Monthly Archives: January 2005

These is something about music.  It has got to connect with our brains on a special level.  It stirs emotions, soothes us, excites us.  It also seems to stay fixed in some part of our brain so that even my dad can remember the old songs and play them with amazing accuracy from memory.

I guess our family was musical.  We all played something.  At least we tried.  My efforts were just the slowest.  My sisters and brother all outshone me on the piano.  My younger two sisters both played the violin very well.  I gave up on piano when I was in grade 8.  Violin, my dad tried briefly to teach me.  Guitar was attempted when I was in university.  I think my fingers were too short or too slow, or something.  The recorder seems to be just right for me.

Today Sharon and I went to the hospital to visit dad.  This time we brought his violin.  I brought my recorder.  Sharon brought her flute.  We went down to the hospital chapel and spent about half an hour playing some of the old hymns that dad will maybe never forget.  It was so good. 

Today I learned enough about facial pain to just about put me to sleep.  The lecturer was excellent but sitting in a hotel room on my butt, listening, is conducive to sleep.  Not real sleep, but the dozing off while trying to sit upright in a chair looking alert sort of sleep.  Especially when I had to get up at 5 in order to be at the office by 6 to pick up my therapist, assistant and hygienist.  The brochure said the course started at 8:00.  Actually didn’t start till almost 9:00.

This day of continuing education is by far the best that is offered in the province.  It is put on by the dental department at the RUH and the Oral Surgery Dept.  So we get some actual teaching not just a repetition of how to make an esthetic filling more esthetic by some hotshot clinician.  We are required to accumulate continuing education points to maintain our licence.  I generally like the challenge of studying but if I have to pay for some lecture to be taught then I want it to be useful stuff that I am learning.  Today I learned some stuff that will be very useful in dealing with people that have serious problems with pain. 

We also learned something today that is disturbing.  The funding for the General Practice Residency program has been cut.  This program has two residents – their funds are gone.  I did this program myself and it taught me just about everything I needed to know to function as a dentist in the Congo and then return here to carry on my present practice.  I learned how to treat fractures, how to deal with medical emergencies, how not to be afraid to handle patients with medical conditions, how to work together with a team of medical doctors, etc.  The residents help staff the special clinics such as the cleft lip and palate clinics, the clinics for people with bleeding disorders, see and treat medically compromised patients that are difficult to treat in an office and manage adults with disabilities.  If these programs are eliminated people will have to travel out of province to get this kind of care.  It will be a big loss to our little province of few people and vast spaces.  The cost of the program is a drop in the health care budget.  Dental stuff always gets very small drops of public funds.

This day was a long one.  It started out with a few of us early risers getting together up at the church – talking to God and talking to each other.  There’s a lot of stuff that has changed over the past year or so at our church.  Time of worship is just a sort of administrative change but it has sort of a symbolic sense to it.  It opened up some other more important stuff that we needed to change, I think.  Maybe not enough yet, but it has started.  We are getting to know each other better.   And care more about each other.  We have a ways to go yet but we would like to get there.  Our church’s annual meeting is coming up this weekend.  And I sort of wish I could be there but I will be away at a continuing education thing in Saskatoon. 

From there, I headed straight to the office.  It was a sedation day.  Half the kids showed up.  That is always disappointing considering the number of kids that are waiting on our list to get an appointment.  In fact for the first time in years it is taking longer to get the kids in for sedation than into the OR for a general anaesthetic. 

We had one very irate father to deal with as well.  His estranged wife sent him with the daughter but obviously had not told him a thing about what to expect.  It was the fourth time the child was in so we expected that this should be old hat for them.  His daughter was very well sedated.  She peed on him.  He did not like that at all.  He also did not like to be in the room with her ( we request that a parent be there) and just had to go out for a smoke.   I also learned a lesson  – not to take for granted that the person bringing in a child knows what to expect.

The rest of the day was very busy.  It flew by.  Then I was called to see a new baby with a cleft lip and palate, so went straight from work to the hospital.  Slipped up to see my dad while I was there.  Then home to pick up Sara for soccer and grab a sandwich.  After that off to meet with our group that is reading through Blue Like Jazz by Donald Miller. 

And today when I checked my e-mail, I has a neat surprise.  An e-mail from an old Congo(Zaire) friend — past short term missionary.  Hi, Seto!  He just ran across this site searching for pictures of Gemena. 

Life is busy some days.  But it is good and sometimes has these little hidden surprises that are really cool.  Like interesting conversation.  Sometimes my best theological discussions are at work.  Maybe that should be expected.  That is where a good part of my life is lived out. 

Well, tomorrow the kids go back to school.  Semester break is over and they launch off on a whole new round of subjects.  We of course do not want to get ready ahead of time in our house.  So tonight, before worship practice, Sara and a friend and I headed off to the big store close to our place to buy notepaper, munchies and makeup.  I’m not sure just why a kid needs munchies to go to school.  I understand that the makeup is essential.  And the looseleaf will probably get used. 

So after practice I had to descend to the basement to collect something from the freezer.  I thought the laundry had all been done a few days ago.  I guess all but one person’s laundry got done.  Probably that young woman has nothing left to wear.  Judging from the size of the piles of laundry, she probably does have nothing clean left to wear.

Why must all things be left to the last evening?  I can’t even claim to have passed along any procrastinating genes to these two young ladies.  Maybe procrastination is a learned behaviour.  If so, I guess they don’t really stand a chance.  I am a master of leaving things until it is almost embarrassing to finally do them. 

I am trying very hard to work on this.  Maybe I will do something about it tomorrow.

Today was a very significant day for me.  After a struggle, a sense of calm and real happiness.

And the other reason for it being significant – well I invited my son, wife and grandson for lunch.  Yesterday, I took out this large bison roast to thaw.  This morning early I set the stove timer to start the roast while we were away at church.

Then I had another task to complete for my daughter – packaging and labelling a parcel so she could take it to the bus this morning.

When we were beginning to play the first song for the worship service I remembered.  I remembered that I forgot to actually put the roast into the oven. 

We ate a large meal rather late today.  But it was good.

It seems as if days are blending into other days and going on and on.  It may have to do with the time of year.  It is cold and dark and I still end up driving to work in the dark and returning most of the time after dark as well.  I thrive better in the sun.  I don’t know as I could say I am afflicted with an all out case of SAD but I am looking forward to the spring with eager anticipation.  Only about three and a half months to go. 

Meanwhile, I get through work.  I like it but it is hard to find real joy in it some days.

Tomorrow I go and spend a morning in the operating room.  If all goes well, it is a productive morning – in terms of work completed as well as in monetary production.  I guess since it is year end and the last couple of months have been slow, I am more aware of the pressing need to cover expenses and also aware that the revenue is down.  We will get through this period too, but it is just one more stress.  We seem to bring in and send out vast sums of money.  And in the end it just seems we owe the tax guy a little bit more than what we have.  That’s life, I guess.

So my daughter begins a new venture today.  She begins teaching a class in Hip Hop in a small town near PA.  The town in only about half an hour away but she has a friend who lives there who comes in to town for school.  Grace will be driving out with her after school on Thursdays, teaching two classes in the evening, returning with her friend to school the next morning.  On these roads I am glad she does not have to drive out there herself.  Even if the roads were good, her car is not meant to be a highway car and a dancer does not want to lose toes to frostbite.

And tonight, Christian is hoping the temperature does not drop too far.  I came home and found the end of his car plug still attached to the extension cord – sans le car!  Too late tonight to repair it since he doesn’t have the necessary parts.  He just got home from his new job at Boston Pizza.  Being a waiter was not his first choice – but the car payments are fairly good incentive to work. 

Tonight I made it up to visit my dad again.  I stayed away for the couple of weeks that I was so sick with a cold.  He was upset tonight about being in the hospital and wanted to get out.  That makes visiting a bit tricky.  He was constantly asking to get out of his restraints and I was busy trying to find something more pleasant that would distract him.  So we read a bit and looked at the book we got him for Christmas.  It was harder to say goodbye tonight though.  I guess it won’t get easier.