My next house assignment

Tomorrow, I'll be starting a two-three month rotation in the Respite house. Respite is an interesting place. It's a kind of a cross between a youth hostel and a nursing home. Most rooms have normal beds, but some have hospital type beds. All have a dresser and lamp. Some are double occupancy for friends or family to be together. All consumers have some type of physical or intellectual disability. They stay for a few hours to a few weeks. The age range is 6 yrs to 86 years. And there can be up to 8 overnight plus 8 hourly consumers in the house at a time. Staffing is different too. For any time there is a consumer in a wheelchair or 4 or more consumers, there is at least one other staff member. :) As July/August are two of the busiest months of the year....there should always be a couple of us there. :) I'm looking forward to it.

Updates on life

So I'd kind of forgotten what life on the prairie was like. Or at least the weather. :) This week was a reminder. HOT!!! With fast moving p.m. storms. Yep, really reminds me of South Dakota weather patterns. Which after 9 years in MN, I'd forgotten. Although...hearing the weather person say it's going to be a hot day...29 degrees, just sounds odd. 29? Shouldn't I be wearing a parka and gloves? No? A swimsuit and wraparound skirt? Oh, yeah Celsius. ;) But I've come up with an easier way of figuring C to F conversion then 9/5C + 32. I round to the nearest 5, (IE that 29 degree day becomes 30) and figure out how many 5s are in that number. So for our example that would be 6. Multiply by 10, and add 30. (Yes, I know it's off a few degrees. But I can do that in my head quickly and know how to dress in the morning!) In the example...I get a 90 degree day by my method. The real method gives 84.2. So yes, I'm 6 degrees off, but at least I have an inkling of what the day will bring. And that day ended up being 32 degrees which was 89...so I was really close. I've discovered something odd about weather forecasting up here....it seems to be more....accurate? Or maybe it's more pessimistic. I've not seen a "partly sunny" day. But lots of partly cloudy ones. And temperatures seem to be guessed at lower than higher, so you maybe pleasantly surprised when it's warmer, but not disappointed when it's cooler.

The bad part to the warm weather of the week is the apartment isn't air conditioned. Not even a window unit. So it's been a bit...hot here.

Update on medical stuff....I had the ultrasound of my kidneys done on Thursday. Wow! Fast appointment. I got there, presented my card, sat down and opened a magazine....and was called. 10 minutes early. Taken back by the man who was doing the test and got started right away. Hmmm...he did the right kidney first, then the left and while doing the left he says "Are you in pain? Am I hurting you?" Ummm...no. Should it be? I hate comments like that. I know I have a freakishly high pain threshold. When I hurt (not just ache like the arthritis does or my cramps do--oh wait--most people consider that pain), I know I'm in serious trouble. As in..Excuse me, but someone needs to take me to a medical professional right now! But no more cryptic comments, the results will be in Dr. K's office midweek, but he doesn't have an appointment available until July 8th. So that's when I'll hear something...although I am assuming that if something is really wrong....he'll probably call earlier. I've been told he does that.

Some other odd things I've noticed about life here on the great Canadian prairie. People are super polite. Not just MN nice, but actually polite. Please, thank you, ma'am, sir, excuse me are still heard here. It's nice, but odd. I tend to use those anyway and stuck out a bit in the states, but here I just fit in.

There are fewer types of some products and more of others on the shelves at the stores. Example: Much fewer types of pop. No flavored Coke/Pepsi, only one type of Dr. Pepper, fewer choices overall. But wow the flavors of potato chips! Dill pickle, ketchup, sour cream and cheddar cheese, and all the ones typically found in Cub foods back in MN.

Still adjusting to all packaging being in both English and French! And remembering more of my French each day. Not that I use it, but seeing it, reading it, and hearing it on TV (there are entire channels that only broadcast in French here--and some shows are voice over from the English...which is kind of fun to watch. :)

Health care still feels weird to me. Here I am having tests, going to the Dr....with no co-pay and no charge. Although strangely I found out that if there were a charge it would be fairly low. While I was at a walk in clinic with a consumer, a foreign exchange student who had not applied for a health card came in and asked how much it would cost to see a doctor without a health card. And the answer is? $100? $75? How about $45? Yep...that's all folks. He then says...I think I may have strep...what about a test for that? The receptionist replies...if we do it in office, it's included in the $45. I almost fainted. I know that's about the charge for a nurse practitioner run, in drug store kind of clinic in MN. But to see a Dr? In a full clinic setting? I asked at Dr. K's office, just to see if the charge was more...and the nurse there said Dr. K really doesn't accept patients without a card unless it's a family member visiting, then he charges $55, again including any tests he can do in office (not much...no blood work, x-rays, etc--but strep tests--yep can do that)

Another odd thing...Lottery. In the US, states that have lotteries do so to either increase their general operating budget or for a specific purpose (IE--education). And the lotteries here in Canada do that too, but there are also special lotteries for specific purposes. For example, the libraries do a special lottery each year where the grand prize is a 1/2 million dollar house. There are a limited number of tickets for these lotteries and a limited number of prizes (For that one there were....I think....10,000 tickets--each ticket costing $100 or a book of 5 for $250. ) And yes, there were corporate sponsors for the prizes, so the library wasn't paying retail for the prizes. But still, it's odd to hear and see in action. And a good number of these lotteries are for health care. Help the NICU buy new monitors by buying a lottery ticket. Or the cancer ward get new books and games for the chemo area. Oddly...schools don't do this. I asked about it and was told schools get funded first. So they don't need money. Wow! Amazing. Teacher salaries here are really pretty good too. (low end about $7,000-10,00/yr more than stateside.)

Well, there are a few more of the odd things I've been noticing. :) See you next time I start thinking of the odd strange things that are different here in the not so frozen right now North!

Ah...two days off!

I must admit it. I'm learning to really love my schedule. :) I've been off for 24 hrs and will be off for another 48. Then I work 24 of 48 hrs and then I'm off again for 84 hrs before I go back for another 24 of 48.



Some days do go really slow. But that is due to the current house/consumer I'm working with. Which will be changing at the end of the month. I'm moving from the Crisis house to the Respite house. The Respite house is there to give regular, full time caregivers someplace they can take their charges to for anywhere from 4 hrs to 7 days. I'll be there for July and August (the two busiest months). I'm looking forward to it. Not only will there probably be at least 4 consumers each night, but that means there will be at least two staff on at all times too. :) So I'm looking forward to getting to know more people, seeing lots of new consumers and over all just having a great time. :)



So I'm getting the ultra sound done this week. On Thursday afternoon. I have mixed feelings about this. I really, really hate doctors, lab work, and medical stuff in general. But at the same time, I've thought for a lot of years that this is just not right. So off I go to get an ultrasound of my kidneys to see if there is a problem there. After that, it's a few days to wait for the results and another visit to Dr. K.

Updates on appointments and the like....

So, it's been a few weeks now I guess. And the Dr. appointment has come and gone. Mostly good news. All lab work came back normal. And in some cases, better than normal. Good cholesterol is high. Bad cholesterol is lower than normal. :) Blood glucose levels are normal, no other problems with the tests. So the physical exam was good too. No obvious problems, no clear cause for my leg swelling. :( So on to the next thing. Which is an ultrasound of my kidneys. All the lab work seemed to show decent kidney function, but that is the next big thing that could be causing the problems in my legs and Dr. K wants to check it out.

Car is fixed, running well and should be licensed in Canada in the next week or so. :)

Work has been going well. Hard to believe I've been there 2 months already. Time is really flying! As a matter of fact....I need to go get ready for work. I'm off for two days after today, so I'll try to maybe write more then.