Not To Be Trusted With Knives

I’m back home. As I’m sure you can tell from the obituary I posted last week, my dad’s surgery did not go as planned. The first bad news we got was on the day of the surgery itself, when the surgeon came out of the operation and told us that the tumour that we had thought was benign was, in fact, melanoma - skin cancer that had spread to his brain. He was able to remove about 95-98% of of the tumour, but in the process had lost one of the arteries (the right cerebral artery¹) leading to my dad’s brain, as the tumour was all wrapped up in that artery, which was feeding the massive tumour and my dad’s brain. The reason that he couldn’t take out the other 2-5% of the tumour was because it was touching the left cerebral artery and he couldn’t risk it getting damaged, because you only have four arteries feeding your brain, and so it was crucial to keep that left one functioning, or else all there would be no blood going to the front of my dad’s brain. The surgeon’s hope was that the left artery would be able to feed both sides of my dad’s brain in the absence of the right artery. We would need to get a consult with an oncologist to discuss chemo and/or radiation and we would need a full body CT scan to look for other tumours, as the melanoma may have spread elsewhere.

After receiving this sobering news, we went up to the ICU to see my dad, he didn’t wake up. And he didn’t wake up the next day, or the day after that. There were lots of things that happened in these few days, which seemed like an eternity, but I don’t have the energy to type them all out. Suffice it to say that the surgeon came to us with the worst news on Friday, Feb 10 – it turned out that while we were hoping the left artery would feed both sides of my dad’s brains, it was, in fact, doing nothing. The right artery had apparently been feeding both sides of my dad’s brain and so, since that artery tore in the operating room on Wednesday, my dad’s brain hadn’t been getting enough blood to function. On Thursday night when they did a CT scan, they saw massive strokes all over his brain from insufficient blood flow. “He’s in a deep coma and there is zero chance that he will ever wake up,” is what the surgeon told us. Only the ventilator was keeping his body alive – and being kept alive by machines was something that my dad never, ever wanted to happen. We’d talked about it many times over the years and my dad was very clear that being kept alive on machines was, to him, not living. And I’m really glad that we’d had those discussions, because my mom, my sister, and I knew immediately that we had to take him off the ventilator. There was no second guessing, no feeling guilty that maybe we were doing the wrong thing – we knew undoubtedly that we were doing what my dad wanted. We called everyone in my family to give them an opportunity to come and say good-bye if they wished and that night, we took him off the ventilator and then we stayed with him, in shifts, for the next 14 hours. At 11:20 a.m., when he took his final breath and his heart stopped beating, he was surrounded by me, my sister, my mom, and my aunt (my dad’s youngest sister). It was important to us that he was not alone and that we were able to see that he passed peacefully.

We are incredibly sad, of course, because my dad was a good man who didn’t deserve his life to be cut so short and because we miss him and we mourn all the things that he will miss out on – and that we will miss out on him being here for – as we go on with our lives, but we take comfort in knowing that he didn’t suffer. The last conscious thoughts he had were when he walked into the operating room, they gave him the anesthetic and told him to count backwards from 10. He spent his last three weeks – though scared at the prospect of a dangerous surgery and unhappy that he couldn’t drive or do all the things he wanted to do – talking to and receiving support from his family and friends. He knew that he was loved.

We also take some solace in the fact that we were able to donate his eyes and that two people will be able to have sight-saving surgery that otherwise would not be able to see. It comforts me to know this and to think, “I wonder what Dad’s eyes are seeing today?”

We had a funeral for him this past Thursday and the funeral home was packed. We are not a religious family, so we did a family-run service at the funeral home, with speeches by each of his siblings, my sister, myself, and my niece. My seven-year-old niece, who was so close to her Grandpa, decided she wanted to give a speech about all the things she’ll miss about him – it was beautiful and heartbreaking. Truly, all of the speeches were beautiful – there were stories about my Dad that I’d heard many times before and other stories that were new to me.

There was much talk, both in the speeches and when talking to people before and after the service, about how my Dad loved to help people – in fact, pretty much every person I’ve talked to who knew my Dad had a story about how he helped them. There was also a lot of mention from his friends about what a proud family man my Dad was, about how he was always telling anyone who would listen about his daughters and his grandkids.

I really miss my Dad.

1. I think I have the name of that right. The surgeon told us, but there was so much to hear and we were in shock, so I’ve looked up the arteries to the brain and I think that I have the info correct. [↩]

Tags: dad, family, love, sad

SNOW, Jack - Peacefully after complications from surgery on Saturday, February 11, 2012 at the age of 66. Survived by his wife Ann; children Nancy (Jeff Kramp) and Dr. M. E. Snow “Beth”; grandchildren Madeline Zammit and Thomas Kramp; his father Des Snow, brothers Gregor (Dale), Harry (Arlene) and sisters Gwen (Dennis) and Wendy (Rob) as well as many nieces and nephews. Predeceased by his mother Mary and brother Bob. Jack loved to help people and we are pleased that he could donate his eyes to the the Trillium Gift of Life Program to give the gift of sight. The family will receive visitors at the J. Scott Early Funeral Home, 21 James St., Milton (905) 878-2669 on Thursday from 9 – 11 a.m. with a funeral service to follow at 11 a.m. from the funeral home chapel. In memory of Jack, please take the time to sign your organ donor card. Messages of condolence may be left online at the J. Scott Early Funeral Home website.

To sign up to donate your organs:

• Trillium Gift of Life (Ontario)
• BC Transplant (British Columbia)

Tags: dad, family, sad

Ever so tired, brain too fried to put together coherent paragraphs, so instead you get bulleted lists. Because really, who doesn’t love a good bulleted list? Also, incoherence.

My Dad

• My dad’s operation, which will be at least 10 hours long (!), is scheduled for Feb 8. I will be flying out to Ontario to be with my family at that time.
• I’m so thankful that I have a very understanding boss and that my school is understanding as well.
• My friends and colleagues have also been so supportive and it’s meant the world to me. Kind words, offers of drives to and from airports, stories of similar surgeries that have been wonderfully successful and all the other support offered are all helping me and my family a lot.

School

• When I said that I’d likely be posting a lot fewer blog postings once school started, I wasn’t kidding – it feels like forever since I last blogged! In preparation for the first weekend of real classes¹, I’ve spent the last three nights reading pretty much from the time I’ve gotten home from work until the time I’ve fallen into bed exhausted. This is in addition to the fact that I’d started reading prior to this week AND I had to do a bunch of administrative-y things – like buying textbooks, downloading a course binder of materials, signing up for various websites, etc. etc., that I’ve been chipping away at over this month.
• One of our profs told us we aren’t allowed to whine about our workloads because if we have time and energy to whine, we should use that time and energy to get our work done instead of whining. So, for the record, I am not whining – I am merely stating facts
• Because I am a nerd, I’m tracking the hours I’m spending on homework using a program called Time Edition ((For the record, I have no affiliation with the Time Edition people. It just seemed like a handy time tracking program and I’m going to test it out. I’ll probably blog a review, should I ever have time to blog ever again)). I’m not sure if seeing this  will make me feel validated that I’m working hard enough or make me want to throw up when I see how much time I’ve spent on homework. Either way, I’m sure there will be graphs of this data in future blog postings.
• Tomorrow night is the welcome dinner for the program and we have to wear business attire. I’m very excited to have an excuse to wear my designer suit!

Work

• I really freaking love my work. I do such cool things and work with such great people. Things are ramping up for the AWESOME Project and I am SO EXCITED about that. Also, another work trip to Ottawa is coming up, which makes me squeee!
• In less awesome news, I got my first ever rejection from an academic journal for a paper that I submitted. Boo-urns! We are going to adapt it to submit to a different journal, so fingers crossed!

Health

• Given my January schedule of 8 hours of work or school 6 days a week, with the 7th day of the week being a 14.5 hour day of work plus driving plus school, I’ve done virtually no physical activity this month, save for a couple of hockey games that mercifully fell on Sunday nights after I finished school. I think I need to force myself to make some time for at least some short distance jogs and the occasional yoga class because I feel like crap when I don’t get exercise.
• These long hours are really not doing well for me nutrition-wise. I haven’t had time to go to a grocery store in ages and my game plan for this week turned out to be to order lots of pizza last night, so I’d have enough for not only last night’s dinner, but today’s lunch, today’s dinner, tomorrow’s lunch and probably Saturday’s lunch as well². Clearly, I need a better system!

I really thought I had something else to say, but now I can’t remember for the life of me what it was. Anyhoo, headed to bed now. So. Freaking. Tired!

Update: OK, I remembered what I wanted to say, which was: If this week is any indication, I think I need to buy stocks in Pepsi. Because at the rate I’ve be downing diet Pepsis, they are going to be one hellava profitable company in the next 28 months of my schooling!

1. As opposed to the pre-core classes I’ve had the past three weekends [↩]
2. School is providing tomorrow’s dinner & Friday’s lunch [↩]

Tags: list, random, school, stuff, suchlike, things, tired

The neurosurgeon said the nicest word that one can hear when you have a tumour: benign. My dad will get an MRI tomorrow and then they will book a surgery – and I’ll book a flight to be there. From the sounds of it, the surgery will be very long and, well, it’s brain surgery, so it’s dangerous, but the fact that it’s operable and benign is the best we could hope for in this situation. We aren’t out of the woods yet, but he sure could have given us much worse news than this.

Also, apparently my dad’s brain tumour is 1/4 the size of his brain. I think this is one time when our family motto of “go big or go home,” is *not* working in our favour. The neurosurgeon said it’s probably been growing for long time to be that big. My dad’s reply was that he wished he’d known because he could have blamed so my things on that brain tumour over the years: “It’s not my fault! It’s my brain tumour!” So he still has his sense of humour! Also, when I talked to him on the phone today, he said that the doctor remarked that my dad was pretty optimistic while many people in his situation would not be. His reply was “Would it help anything if I panicked? What good would that do?” I guess I know where I get my positive outlook from!

And thanks to everyone who has sent me emails/texts/comments/etc. of support. It really is helping me get through a difficult time knowing that people care about me and my family and that I have lots of people to lean on when I need it. You guys are awesome.

Tags: brain tumour, family, health

My sister called me last night to tell me that something was wrong with my dad. She got him to go to the hospital – no small feat, as my dad is not a big fan of going to see doctors¹ – and we were worried he may have had a stroke, but after much waiting around at the ER, when he finally got admitted and had a CT scan done, we found out that he has a brain tumour. Today he was transferred to a bigger hospital and is waiting to get an MRI and see a neurosurgeon in the morning. We really don’t know anything more than that at this point and I’m trying to remain optimistic that it will be operable. I’m waiting to find out what the prognosis and plan is to decide when I should go there. If he goes into surgery right away, I’m getting on a plane immediately. If it’s not that simple, I’ll figure out when is best for me to go there. I really wish it was tomorrow morning already, because the waiting is killing me. It’s hard to be so far away, because I can’t be there with my family for this. It’s hard even writing this posting, because all I can think is that my Dad isn’t at home to say to my Mom, “Hey Ann, come see what Bethy wrote on her blog today.” So I’m doing the only thing I can think to do right now – I’m adding Toronto Maple Leafs players to my hockey pool team.

I just need my Dad to be OK. I love you, Dad.

1. Which is a huge understatement – I don’t think my dad has seen a doctor in more than 20 years. [↩]

Tags: family, love, sad

I’m freaking exhausted from a day of Christmas baking, so today’s posting on my Christmas-baking-while-chatting-online-with-my-family-who-was-also-baking is going to be mostly photos and short on words. I’m too tired for typing words.

Meringue Snowflake

Chocolate Mice

For the record, here’s what everyone baked:

Beth

• shortbread cookies
• meringue snowflakes
• chocolate mice (white and dark chocolate)

Mom

• cranberry nut clusters
• chocolate lollipops
• reindeer cupcakes with Madeline
• butter tarts
• Muskoka tarts
• whipped shortbread

Nancy

• peanut butter fudge
• rocky road drops
• pecan pumpkin cookies
• pumpkins pie squares
• oat butter brittle
• key lime cheesecake squares
• blue cheese walnut crackers

Daniel¹

• lemon squares
• graham cracker cupcakes
• thumbprint cookies
• banana chocolate loaf

1. Nancy’s friend Daniel; not to be mistaken for Dr. Dan [↩]

Tags: baking, Christmas, Christmas 2011, Christmas baking, Cyber Cookies, Cyber Cookies '11, family, food, Nerdery

My dad emailed me this photo yesterday:

It’s the odometer of his truck, which he bought on the same day that I bought my car, and yes, that is showing that he’s driven 100,000 km! In 944 days¹.

In contrast, here’s my odometer:

53,683 km². Or 54% of the distance my dad has driven.

Further, 9,806 of the kilometres that I have driven have been for work³. Meaning that I’ve only driven 43,877 km on my own time⁴, compared to my dad’s 100,000! Clearly, my dad is superior to me in the field of putting mileage on his vehicle!

One area that my dad doesn’t beat me though, is in winning bets on Canucks vs. Leafs games. Such as the bet we have on tomorrow night’s game. I expect to be the proud owner of a lottery ticket purchased by my dad after the Canucks beat the Leafs on Hockey Night in Canada!

1. Mathletes will note that works out to 106 km per day!! [↩]
2. That’s 57 km per day! [↩]
3. Not commuting to and from work, but driving to meetings, interviews, focus groups, and other such work-y events. [↩]
4. Or 46.5 km per day. [↩]

Tags: cars, hockey, mileage, sports, trucks, Zaphod Beeblebrox the Car

After a year’s hiatus¹, the Snow family Cyber Cookies is back!

For the uninitiated, Cyber Cookies is where I bake “with” my family with a little assistance from our webcams! That’s right – I bake in my kitchen in BC and my family bakes in my sister’s kitchen in Ontario and then it’s kind of like we are baking together except that we don’t get to try each other’s baked goods. So, not quite as good as baking in person, but it’s the best I can do!

I still have to decide on what I want to bake, but so far I thinking making some of the following items:

• shortbread – this is for sure, because I bake the world’s best shortbread
• gingerbread
• sugar cookies
• peanut butter chocolate unsurprise cookies²
• coconut squares
• fudge
• meringue snowflakes
• chocolate mice

Cyber Cookies ’11.
Friday, December 23, 2011.
Toronto & Surrey.

You know you are jealous

Except for the Surrey part. No one is jealous of that.

1. The hiatus was because I was actually in Ontario last Christmas, so I could bake with my family in person. [↩]
2. I call them “unsurprise” cookies because the name of the recipe was originally “peanut butter chocolate surprise cookies,” but the surprise was supposed to be that there is peanut butter surprise but (a) it’s not very surprising, since peanut butter is in the name of the cookie and (b) if someone has a peanut allergy, there’s going to be one hell of a terrible surprise. [↩]

Tags: baking, Christman, Cyber Cookies, Cyber Cookies '11, events, family, food

It seems like only yesterday that my sister gave birth to a tiny baby girl, but today that baby girl turned seven years old. SEVEN! And in the seven years that Ms. Madeline has been my niece, just like her mother, her grandpa and her grandma, she’s taught me a thing or two.

Enjoy The Moment

Everyone says that having kids teaches you to stop and enjoy the simple things in life. When you see the wonder that a kid has as they look at the world, it reminds you to appreciate how wonderful and amazing things really are. When they ask questions about things that you don’t normally give a second thought to, they make you realize what you have been taking for granted. My niece was the first kid that I really had in my life that I have gotten to watch grow up from the time she was born, so she’s the first person that I’ve gotten to experience this with. Also, since I live so far away, I don’t get to see her nearly as often as I would like, and so when I do get to spend time with her, I treasure it. I treasure every conversation we have, no matter what it’s about. I treasure every smile, every laugh, every hug. I enjoy each moment that I get to be with her and I learn from her how to see the world with new eyes. I make sure that I’m really present in that moment, because I know that I’ll only get to have this moment with my niece once. She’s growing up so fast.

There Is Something Good and Pure in the World

When my niece was very small, I went through a really rough time in my life. And when I was really sad, I would think of my niece, a tiny sweet baby, and just thinking about her existence made me feel a little better, because I knew that there was something good and pure in the world. Someone so new, so full of potential. And that gave me hope.

A Surprising Number of Facts

I like to think of myself as a pretty intelligent gal who is well-informed on a broad array of topics. But hanging out with my niece, I always learn new things that I had no idea about before. Like what an okapi is. Or the meaning of the word “lugubrious.”  Which she taught me when she was four years old. For reals. Or that there are more than five kinds of dinosaurs. Seriously, when I was a kid, we were taught about five types of dinosaurs: Tyrannosaurus Rex, triceratops, stegosaurus, brontosaurus, and pterodactyls. Then Jurassic Park came along and we all learned about velociraptors. But if you go over to my sister’s house, it will not be long before my niece will sit you down with one of her two encyclopedias of dinosaurs and you’ll be learning about dozens and dozens of different kinds of prehistoric beasts. That kid is freaking smart.

Being Happy Makes Me Happy

After  I blogged my list of 100 Things That Make Me Happy, my sister suggested to my niece that she make a list of the things that makes her happy. I loved her list because it gave me insight into how she sees the world. And one of her items, in particular, really struck me. In amongst the other things that made her happy, she wrote “Being happy makes me happy.” So simple, yet so profound. It makes me think of Dr. Brown’s talk that I blogged about not too long ago (and which I can’t seem to stop talking about!), particularly the part about how we often squander our moments of joy by thinking “This is too good. When is the other shoe going to drop?” instead of just experiencing the joy. Rather than doing that, I’m striving to follow Madeline’s lead and just be happy about being happy.

I love you, Madeline. I hope you had a very, very happy birthday!

Tags: aunty blogging, birthdays, family, love, Madeline, NaBloPoMo, NaBloPoMo2011, niece

I can’t believe my trip to Montreal is over already!

On Saturday, we started the day with breakfast at Cora’s and then did some more shopping. Did I mention how freaking fashionable everyone in Montreal? We looked at lots of stuff, but didn’t buy a tonne – I only bought a few accessories¹, as I didn’t have a lot of room in my suitcase and had to leave room for Christmas presents that my family brought for me so they wouldn’t have to ship them, plus a case of spruce beer, which, as far as I can tell, you can only buy in Quebec. Mmmm, spruce beer. But I’m getting ahead of myself. My mom bought some clothes and my sister got a hat at Ogilvy’s and stuff for my niece for her birthday and a few other things at Forever 21².

My poor nephew – he was so tired out from all the shopping!

After shopping, we headed out to my mom’s cousin’s Susan’s place in LaSalle, where we got to see my Auntie Maureen, Auntie Barbara, Uncle Michael, and my mom’s other cousin, Leanne. It was great to see them – I haven’t seen my aunts and uncle since my last visit in 2005, my mom’s cousin Leanne in many, many more years than that, and we think I might never have met my mom’s cousin Susan before! If I have, I would have been very little. We had a tonne of fun – had a great time catching up, ate a delicious meal from a Greek restaurant, the name of which I must have asked 16 times but I still can’t remember what it was, and had a super delicious birthday cake that my Auntie Barbara made for my mom. I’d love to show you a picture of it, but my camera batteries died, so we were taking photos with my mom’s camera, but it uses some sort of proprietary Sony card instead of an SD card, so I couldn’t get the photos off the camera. My mom said she’ll get my dad to email them to me when she gets home, so I’ll post them once I get them. In the meantime, picture a cake shaped like a book, with little mini books on top, plus two bookworms in the shape of a “6″ and a “5.” Adorable! And did I mention delicious?

While in LaSalle, we also picked up some spruce beer at the grocery store. Spruce beer, for the uninitiated, is a type of pop that, as far as I can tell, you can only get in Quebec. I remember my Grandpa Snow making us spruce beer ice cream floats when we were kids³. It tastes like drinking a spruce tree and I’m sure it’s absolutely disgusting to anyone else but I *love* it so much!

The next morning, my mom, sister, and nephew were going to leave mid-morning, as they had a long drive back to Toronto ahead of them. But I may have pointed out that we hadn’t yet had a Montreal smoked meat sandwich and that I’d just go get one by myself before I headed to the airport for my 3 pm flight. And my sister may have taken pity on me and so the stuck around a bit longer! We had a lovely coffee at Cafe Java U and then went to Reuben’s for smoked meat. I have “Have a smoked meat sandwich at Schwartz’s” on my list of 101 things to do because I’d mistakenly thought that Schwartz’s was the place we used to go to get smoked meat when I was a kid. As it turns out, we used to go to Adam’s in LaSalle and Gregory’s in Verdun, neither of which exist anymore. And since the sentiment of the “smoked meat” item on my 101 list was to go to the place we used to go for nostalgia reasons, it makes the Schwartz’s part less important and so I’m counting “having smoked meat in Montreal” as “achieved” on my 101 list!

Me and my delicious Montreal smoked meat sandwich.

My smoked meat sandwich was exactly as I remembered them to be. Giant and delicious. The fries were a bit of a disappointment – I remember the fries we used to get with the smoked meat sandwiches when I was a kid were chunky and freshly made, whereas these were thin and clearly from a bag in a freezer – but the sandwich itself more than made up for that. And the coleslaw and the pickle totally completed the meal! My sister ordered a slice of cheesecake which was insanely huge and we shared it, plus she had some left over to take home. Also, freaking delicious.

And after that, it was time to hit the road. My family dropped me off a the airport, which was on their way home to Toronto, and I hopped onto my plane, which also happened to be going to Toronto, as I had to catch a connecting flight to Vancouver from there. And I nearly missed my plane in Toronto, because there were so many people with too much carry on luggage⁴ that the flight attendants took a good 15 minutes to figure out where to put it all and I only had a 45 minute turnaround time at YYZ! I ran from the gate where my Montreal flight landed to the gate where my Vancouver flight was leaving from and, happily, arrived just as the last of the passengers were boarding. We had the same issue of too much carry on luggage on this flight, so we were delayed about 10 minutes while everyone tried to stuff their luggage in to the overhead compartments, so I hope that gave my checked bag enough time to make it’s way on this plane! (Oh yes, I’m writing this on my flight from Toronto to Vancouver and will post it when I get home)

Anyhoo, I’m home now and I’m freaking tired! I’ve been fully adapted to Ontario time (i.e., living in the future) since I got to Ottawa and went to bed super duper early, so it feels like it’s three hours later than it is here in Pacific time (a.k.a., the past). I’m hoping that being on Ontario’s future time will help make it easier for me to get up early in the morning!

Other random stuff:

• There’s a place in Montreal called “Club Super Sexe.” True story. Here’s a picture to prove it:
  
• Did I mention how fashionable everyone is in Montreal?
• Did I mention how excited I am to drink my spruce beer?
• I did, in fact, convince my mom to have a Caesar so that I could try it. Verdict: delicious!
• I really do love Montreal, even in spite of its frigid temperatures. I hope I don’t have to wait another six years before I go back!

 Thomas and I came prepared for the cold Montreal weather with our matching hats!

1. Two pairs of earrings, two bras, and two headbands, to be exact [↩]
2. Yes, we realize that they have Forever 21 in both Toronto and Vancouver. Minor details [↩]
3. Both my parents grew up in Montreal and we have relatives from both sides of my family who still live there, so whenever someone would go back to Montreal to visit, they’d bring back spruce beer [↩]
4. Which ticks me off, because I had to leave behind some of the Christmas presents my sister brought for me because I couldn’t fit them in my bag, what with all the spruce beer and the other Christmas presents. But if I’d known they’d let me walk on with three giant carry on bags despite the rules saying you only get two carry on bags, like I saw another lady do, I’d have done that too! [↩]

Tags: 101 in 1001, auntie blogging, family, food, Montreal, Montreal smoked meat, NaBloPoMo, NaBloPoMo2011, planes, Reuben's, spruce beer, travel