Settling back into school is still somewhat of a challenge, but this week I got back into the habit of going in before my 9:30 or 10:00 class (Vietnam War MWF and History of Race and Immigration TTR) for around 8:20 so that I get an hour or more to practice. It has been a REALLY good feeling to do that! This week, my goal is to get back into going to the gym, although I still need to work out some scheduling hiccups for that. I guess I've had a lot on my mind at times...concerns about a close friend of mine, who, unfortunately, is in another relapse of anorexia and is one pound away from involuntary hospitalization. The problem with this is that here it means she will be there for three-four months basically sitting around just eating. No group day treatment, just meeting with her nurse therapist I think just twice a week. She has worked out a deal that if she can maintain the weight she is at, and keep her electrolyte blood test results ok, that she can stay out. An acquaintance of mine from the group at the Women's Health Clinic said that if she can maintain for just a couple of weeks, she'll be all right because they are set to have discharges very soon, and as long as she is still all right then, they won't be able to admit her for some time. With many, I would be viewing this in a different light, but with this friend, having seen her go through three out of her five hospitalizations (2 of them lasting more than four months) I know that going back into the hospital is only going to cement the habits even further. All it does is make her gain weight at this point, there is no psychological benefit, and definite harm that comes from it. She's registered to go to another program about five hundred kilometers away in a few months where they will let her take part in several daily groups. It's not a hospital program either, but residential treatment, so the feel will (hopefully) be a lot less sterile and cold. We had a very long tea/coffee session over the christmas break, and discussed a lot-one of them being how scared she was that the pattern was just going to repeat and repeat unless she tried something else. The problem is that the healthcare system here won't pay for very many other places. I haven't seen her since then-I wish that a big hug could just take away all the problems.

Today, I realized with a large shock, that I have a small chance of being personally affected by what is going on in Egypt. My counsellor at Women's Health Clinic has a daughter that is working (and I can't remember what she does) in Egypt, and left I think last weekend on vacation over to Egypt. I hope very much that she has already returned safely over here.

As I've mentioned before, I love to knit...earlier this month, I was on Bernat's website (or maybe it was Patons) and found an on-going program run through Save the Children collecting hand-knit/crocheted low-birth-weight baby caps. Some 4 million babies die each year in the first month of life, most of them from easily preventable or treatable causes. Close to 2 million of them die in the first 24 hours! On a large scale, Save the Children is working with other organizations to help provide trained workers to attend each birth, and along with the worker a birth kit containing sterilized instruments, and (this is where Bernat and Patons come in!) a hand-made baby cap. A couple of very easy patterns were provided on the website, and with the three (maybe four) generations worth of yarn kicking around, this was one project I couldn't turn up. It takes me about an hour to make a cap, and it's become somewhat addictive-I now have 35 made. The only issue is that the box (an Amazon box of course!) is very close to full. Perhaps it's a good thing that to get it there by February 28th I don't have that many more days left of knitting.

I can hardly believe that tomorrow is the last day of January. I'm sure that for the whole of this year, every month on the 2nd, I will be amazed. It's been almost three months without my mom, and it has been three months since I heard her voice. Sometimes it seems like the more time that passes, the harder it is to believe, even though things have generally fallen into a relatively smooth rhythm. It was either very late wednesday night or very early thursday morning that a dream I had involved my mom-the first time in a few weeks. I guess it related to the group on thursday evenings, because in my dream, some doctor had told my parents that she suspected I had anorexia (with terrible repercussions). It's unfortunate that dreaming about my mom has pretty much always resulted in utter frustration and anger during them!

A hymn that I sang in church this morning featured the line "Spirit, open my heart, to the joy and pain of living". Life can be full of great joy, but with it will come great pain.

Books

Ever since I was a baby, I have loved books and reading. My mom would frequently tell the story of how, three days after my second birthday we moved to our current house. To keep me occupied and safe, all she did was put my books in my new room and leave me there! Kept me content for a LONG time. My room is somewhat small, and as (especially since I discovered my university's bookstore with it's bargain book section and how to buy used books on amazon) I have been purchasing or receiving books for a long time, I came to the conclusion today that it was, once again, time to box up books and take them down to the basement. My two bookcases (one four shelf, the other three) had long since become COMPLETELY filled (double-lined, with more books piled ontop of the ones standing upright), which then led to two crates being turned into a makeshift bookshelf besides the bookcase. Then that filled, and I started two piles on top of the crates. And a large pile right in front of the taller bookshelf. Plus, four piles reaching almost to the ceiling on that bookshelf. I think it was friday night that one of the piles on the crates decided to fall (crates not being as stable). That was my cue to do some major rearranging and boxing-up. It was hard though...to me, books are like old friends, you can never have too many of them. With each one, as I boxed them I had to resist the temptation to start reading! Even so, I couldn't help it with some. As a result, the task took a lot longer than it probably had to. I still have the two bookcases doubled lined, with a FEW piled on top of them, but a LOT went downstairs. When we renovate this spring and summer, we are going to put in a library room for our (literally) thousands of books.

In reading these days, I seem to alternate between fiction and non-fiction. I finished a book called 'Saving Max' on friday and have been reading a memoir by Sue Martin called 'No way home' about her experience in the Barnardo Children's Homes in England during the 1940's and 50's. I first learned about the Barnardo homes back when I was about twelve years old through one of my all-time favourite Dear Canada books by one of my favourite children's authors, Jean Little. My copy of 'Orphan at my door' still remains a book I turn to occasionally when I am feeling very out-of-sorts. In fact, I kept all of my Dear Canada books still in a place of honour on my bookcases, although I did pack up the Dear America and Royal Diary books. It is VERY strange to see the top of the one bookcase...

Good books are like old friends. You can never have too many, and you can always start right back where you ended.

DIPG Angels-in honour of Alexis Agin and Bizzie Stein

After reading a book (I mentioned it in a previous post) called "Notes left behind", I went on the site and found the websites (mostly CaringBridge or CarePages sites) of a number of families dealing with childhood cancer, in particular pediatric brain cancer, one of the most difficult to treat. Two blogs that I began following regularly were those of four-year-old Alexis Agin, and three-year-old Bizzie (Elizabeth) Stein. After a battle of almost 34 months, Alexis Agin was finally free of the DIPG at around 3:04 yesterday afternoon, and today, after a journey of eight months, Bizzie Stein joined her. This post is to honour the legacy of these precious girls, and as a tribute to their families. Although I have never, and likely will never meet them, they have been an inspiration during one of my own most difficult times.

I am SO nervous about tomorrow, with starting the new group and all. I met again with the nurse practitioner today, and basically my blood tests are okay, except that I have a very low iron store-not what is CURRENTLY on the blood cells I guess, but that there isn't much when that gets used up, something like that. I figure I'm one of the only clients that can understand what everything on that blood test result sheet means-I knew because of all the research I had done last year to help my mom interpret her blood test results. Anyways...meeting with the nurse practitioner made me not feel like eating and all I can think about right now is losing weight (although I don't suddenly want all those new pants that I got but haven't hemmed yet to be TOO too big-this is called I had time for shopping in the early fall but not for getting things altered and pretty much all my pants were wearing out at the same time. I REALLY have to start getting things hemmed though. REALLY have to). All I can think about, instead of practicing and the history readings I need to do is how I can skip dinner tomorrow and no one will know and things like that. Planning out when I can skip meals. I know, not good.

I desperately just want to be a normal student again (back to normal course load, normal practicing, going to the gym) but I'm finding it so hard to get back into it. I come home with good intentions, and then get swept up in my escapism of stuff on my computer, knitting, reading and suddenly then it's 8:30 or 9:30 or even later and I feel horrible and stressed. I'm feeling like the longer I am not a normal student with studying and things like that that maybe I'll never be able to be a normal student again!!!! It's really stressing me...

I have no clue how tomorrow is going to go and it's terrifying. And right now, nobody but the Women's Health Clinic people even know that I'm going (tomorrow that is). I guess right now I'm feeling like I'm shouldering this thing completely on my own. Not a single person in my faculty (well currently attending that is) knows that I'm going to the this new group, and only one person (one of my closest friends from high school, a clarinet major) knew I was going to the other group. With my mom, after a while, pretty much everyone had figured things out and were there for me, and yes this is a very different issue, but I guess well I just would like a hug right now. It's silly really, you know, I live with my dad, why don't I just go and get one from him, but I can't. I can semi-hug him, but I can't accept one from him. It's like I'm showing that I'm not a rock if I do that. Which is silly, I know.

I'm just terrified about tomorrow and worried about this semester. I've been considering talking to maybe one or two of the other flute members in my flute section or something like that, I mean, I've known them for quite some time and they're awesome...but it's just there's this whole other part of me that no one knows-except for my one friend from high school there. I don't know...the whole idea is also terrifying. I'm not sure...but I guess I just feel like if I can't get support from family for various reasons, I need some support at school....

Music stands

Music stands are a part of my daily life...as such, they tend to be the thing that injures me the most! Today, I am very thankful that I wasn't injured more severely. Here's the story...
I don't have anything between 11:15 and Wind Ensemble rehearsal which starts at 1:15 on tuesdays and thursdays. The faculty of music is not connected via the tunnel system, and so this semester, as my Race and Immigration History class is in a building quite far from the FOM, I have taken to just heading over to the building where Wind Ensemble (all the way across the campus from the FOM) is held. There I study, read, eat lunch, whatever. It means that I'm one of the first there for rehearsal, and so I generally end up doing a lot of set up. Today, as I was carrying two stands to put in the back brass row, I managed to give myself a very hard whack on my left upper lip. I was a bit concerned for a while, but my teeth are quite fine thank goodness, and the swelling and cut inside wasn't so bad that I couldn't play during the two and a half hour rehearsal. I may have looked pretty silly sitting there with my ancient fuschia ice pack from my lunch box(I've had it since grade two) on my lip, but it may have helped. I was even able to laugh a bit to myself about that-during the summer at the day care, I probably gave out at least five ice packs on an average day to kids with 'boo-boos'. So, I guess I took a bit of my own care-giver medicine.

I am very thankful that I wasn't more seriously injured...a heavy metal music stand could easily have knocked out a tooth or two and seriously messed up my embouchure for days, weeks or even months. I may have a little bit of soreness when playing for a day or two, but it won't last long. Let's just say that I will be a bit more careful though on thursday (although I don't know what I did wrong today). Then again, I said the same thing that time in grade nine when I dropped one on my un-shoe-covered foot...

Tomorrow I meet again with both the nurse practitioner with the ED program at the women's health clinic and the dietician there. I have a feeling I might be mildly anemic as I seem to be needing more sleep than normal, so finding out my blood test results will be a good thing. And then speaking with the dietician to at least get an idea of what is right for someone who is DEFINITELY not average height (I'm MUCH shorter...4 foot 9) will probably relax me a bit. The 'Understanding your eating disorder' group starts up on thursday evening and I'm pretty nervous, but I figure it can't be worse than what I went through with the hospital CBT group. So far, the clinic has been much more responsive to ME and what I need, and they actually LISTEN. No one is the same in the eating disorder world, and they can't expect that one size will fit all, and shutting someone down when they actually have a relevation about their eating disorder or keeping on saying "but she's dying" (and very forcefully) is NOT HELPFUL.

I've been meeting with a counsellor at the women's health clinic since sometime in October, mostly for working through my mom's illness and death and all that has meant to me since October/November last year. I really WANT to be just a normal music student again, but I am not sure if I'm ready to be back to the 12.5 credit hours and more practicing and things like that. At the same time, I'm terrified that if I don't carry this courseload and get back to a normal routine that the longer I wait, the harder it will be. Problem is, I've only had two classes of Race and Immigration History and I'm already behind on the readings! Fortunately, I did not need that great of in-depth analysis for today's class. The problem is getting caught up on it. I guess I'll see over the next couple of weeks how I'm managing to stay on top of things, and get back into practicing and all that.