – from having too many doctors and not enough nurses, to medical errors, to patients going from deathbed to miraculously healthy by the next day. LOL

Of all the new shows I think I like HawthoRNe best. It captures the emotions of being a nurse in the ER much better than most of the shows I watch regularly.

Although, just like Mercy, I don’t understand how the nurses that are supposed to work in one area end up working all over the hospital and even assist during surgical procedures. In real life, in a big hospital, nurses work where they are assigned whether it’s the ER, a medical floor or in the OR … they aren’t all over the place .. nor are doctors unless they are specialists – then they might be seen regularly in a few areas of a hospital over the course of a shift.

I think I like watching these shows because I can spot the mistakes and I get a little thrill when I spot them. LOL Maybe these shows keep me on my toes?

Anyway .. do you like watching medical dramas on TV? Which ones are your favorites and which ones could you do without?

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