I am in misery, there ain't nobody who can comfort me, why wont you answer me, the silence is slowly killing me

I guess the title says is it all. Just add in the words frustration, agony, desperation and any other negative adjective you would like. It seems like things just like getting worse before they ever get close to getting better. Like the saying goes, when it rains, it pours. Where do I even start?

So I guess I will start with my back. I don't remember if I mentioned it before, but I've been seeing a chiropractor since July (Dr. Carrie Johnston at Re:Form Body Clinic ) I was referred by my friend Rahim who is a chiropractor in Toronto, he and Carrie went to school together. At my first appointment she gave me a req for x-rays. It took me two weeks to go and then after that Carrie went away for 2 weeks and then all kinds of things were going on and I never got a chance to go back. Until this week. I got my results on Monday. To be honest, it wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be, but they aren't good. By a long shot. I have 4 things wrong with my back. 2 I found out from my appointments with Carrie, which are the least serious. The first is from when I was pregnant. The ligaments in my back stretched, just like everything does when you're preggo, and they haven't gone back to normal, and at this stage, 14 months later, if they haven't they probably wont. Because they are so loose the bones move and thats what causes the pain. After that there are little joints in your vertebrae and when I move in certain positions these joints pinch the coating on a nerve. After that there are two structural problems which showed up on my x-rays. The first is I have degenerative disc disease. Not fun. The disc in my L5-S1 is thinning. Chances are it will get much worse. After that I have an over exaggerated curve in my back which is causing a flattening in my vertebrae. The curve is kind of like the opposite of scoliosis (which my youngest brother Marc-Andre has). Instead of the curve going to the side, it goes inwards (towards my stomach if that makes much sense). At this point, its not bad enough to need surgery, but chances are in the future I will. Which means it will get worse. There isn't much that I can do. I have physio exercises to do, and I have to change my job to a sit down one otherwise I could end up in a wheel chair. Yea.

Speaking of job. We have a new chef at work, Roberto Mochi. He's Italian. He's a jerk. The first time I was there, I showed up for my shift at supper and he looked a Jocelyn and asked if I was going to be by myself and if that was wise. As if I needed a baby sitter. Yea. I did 2 years in cooking school, Jocelyn didn't even finish high school. Anyways. This week he called me into his office to speak. Everyone knew my x-ray results and someone mentioned it to Roberto. One of the first things he said to me when I went into his office was that he didn't believe my doctor gave me good advice on what to do concerning my future and my health. He said if I lost weight, my back would be just fine. Well that meeting went downhill from there and at one point I was pretty much ready to quit right then and there. I made a complaint with the director, Roberto said he said none of this (including other complaints which I had) and Marc (the director) suggested it was just a misunderstanding. When someone says, and I quote pretty much word for word, If you lose weight, your back problems will get better. I walk 30 minutes a day and my heart problems got better because of it. It's kinda hard to misunderstand that. Just sayin. And then Roberto had the audacity to say, I will forget to you wrote this letter, as if I was lying. Lovely. Make me hate you even more why don't you? My schedule has changed as well because of this. I got stuck with all the crap shifts. I will never get to see Jonathan. And no one is calling for jobs. And I can't go to school to get the experience I need because I don't have the money because I don't have a different job and I need the school to get a different job. See the vicious circle here? It's possible I mentioned this already. I'm just bitter and upset about this whole thing. I'm dreading work now. I get anxiety attacks and depression whenever I think about it. Like right now. It's putting me in a lovely mental state I tell ya.

What else this week? Well. Last night I went to bed pretty early, before 9, because I wasn't feeling well. I woke up at 10.30 with Ollie crying. And crying. Nothing Jonathan or I did helped. Finally he fell back asleep. Only to wake up 30 minutes later, crying again, even harder. It went on like this all night long. I think Jonathan and I got 3 hours of broken sleep all night. At one point I was so desperate I took Ollie out for a drive, at 1 am, to get him to fall asleep. He did, 3 times. And woke up crying, 3 times. At 7 he got up for the day. And cried and whined and fussed. He took a 3 hour nap with Jonathan this morning while I laid on the couch watching The Killers (really funny, I recommend it) with my 3rd cup of coffee. All day he was cranky, until some point this afternoon when he was only semi cranky. He has a bit of a cold but nothing worse than he's had in the past (he's had worse actually) and he had a fever again (by now we are fever experts). So far tonight he's doing good, but we haven't reached 10.30 yet so I'm not holding my breath. He will be staying home with me tomorrow though. And I will be keeping the car just in case. One of my bff's Dylan says I worry too much, but I can't help it.    

So I'm going to end this with a little positive. Yesterday we went to Bayshore to get Ollie his clothes for fall at the Childrens Place and Old Navy. I have to say, my kid has the most stylin clothes ever. I would kill to have as good of a wardrobe has he does. Here are a few pics I took yesterday (before the sickness turned him into the devil child) when we went to go rent the movie!

I need another story...Tell me what you want to hear...

So first off let me just say that my baby is no longer a baby, but a full blown toddler. He's walking, semi talking and just had his first birthday. This year really did fly by. When I was pregnant the time seemed so long and then just went to warp speed when Ollie was born. Insane.

We had his first (of two) birthday parties on Saturday with my mom, grandma, Marc-Andre, Amelie, Chantal, Tony and Tristan and Kylie. We had cake and snacks and had lots of fun, not doing much, just sitting around talking and playing with the kids and it went by quickly.

This weekend coming up is Ollie's baptism, and everyone is going to be there from all sides of the family, mine and Jonathans. So it will be a long but fun weekend I think. The first time everyone will be together. Can we say stress?

Ok now that all that is out of the way. Ugh. I am seriously over my job and work. I need a change. And soon. Otherwise I may go insane. I love the people I work with and the residents but if I stay there much longer I will end up in the loony bin I think. And I like my sanity (or whatever sanity I may have lol). I need a regular job, a 9-5, Monday to Friday type deal. With vacation time I can actually take without being made to feel bad, and sick days and holidays off. Oh and a lunch time where I can actually sit and eat hot food rather than eating standing up while I work. It's totally depressing. And then I have sick days but if I call in sick, someone is stuck working a 12 hour shift so I technically can't call in sick and if I take vacation time its the same thing. I need a change. A shake up. And a new hair color. Maybe that will help for the short term.

Olivier has his 1 year appointment tomorrow. I had my xrays for my back today and a chiro appointment tomorrow. We'll see what happens at both.

The rest is still unwritten

So this past week was Canada Day and my mom's birthday. She wanted to celebrate at the cottage so off we all went, trekking out to the middle of nowhere's to spend a few days at the cottage. My mom, Amelie, Don and Grandma went up on Wednesday, but since I was working on Thursday me, Jonathan, Olivier and Marc-Andre went on Thursday after I got off work. We had lots of fun. We showed up around supper time, with the cake (which is a whole other story) and bags in hand. Ollie had a blast and didn't want to sleep. He woke up around midnight screaming. Finally we got him back to sleep but he didn't sleep well at all. The next morning he was congested too. On Friday we went into Maniwaki to pick up a few things, lets just say I was less than impressed with Maniwaki, their Canadian Tire was smaller than the pharmacy for crying out loud! And how people can survive without a WalMart is beyond me. While we were in Maniwaki we (me, Don and Amelie) were just supposed to pick up a little pool for Olivier, some graham crackers, chocolate, Kleenex with lotion for the baby, a magazine for Amelie and a head band for me...200$ and 2 hours later we were on our back to the cottage lol. We were a little disappointed by the pool. The picture on the box made it look big, this was a tiny little pool, but it served its purpose and Olivier had fun in it.

While Olivier took his nap me and Amelie went fishing off the end of the dock. I was getting discouraged after she had caught her 2nd fish and I had caught none. That was until I hooked something. At first I thought I had just gotten caught on the bottom but then Amelie, who had stood up by this point, started screaming I had a fish. So then we started screaming for Marc-Andre to come down and help us since me and Amelie, we don't fish. I ended up getting a big bass, at least 3 lbs, closer to 4 lbs. We got a few pictures then let him go.

That night Olivier woke up again screaming. This time he was tugging his ear. We didn't want to go to the ER in Maniwaki. Not at all. ER's usually mean a 14 hour wait minimum, so not what we wanted to do. But off we went anyways, back to Maniwaki. We pulled up to the hospital....it was empty. There were 2 people in the waiting room, both healthy and watching the FIFA World Cup. Okay then. We waited a total of 20 minutes, including our assessment time, before we were walking out of the hospital with a prescription for antibiotics for Ollie's ear infection. Let me just say that 1. the dr was a jerk. He never spoke to me, only to Jonathan and when Olivier threw up after he looked in his throat, I caught it in my hand so he wouldn't get covered in milk vomit, and the dr didn't even give me a kleenex, he just washed his hands and that was it. and 2. he doesn't deal with kids often, he practically had Jonathan holding the baby in a headlock to look in his ears and mouth.

The next day, Saturday, we came home, bringing Amelie with us. We had a few errands to run and wanted a day to relax before going back to work. And we went and saw Chantal and Tony as well at their new house so we had a great long weekend!

So this means I'm going to win the lottery right?

Well they say bad things come in 3's. That after a ton of bad and stressful things in your life happening at once you're due for good luck right? So does this mean I'm going to win the jackpot? First my mom's heart surgery. Then Marc-Andre's back surgery. Then my Aunt Debbie has to have an MRI for a possible aneurysm, then my work stuff, and now my grandfather is dying. I found out over the weekend my grandfather was admitted to the hospital for difficulty breathing. They found a polyp or mass or something on his lungs and also drained more than a liter of fluid from his lungs and did a biopsy on Sunday. Yesterday around 6 I was giving the baby a bath when my mom called. The results were in and my Grandpa Wiseman has terminal lung cancer. We don't know yet how long he has left, next week he has an appointment with the oncologist to figure everything out I guess. We do know that he must not have a long time because my grandma asked the dr if she should get my uncle Marc to come right away to see grandpa and they said yes you should. I got a hold of Stephane last night and he is going to try and come for a visit as well but my mom wants him to wait until at least next week, Grandpa should be back home by then. We found out tonight that after my grandfather dies my grandma will be going to live with my mom and Don and she is selling the house, I can't blame her, its a pretty big house and if she's along its going to seem even bigger and lonely and more depressing.

On a more positive note, Ollie crawled yesterday for the first time, well more than just one arm movement forward before face planting, and he's also 'walking' around the apartment if we hold his hands. And the tooth! almost through by the looks of it, but now that I've said that, its not going to show up, he'll be 9 months and toothless.

Let's do the wave!

Guess what Olivier started doing yesterday!? Okay so maybe the title of this post kinda gave it away but he started waving! We've been doing it whenever we say hello or good bye with him for the last 2 months and when Jonathan dropped him off at daycare yesterday he said Ollie waved! YAY! Plus on Monday he pulled himself up in his crib completely on his own for the first time and then proceeded to start jumping up and down in excitement. Today I am going to try and get a video of Olivier waving, he didn't do it this morning when we dropped him off though.

I am officially a red head again! I swear I should have been born with red hair instead of brown, it suits me much better!

And Marc-André is officially out of the hospital as of late yesterday afternoon! He was having a hard time with the pain and they did x-rays on Monday and we thought he wouldn't be out until today at the earliest because of it, but it turns out that he's immune (or something like that) to morphine's effects so they switched him to something else and it was like night and day. He was up walking the hallways and then even walked up and down some stairs! So the dr's said he could go home and he would probably recover better at home too.

And the winner of the worst boss goes too.......Me!

And so summer has begun....in April. Not even the end of April but the beginning. Yesterday the temperatures got up to 27 and today they are supposed to go higher than 30! I hate the heat. I hope that this means this summer isn't going to be hotter than usual. Olivier already fits into his summer clothes which is good because otherwise the poor boy would be sweating his little tush off. Today we finally rounded out his summer wardrobe with some sandal and a cute pair of trainers (they look like the classic ADIDAS' with the 3 stripes). I also got a few new things for summer, a couple pairs of cargo capris in black and army green, and some tops. I still need to get a bunch of tanks though.

Yesterday we went to the hospital and saw Marc-Andre. He was in pain but had some morphine for it so he slept a lot, most of our visit in fact. And we saw Amelie and my mom and Don as well. Amelie and I talked about our tattoo and we aren't getting it on our wrists which makes me sad because I really really really wanted it there. We're either getting it on our foot or on our back right under the neck where the t-shirt is. If its there I think I'm going to get it bigger.

And my job. A job I used to love, I now hate, with a passion. I hate my new boss, he's such a jack ass. I'm looking for a new job and I keep asking Jonathan to email the woman for me who had handled his contract but he 'has to find the stuff' and its been over a month and he hasn't done it yet. He keeps saying stuff about how he knew this would happen and its selfish of me, as if I would quit without another job lined up. He has such a bad attitude lately its driving me nuts, he's never happy, always grumpy, always complaining about something and if he can't think of something he just sits there in a bad mood. I'm going insane.

Nobody does it better than you. Tell me something I don't already know!

The title of this entry was actually my fortune cookie this morning (left over chinese food was my breakfast and since I ordered enough for 4 people they sent 4 fortune cookies). When I read it my response was, Duh, I'm already well aware of this fact. Neewayz.

Yesterday my youngest brother had spinal surgery for his scoliosis, an 8 hour+ surgery and it went well. He spent last night and today in the ICU but should be in his room now. We will be going by tomorrow after work to see him. I did talk to him this morning though and he said he wasn't in any pain (he sounded dopped up) and that he was doing well which is good.

Today we spent the day shopping. We had to get Ollie's spring and summer clothes. I discovered a few weeks ago that we do in fact have a Carter's and Osh Kosh store here in Ottawa. I was thrilled upon hearing that, I thought it was only a USA thing and that Costco only carried an outfit and that was all. But no, I was wrong and I'm so happy about that! We went nuts. The clothes are good quality, cute, and inexpensive. Like, really inexpensive. A shorts and t-shirt cost 10$ and they're super cute too. So the little guy is pretty much set for summer, he just needs a jacket for chilly/rainy days, some sandals and sneakers (he already has a pair of crocs) and thats it! Oh and a bathing suit. Other than that not much on home front and I don't want to talk about work. It just sucks. Big time. I'm looking for a new job.