Mountain Doctor:

Mountain Doctor

While the plane was descending on my flight from Toronto last week, I felt my right ear go into some distress.  An avid gum-chewer most of the time, I realized too late I had forgotten to pop the trusty Trident into my mouth having been too absorbed in conversation with my seat-mate, the HR man from Sobeys.  By the time I noticed the crackling in my ear, it was too late.  I deplaned and went home where my ear condition worsened as the day progressed. 

That evening and the next day I did extensive research on "airplane ear" or “barotrauma” and felt myself to be quite an expert by Saturday evening.  My room-mate Tom refers to me as Barb Fullerton, MD….Mountain Doctor.  The MacMillan girls call that DWOL….Doctors WithOut Licence. 

Mountain Doctor

I treated myself according to online direction—hot compresses, yawning, gum-chewing, valsalva.  Valsalva.  That’s the medical term we doctors use which means pinching your nostrils and exhaling to cause the ears to pop thereby unblocking the Eustachian Tube. 

Valsalva

Eustachian Tube.  That’s the canal in the ear that allows air to flow into the middle ear to balance pressure.  As you can see, I am quite confident in my medical knowledge…a little TOOOO confident as it turns out. 

Eustachian Tube

 

By Sunday morning I was deaf in my right ear, and the pain was heading toward excruciating. I decided it was time to consult a DWL----Doctor With Licence.  One millisecond after she looked into my ear she said, “It’s an infection.”  I was shocked; I had not even considered that!  I had misdiagnosed.  I could hardly believe it. I got my two antibiotic prescriptions filled and headed back to the hills with my room-mate Tom at the wheel.  He didn’t say much but I saw his eyebrows raise and his eyes roll when I admitted to him that I had been wrong in my diagnosis. 

Shoppers

Tom, uxorious as usual, waited on me hand and foot with tea and blankets and hot compresses.  By late afternoon, I pried myself off the couch, grabbed a knife, and told him I was going to the garden to get some greens.

Garden Knife

“You can’t do that!” he exclaimed.  “You have an imbalance in your Fallopian Tube!”

Tom has a way with words.  He has a way of mixing them up.  It makes me MAD because I think he is just being careless, and if he gave ANY THOUGHT WHATSOEVER to what he was going to say, he wouldn’t make such RIDICULOUS mistakes!

Fallopian Tubes

 

“My fallopian tube!” I yelled.  “MY FALLOPIAN TUBE!!!???"  I’m impatient with this quaint little quirk of his at the best of times, but fueled by pain and painkillers, perhaps I was a little harsher than usual in my response.

“I mean your Estrogen Tube,” he sputtered, his eye on the knife in my hand.

Estrogen Tube

 

“My ESTROGEN TUBE!?” I screamed.  “I DON'T believe it!  EUSTACHIAN TUBE!  I have an infection in my EUSTACHIAN TUBE!!!”  I yelled, waving my hands and stamping my feet for emphasis.

 

“Right,” Tom repeated, cowering in his armchair, his eye still on the knife.  “Eustachian Tube.”

Until Next Time.......

 

Mutt's in a Name? The Dog Blog

Mutt’s in a Name?:  The Dog Blog



Nugget

      As you may have gathered, if you read my blog on a somewhat regular basis, I have a thing for names. They interest me to the point that I keep a list on the fridge of names that I find to be unique or unusual or new-to-me.  With all due respect, I get a lot of them from the obituaries.

Names on the Fridge

     So it’s not a real stretch that I have begun to pay close attention to the dog names in my life.   What I am noticing is that dogs more and more have people names.  Instead of Sport, Rover, Rocky, Lady, Tippy and Skipper---dog names from my distant past, the dogs in my neighbourhood whom I see almost daily have people names.  Brad, Ernie, Haley, Rosie.  Sammy Davis Jr. lives on the next block and you must use his entire name when addressing him.  Astrid Elizabeth Ann is a boxer who lives down the street; her friends call her Astrid.  Charlotte lives around the corner.  My mother’s name was Charlotte.  My middle name is Charlotte.  The new princess’ name is Charlotte.  And so is the West Highland Terrier who lives around the corner.    

Princess Charlotte and her Parents

West Highland Terrier, Charlotte

 

    Is it because families have fewer kids that they use their favourite names for their pets?  Larry, Elvis, Ellie, Emma, Mabel, Basil, Doug.  My dog Nugget was already named when I adopted her.  Who knows, if she had been nameless, I may have called her Alice Munro or Angela Merkl or Helen Mirren.  She looks more like an Alice than an Angela, I think. 

 Alice Munro

 Angela Merkl

Helen Mirren

Nugget.  Or Alice Munro? 

     When I was a kid, we always had a dog and he (or she) was always called Skipper.  One Skipper would follow another Skipper.  This was mostly due to the fact that my father would not call a dog anything else.  So if anyone in the family got creative and tried to call the new cow dog Blue or Patches or Lassie, that name  would not last more than a week.  Because my father would never change,  in order to avoid a totally confused dog with an identity crisis, the dog's name inevitably reverted to Skipper, as in “Skipper, go get the cows!”  , "Sic ‘em Skipper!” , “Skipper, go lay down!” , “Skipper, get  home.”  That would be the extent of the interaction my father had with the dog.  You see while I’m made of granite, as my family repeatedly tells me, my father was made of cement laced with rebar.  Not exactly warm and fuzzy.  Every animal on the farm had a job; there were no pets.  Skipper’s job was to get the cows to the barn at milking time.  Skipper the First, Skipper the Second, Skipper the Third ---same old job.  You get the picture.  Skippers were never allowed in the house; they slept in the porch and ate table scraps from an old tin pie plate with a hole in the bottom. 

Skipper at Work

     Our Skippers had no dish with their name on it, no poop bags, no leash, no collar, no ramp to get on the bed, no doggy backpack, no stroller, no trips to the vet, no needles, no kangaroo dog food, no dental work, no allergy tests, no flea medicine.  If the dog got into a porcupine, one person held his head down between the tines of a hayfork, and someone else pulled the quills out with a pair of pliers.  If the dog got sick, you stopped feeding him for a while.  If he got really sick, you called the neighbour to come shoot him in the back pasture.  Dogs did merit a grave, however. 

Not Skipper in the Stroller

     Today's dogs are pampered and privileged compared to our Skippers.  And I can’t really say much.  I have a pampered privileged dog who eats kangaroo dog food and wears a coat, boots and a New Brunswick tartan ascot. 

Nugget

 

     What's more, I have a pampered privileged cat who is quite sure she deserves the very best of everything, including several high-falutin’ names such as Josie, Josee, Slippy, Ring-Tailed Snorter.  She acts more like an Elizabeth or a Victoria or a Sheba if you ask me.

Slippy and Julia

Slippy in her own Mind

 

 

 

 Until Next Time.............

 

 

 

 

 

 

Happy Mudder's Day

 

Happy Mudder's Day

 

      What can I say?  What is new about mothers?  It’s all been said.  It’s in the Mother’s Day Cards. 

 

Mother's Day Card

     Most mothers are wonderful.  Most care most about their children.  Not all.  I watch Criminal Minds; I know there are evil people out there. 

   Criminal Minds

     I could tell you that I had a wonderful mother.  I did.  She was exceptional, not just as a mother, but as a human being.  I could tell you I am a wonderful mother.  I would be lying.  I do try but I have not lived up to the gold standard.  I might score "adequate" on the Provincial Rubric.  I am not going to enumerate my successes or my failures here.  My daughters could probably fill you in. 

 

Barbara and Mother, Charlotte

 

     Mothers are so vital in the construction of human beings, beyond the biological creation.  I am just realizing, in my late 50s, that I put a lot of stock in mothers.  I jump to the conclusion that if the mother is a good person, her children are likely to be good people too, and vice versa.  You might call that judgemental.  Go ahead. 

     Just imagine the mothers of these people.

Nelson Mandela, Mother Theresa, Barack Obama

 

     And consider this  mother, author Isabel Allende, who nursed her 28-year-old daughter to a premature death, then wrote a book about it.  Mothers do phenomenal things.

 

Isabel Allende with son Nicholas and daughter Paula

Paula, by Isabel Allende

     Around Mother’s Day last year, I met a man whom I have come to admire in many ways.  A very successful businessman, he is a Newfoundlander by birth.  You might call that racial profiling.  Go ahead. 

Newfoundland

     This man and I were randomly thrown into a social situation that involved a bottle of rum.  Lest you think me an avid drinker, let me assure you I am not.  You might call that denial.  Go ahead. 

Appleton Rum

     As the rum in the bottle diminished, this man's Newfoundland accent strengthened remarkably.  My Newfoundland accent strengthened minimally.  His stories were most entertaining, his speech patterns downright musical.  Eventually the word Mother became Mudder, and Mudder figured highly in the ensuing stories.  There was the story of childhood mealtime in the family of 5, mostly boys.  Mudder never saw the older brother stealing off the plate of the younger brother and only turned around in time to see the victim of supper-theft stab the thief-brother in the back of his hand with the fork.  But of course Mudder figured it out and cuffed one boy and bandaged the other. 

Hungry Brudder

     Then there was the story about two of the brothers who were stationed in Afghanistan.  One brother was not sharing his access to extra rations with the other brother.  A phone call was made from Afghanistan to Mudder in Newfoundland and that bit of sibling inequity was soon straightened out.  I call that one powerful mother. 

Brudder Calling Mudder

     I could go on about mothers… Mother Theresa, Mother Earth, Mother May I, Mother Superior, Motherboards, Whistler’s Mother, MotherLode, Mommie Dearest, Mother Jones.  Some of those mothers are not mothers in the literal sense of the word, but they can still be mothering.  Think of all the people who have mothered you.  I’ll leave you with Jann Arden’s Good Mother . “I’ve got a good mother and her voice is what keeps me here.”

Jann Arden

 

 

......Until Next Time....

 

 

 

 

Cat is Dead

Julia and Slippy

         There are days that I do not feel too ambitious.  One could use the word lazy, but I’m trying to be kind to myself.  Last Thursday was one of those days.

Lazy Woman

  

I had a doctor’s appointment in Oromocto, which is about 14 miles away, so I planned to take the car instead of the gas-guzzling truck, to save a few cents, you know.  Tom had parked the truck to the side of the driveway to allow me to get the car out.  When I was ready to go, as usual with too many things in my hands--keys, purse, travel cup, cell phone--I went out, locked the backdoor, and loaded myself and my doodads into the car.  

Lazy Doodads

When I turned the key in the ignition, the only response I got was a weak clicking sound.  Obviously the car was not going to Oromocto.  So I unloaded myself and my doodads and moved toward the truck.  

Lazy Battery

I considered, for one second, going back into the house and calling up to Tom’s office to let him know that the car was not going.  However, that would entail unlocking the back door, bending over, taking my boots off, walking twenty feet.  Much too much effort considering my indolent state.   I stopped under his window and yelled his name, weakly. Once.  No response.  

Lazy Woman Yelling for Tom

I decided to text him to let him know; my cellphone was right there in one of my over-loaded hands.  But it was absolutely too much trouble for sluggish old me to open my purse and go digging for my glasses.  Surely I could manage if I squinted one eye and closed the other.  So I sent the text, blindly, you might say, then heaved my weary bones into the truck.  

Lazy Woman Sending Text

In the driver’s seat, safely belted, I was about to pull out into the driveway when I happened to glance in the rearview mirror and see Tom charging out the back door in his sock feet and jammie bottoms.  He rushed to the passenger side of the truck, as I rolled down the window, thinking to myself, “Here we go.  Tom all caffeined-up and over-reacting to a dead battery.”

Caffeined Man on Computer 

 Hand on hip, he leaned in the window and said anxiously, “I presume you mean the car?”

               “Yes,” I answered.  "What did I text?”

               “Cat is dead.”

Slippy, Playing Dead

               Without going into too much detail, I earned my well-deserved nickname, Granite, during the mourning period for our last dog, Tucker.  Considering my history with pets, and my reputation around hugging and any form of demonstrative affection, it is not surprising that Tom came running.  No doubt he expected to see our beloved 13-year-old cat, Slippy, dead in the driveway, and me driving down the street.  

Lady Granite, off to Oromocto

  

 Until Next Time.....

My Little Brother: A Tribute to Noel

Three Lambies:  Noel, Emma, and Lamb
Keswick, NB

When my daughter Emma moved from Fredericton to Denver, Colorado last summer, she left me many gifts and reminders, probably so I would never forget her.  As if!!!!  I am really enjoying the 2 cookie sheets, her bedroom furniture, the toaster oven, the 10 pound bag of coconut, and the endless supply of high-end shampoo.

Abandoned Cookie Sheets               Lifetime Supply of Coconut

       I have less use for the 25 pairs of flip-flops, the five plastic tubs packed with clothes size 6 or 8 or some number that is beyond my comprehension, which fill at least two closets in our house.  I did manage to get rid of the stack of 15 university textbooks through my new relationship with Kigigi. 

Numerous Pairs of FlipFlops

But the best thing Emma left me was her Little Brother, Noel.  Noel had been Emma’s Little Brother for about a year when she moved away.  Because he had been visiting our home and had become a part of our family’s life in that year, it made sense that I would become his new Big Sister, if they would have me, of course.  I did question my age and agility but there was no physical test.  I passed the interviews and application procedures and became an official Big Sister to Noel last June.  I know, I am more like a "grandmother" at this age, but he already has a fantastic grandmother.

Noel Sporting Denver Bronco Accessories

Noel is 9 years old and lives in a single-parent home with 3 siblings. I spend an average of 3 to 4 hours a week with him doing activities such as swimming, playing badminton and racquetball, cooking, gardening, kayaking, bowling, arcading (!!);  hanging out at our house; skyping Emma; watching movies; visiting friends, farms, cottages; attending Frostival, Haunted Houses, Easter Egg Hunts, Calithumpians, Forestry Competitions, New Years’ Levees, Big Brother Big Sister activities etc.  “Whatev”, as they say.  It’s not about spending money, it’s about spending time. 



  You should know that:

 1.  Noel is getting better at badminton.  I’m not. 

  2.  Racing arcade games make me dizzy. 

                                3.  And, yes, of course I'm teaching him to knit. 

When I was going through the process of becoming a Big Sister, one of the questions I was asked in an interview was “What do you expect to get out of this experience?”  I did not have a good answer to that question at the time; I had not thought of it in terms of enriching my life.  But it has.

Here’s some of what I get out of it.  I am reminded of what it’s like to be nine years old.  I had forgotten, I must admit, having been there about 50 years ago.  And I could not really recall exactly what my own daughters were like at 9 years of age.  It’s important, in understanding our great human family, to consider what it’s like to be 9 years old, or 19 years old, or 79 years old. 

 

My Mother, Daughters, Nieces and Nephew: Multi-generational

I have always been fascinated by the insights of children and I have always enjoyed spending time with them.  With his captivating way of speaking, energetic physicality, vivid imagination, healthy curiosity, amazing memory, philosophical questions, brilliant observations, innocent wisdom, Noel has reminded me of what children have to offer adults.   

Noel at the Dairy Queen

The aim of the Big Brothers Big Sisters organization is "to promote the healthy development of children in our community through the provision of quality mentoring relationships with supportive, responsible adult volunteers".  
(http://www.bigbrothersbigsistersfredericton.ca/en/Home/aboutus/default.aspx)

Noel lives in a loving home with a supportive family.  His involvement in the Big Brother Big Sister organization gives him extra time and attention from another adult, or in our case, other adults.  Tom often accompanies Noel and me on our outings.  And Emma maintains a relationship with Noel through phone, skype, texts, pictures, mail.  When she is back in Fredericton for visits and work, she spends as much time with Noel as she can.  In fact, you could say, we fight over him a little bit. 

Emma and Noel at the Marathon

April is a big month for fund-raising for Big Brothers/Big Sisters. If you are interested in making a donation to the organization online, follow the link below. If you would rather make a donation face-to-face, you could do that!  Contact me and we can make it happen.  Noel and I will be doing a little door-to-door canvassing prior to the April 11^th deadline.  Thank you for your support.http://www.bowlfred.kintera.org/faf/donorReg/donorPledge.asp?ievent=1126110&lis=1&kntae1126110=C41F637F5BC345488A555A7B40F79191&supId=420988948

 Go to this link for information on becoming a Big Brother or Big Sister.  http://www.bigbrothersbigsistersfredericton.ca/en/Home/aboutus/default.aspx I recommend it as a rewarding experience. 

......Ain't bad.....

 Barb and Noel

Until Next Time.....