A week in

So I've been in town for a week now, and in that time I've seen many patients, 3 knee surgeries, 1 hip surgery, 1 lower-leg surgery, ... a bunch of other surgeries ... many XRays, a lot of people with abdominal discomfort, a C-Section, many very-soon-to-be mothers, a few broken bones courtesy of violence, and a lot of diabetes and heart disease. Perhaps of more import, I have found many fishing locations, and have managed absolutely no luck at any of them so far. My only consolation is that most other people were also similarly unlucky (I only saw one other person land a fish). Oh well, all I can really do is hold my head up and persevere.

As I expected, the faint appeal of family practise has grown considerably since I have seen what it can look like in a rural area. Not only do you see patients in the office, but you also see them in emergency, on the ward, and in surgery. You see people you know, as well as others you've never met before. You talk about things, order tests, do some tests yourself, interpret some of the results, help out or do the necessary procedures, and see the patients afterwards. You work with a very diverse team that is well traveled, and get to do this all in a very scenic environment. Did I mention that there's fishing here too? Everyone keeps saying it's good - I'll have to keep checking until I catch something big to believe them ;)

This doesn't mean that I've discovered a definate passion to go into family medicine - but of note, it has firmly placed it onto my list of options. I am still keenly interested in the idea of emergency medicine and surgery, and am sure many other areas will appeal to me over the next year. While dermatology, pathology and urology residencies may breathe a sigh of relief that I won't likely be soon haunting their hallways, there hasn't really been much other 'narrowing down' that has happened. While some items get exclamation marks beside them, very few have been fully removed from the list.

Perhaps because it's one of the more frequent type of procedures in the OR here, orthopedic surgery is catching my interest. The surgeon has graciously let me into the OR whenever I have time or see cases I'm interested in. Perhaps it's the tools. There are some pretty cool tools you get to use, and I feel this ... thrill? ... when I hear the [edited] start up and commit the course of action. From there on, it's all mechanical, and most of the patients are feeling much better quite quickly. Is it cherry-picking? I don't really know, but I know I like the idea.

Anyway, my day here is done, and now is the time to bide my time until heading to my preceptors cabin on the lake to have a BBQ. Life is tough here, but, hey, I'm willing to suffer for it.

Carrying on in Kitimat

So, has it been long enough that posting on a blog is now retro? No? Well, that’s probably the answer anyone at the forefront of ‘retro’ hears to that question. Now that I’ve established my place in history, I can move on. It’s rather odd to feel like you’re going back in time, and to some extent that’s what I’ve just done.

In many ways, Kitimat feels like it’s stuck at various periods in the past. Probably most prominent to me right now is my lack of an ever-available internet connection. I can’t access internet at the apartment I’m staying at (& it isn’t worth setting up for just a month), and I go to the library to check important emails. Anyway, at the least, it makes for less distraction.

The trip up to Kitimat began with a late breakfast at the Blue Fox with Julia, and then I went for a leisurely 6-ish hour drive up to Port Hardy. I was seriously impressed by the quick disappearance of civilization after Campbell River, and then the sudden appearance of an international community of backpackers, hitchhikers and other assorted travellers in Port Hardy. What were they all here for? Well, evidently most were planning on catching the ferry the next day, and so after a night of earplug-muffled snoring, I woke with the rest of the Hostel and headed off to the ferry for the stipulated arrival time of 05:30 – AM, in case you didn’t catch it.

Here, I proceeded to wait in a line of cars that proceeded in the most unusual way. Instead of the cars moving up to the booth, the line stayed still while the BC Ferries staff walked up the line getting the passenger information, after which the cars then moved forward in the line. This was all very confusing to a coffee-deprived brain after a snore-filled night.

With a start like this, the first sight I had upon reaching the passenger deck of the Northern Exposure Ferry was that of a table set out with complimentary coffee and tea. Yes, I was in the right place, and the ferry gods, Poseidon, or maybe even some incredibly generous soul had known exactly what I needed. Things kept on getting better – what had begun as a cloud & fog encrusted boat soon became a mini-cruise ship sailing sparkling waters, with steep costal mountains keeping watch as the porpoises attempted to race us. Silly porpoises, they hadn’t even had their coffee this morning, and thus were no match for us. Also of note, they didn’t have the helicopter pad on their top, as our

boat did. Also entering this race was a team of 5 seagulls manning a log. They didn't move too fast, though.

The journey was filled with many humpback and killer whale sightings, fishboat drag races, dramatic mountains with spectacular waterfalls, and really comfy chairs.

We stopped at Bella Coola for an hour or so, was seriously impressed at how small it looked from the boat, and then moved on to more whale sightings, again closely guarded by the untrusting mountains pouring their waterfalls into the ocean, determined to keep us from running aground as we passed through incredibly narrow passageways that surely also served to clean the barnacles off of the bottom of the boat.

Sunset, and many pictures through glinty glass later, we arrived in Prince Rupert around 11:30 – or 23:30 for those nautical and/or military types out there.

The Tourism staff on the boat had called ahead for me and booked a hotel in Prince Rupert, so all I had to do was find it, grab that parking stall under the burned-out light, and carry my over-sized suitcase (I am packing for more than a month, remember), camera and laptop up the 20 or so stairs to the lobby, wait for the confused couple in front of me to decipher the short form cleverly disguised in their mother tongue before I could then register, and then carry the same oversized suitcase, laptop and camera up some more stairs to my room. Finally, I could call my lovely wife and tell her all about the trip. When she answers her phone, she sounds sleepy – oh, yes, it must be after midnight – but what proceeds is racy. Well, racy in that it was like a race – between the tortoise and the hare. I, hopped up on excitement and coffee, and she sleepy and wanting to pop her head back under the covers. No contest, it was over quickly, I declared myself the victor, and decided to call again during more humane hours.

This will eventually lead to today, three days later, when I finally gave up the idea of finding a decent internet connection to use my skype on laptop to call, and finally called her (or she called me, however you choose to look at it). Anyway, important things out of the way, I’ll tell you a little bit about what it’s like here.

The drive from Prince Rupert to Kitimat was again breathtaking – and thus with such reminders I prevented myself from turning blue.

I passed many locations on the rivers that were loaded with people fishing, getting more and more excited myself for when I’d be able to join their ranks. I passed the spot I’d have to leave from if I were to kayak to Frizzell hotsprings, and noticed the white caps on the waves, and stopped to appreciate the wind – well, maybe a kayak isn’t the best choice of transportation – but if the first nations people could canoe just about 100km from Prince Rupert to the Haida Gawaii (the Charlottes) in dugout canoes long before contact with the west, then I surely should be able to make it the 1.5 km across the river/inlet.

I arrived in Kitimat, guided by my trusty ‘Min (gps) to a detour. Min then brings me back to the same road a good ways further on, only to be detoured again. It was only in the evening that I discovered that the road was closed for drag races, which apparently hadn’t happened in town for 10 years. While the rest of the town was watching the races, I found myself an apartment. The one furnished unit that was available was on the far side of the community, didn’t have much nearby, and cost almost double the unfurnished one I ended up getting. I had the car full of camping stuff, complete with pots, pans, air mattress etc.. As I hauled everything up the 4 flights of stairs to my unit, I thought of how this should be called urban camping – and then realized with a wry grin that this is far from urban. I decided to spend the next day (Sunday) trying to find the local climbing crag, and I managed to not only find it, but also grab its GPS co-ordinates, snap some pictures of the cliffs, and run away, chased by a small nation of mosquitoes. Crestfallen, I found myself to a local fishing tackle shop to console myself by buying some flies the size of small household pet – that and some 30 lb test line. It’s going to be good.

Monday I began working with the local doctor to whom I’ve been assigned, and I soon began to appreciate the extra room and slightly slower pace of the Kitimat medical practises. The consult rooms could easily accommodate the times when we both were in a room with two parents, their sick child and a stroller. Tuesday (today) I spend the day in the OR of the hospital (about 2 min stroll from the office, and about a 15 min walk from my apartment). An day in the OR is always a good day, and today was orthopaedic surgery. What’s better than using power tools seeing shiny new joints going in to replace broken/worn out ones? I’m really not sure. For Julia, Dad M, Chris and Mom U’s sake, I’ll avoid the details, but be assured that it was a good day. On the way back, I bought a box of prawns out of a deep-freezer loaded into the back of a pickup truck, and yes, they went very well with my sidekicks creamy pasta with real bacon package.

Anyway, I’m going to call it quits for today, and hopefully make it out to the library with this on a memory stick so I can post it.

----

Note- wow, formatting is tough. Think of the design as 'rugged'.

Top Ten Reasons To Be Us

Since we have to blog a bunch for school now, I came across my blog, and saw how sad and lonely it is. Poor ignored, starved blog. If my blog was one of those little electronic pets, it would have beeped it's last beep long ago.

The Top Ten reasons to be Ben and Julia right now:

• We are rocking the rock climbing! We've been climbing outside and inside. Our biceps are getting huge!
• Victoria doesn't drizzle for days and weeks on end. When it rains, the wind pushes the clouds away, and the sun come back out to play.
• We went back to church after 6 months of business, and the pastor remembered us by name. It's good to go where somebody knows your name. Cheers!
• We have a hot tub in our apartment basement, so our friends visit it, I mean us.
• We see and talk to our friends, so they don't have to depend on this blog to know we're still alive.
• We found a kick-ass sale on shoes, and so we're walking pretty.
• We're both so busy that when we sit and talk, we have lots to talk about with each other.
• Julia found a new place to go for High Tea! in an Art Gallery!!
• Victoria has many food festivals. So far we've enjoyed a TEA, CHOCOLATE, and a BEER festival.
• We think that we're super cool.
  

A little patience you into school, and gets rid of gets cat pee!

Good News, I've been accepted at UVic to do my last year of school (PDP) to be a teacher. I'll be starting in July. this means after quite a while of switching from one job to another, I'll finally have some kind of career plan. I'm looking forward to having some method to teaching, as opposed to winging it like I've done in the past. (I've also been reading "help for new teachers" sites, and the horror stories that go along with one's first year can be intimidating - but there are always the "it's gets better" messages too) If you're a teacher, and want to give me some advice, go ahead a leave a comment!

As for the cat smell, the building manager is in our place today sealing the concrete and we're getting new underlay. Finally after 4 months, we're hoping this is the end to the evil smell. Our friend and neighbour bought us some well titled wine "Cat's Pee on a Gooseberry Bush" - a Sauvigon Blanc, which we will open and celebrate when all the fuss is done!

We're already looking towards summer, as most of our med-friends will be leaving for adventures and work elsewhere after June. In our lonely state, we'd love to have visitors!! Cat pee smell free!
In the beginning of April my sister, mom and I tool off to Nanaimo for the weekend and went to the Southwind spa guest house. www.southwindretreat.com
I had a wonderful hot stone massage, and we sipped wine and chatted girl talk all weekend. Don't we look refreshed and rejuvenated?

The long winded catch-up

Our lives have been more exciting than this blog would lead you to believe :)
Besides the cat smell that still persists (the landlords say they will replace the carpet...sometime) life has been going great. Ben continues to study and do well at school - and really that's all I know about his school work. I actually end up getting more info from other med students about what they are studying - Ben and I tend to talk about non-school related things I guess, as he needs a break from it. I've connected with a few of the med school girls over activities- I've been taking a adult swimming class with two other girls, and we've been having a great time working on our front crawls. I even learned to dive. I've always been to scared to enter water head first, and because of how much more comfortable I am in water now, it was such a scary thing. Yay for conquering fears, even the small ones!

I celebrated my 27th Birthday on the 13th. Ben organized a lot of our friends to meet us at a pub near our house for dinner, then we went back to our place for desert. It was great to see how many people came out. I feel like I've been "myself" more here than anywhere, any time before. Maybe that has something to do with age (yes, I feel older) or that starting with a new group of people, I don't feel like I have any previous "me" to live up to. It's been great. Monday Ben and I went to the Empress for High Tea and it was wonderful.

March 8th brought us back to the mainland for the first time we moved here, as we celebrates two weddings, Ben's cousin, and my cousin, both on the Saturday. Luckily they were a couple of hours apaprt, and both in Abbotsford, so we got to squeeze in seeing a majority of our family all in one day. I love our family and friends in the Valley, but it made me realize how much I feel at home in Victoria. I'm surprised how quickly that happened.
Rebekah and Tony singing during Shannon and Bob's signing.
Arn't we just filled with Character. Our parents made sure we built lots of it! Our little Unrau clan-minus the kids.

I celebrated this feeling of being at home by splurging for some new curtains. (the "rental" curtains looked like they've been smoked through and washed a million times). So, with all excitement I went to Ikea and bought some curtains that really tie the room together. The wonder of Ikea curtains is that you don't have to do any sewing, just iron the hem - seems easy, right? Well, Ikea assumes you have the math skills above a 8 year old, as my first panel I cut way to short! (it looks like capri-curtains). Panel 2 worked as Ben helped me think it through. Panel 3 is slightly too long, although I used the same measurements as Panel 2, and Panel 4 somehow got too short again. Sigh. I was so disappointed. So, when you don't look too close, the place looks great!

I'll end with some good news. I've started a job working at a Fine Art gallery on Bear Mountain, about a 20 minute drive up the #1 from Victoria. It's just opened, and the owner is expecting her first child in the next month, so I pretty much have had to take over.
www.galeriesorance.ca
I also have a interview on April 1st to get into UVic for my Teaching Certificate. I'm going to go to the interview, and then decide what I'm going to do.
Congrats if you've read this far!

I'm way too young to be this old

There are many joys in starting something new. Today I took a walk to Oak Bay while our building manager cleaned our carpets (again) in the attempt to rid our den of cat stink (cross your fingers!). This is why I love Victoria-today I went into a china store that only sold tea cups and tea accessory dishes-tea pots, china plates, platters, those cool three story platters. As I was walking, I heard old ladies speaking with English accents, and there are so many little stores with quaint things. I just love having to pass antique stores to get to my tea store. Sigh. Heaven, I'm in Heaven-old people heaven... oh crap.

Also, I like starting new friendships. I'm starting a "while you were studying" club-a social support group for widow(ers) of the Island Medical Program. I have to get a good picture for it for our Facebook group yet but there are a few people excited about having someone to do something with when our significant others are studying. There is a JET-ish feel to the Island Medical program- a lot of us are new to the area, we have something in common, and looking for something to do. However, we don't have the disposable income that made living in Japan so much fun. Oooh.. and we're on an island, the same size as Shikoku.

Also, Phone numbers. Ben has his new island number, so email him if you don't have it yet and want it, but my phone is MIA, so it'll be a bit till I get another one.

New Years, Moving, Cat Stink and Bugs

my Christmas post ended up being longer, so I thought I'd break them up. New Years was a blast. We went to Mt. Washington with 5 of our friends and stayed in Ben's uncle's condo. We had 5 nights-long enough to go snow boarding twice and do nothing on the 1st. It was my second time ever snowboarding, and after shedding some tears going down my first run in frustration, Steve gave me some pointers, and I got better thereafter. I actually had fun and I'm looking forward to when we can go again. At best, I've tolerated going out for winter sports, I've just never been good enough to really enjoy it, nor had the right clothing. This year, thanks to the Helly Hansen Warehouse sale, I was ready!

Ben had a blast with the guys on the back of the mountain, where we beginner girls feared to tread.

After packing up from the mountian on the 2nd, we drove down to Victoria to meet Ben's dad, Chris (Ben's younger brother) and Ashely-who had given up a day of snowboarding to help us.. Thank You!!

Rebekah, Tony and their boys came half way and helped us finish unloading the truck. Rebekah was awesome in unpacking our kitchen stuff. We oreded pizza but it was super late as they had a hard time understanding that 778 can be a area code for a phone (we hadn't changed our numbers yet) So, after Ben "discussing" the issue with the manager, we eventually got our pizza and a credit for next time. Ben whisked Dad, Chris and Ashely to the ferry, where they only caught it because another woman had a car issue, and the ferry was delayed! Seeing as the Janzens were staying the night, it sure would have been a squish if Dad, Chris and Ashely also had to!!

Our place is great, except for a horrible cat pee stink that emanates from the den. We actually found kitty litter and a piece of cat food along the edge of the floor. For now we've shut the den up, and we're waiting for the manager to come and clean the carpets, as well as do some painting in the kitchen and bathroom, which should have been done before we moved in. So we haven't been able to fully unpack

It was great to have the Janzens here though and help us make our new place home. On Thursday we swam in the morning, then went to Bug Zoo in the afternoon. I was really impressed with the guide who had lots to tell us about the bugs, and we got to hold them. Little 4 year old Malachi wanted to hold everything, even the tarantula that you had to be 19 to hold.

Monday Ben started school, I drove him and another med-student who lives down the hall to school, then went to the Oak Bay Marina to watch the sun come up. I love that anywhere we turn, there is ocean. Last night after dinner with some friends they drove us around a bit, and we went to the beach-the wind was blowing so hard we could lean against it.

We feel comfortable here already. I feel like I've been able to let out a breath I've been holding for a long time. It's great to be somewhere where we can invest in-where it worth really unpacking.

Christmas fun

It's been a busy few weeks, but here's the recap:

Christmas started for us on the 22nd with my Dad's family. It was great to see all the usual family, plus some extras-engagements and a baby. We gather in same place we have for as long as I can remember, and the huge building is now this small room that I wonder how we all fit (there are about 50 of us when we're all together).

The day started and ended with Turkey as after the Unrau gathering we went to our friends house for another dinner.

Sunday was suppose to be a Martens gathering, but Ben's cousin had a near-fatal medical emergency, so most of the aunts were preoccupied with taking care of him, and a lot of cousins were away, so we visited Grandma Martens in Abbosford, then had dinner with Ben's parents. Don't you love a holiday that's counted by dinners?
Christmas eve was at the Martens house. We had turkey for lunch/dinner and went to the CLA service. After we opened presents. The Big Gift was our family portrait that Don MacGregor (my boss) did on Spanish Banks this fall. We gave Mom a 40 inch canvas that looks beautiful in their tv nook next to the kitchen. Presents this year were easy for us as everyone got pictures of themselves. Chris's girlfriend Ashely opened her presents from her parents (from Colorado) and she shared her tradition of reading "The Polar Express" with us. I had never read it before, or seen the movie. We spent the rest of the evening eating and playing games.

We spent the night at Mom and Dad's to save us driving back to Vancouver than to Abbotsford again, so Christmas Day we had hugs in Langley, then off to Abbotsford for my family Christmas. Brunch is the main meal that we all look forward to. Fluffy apple pancakes, bacon rolls with cheese sauce, fruit salad, ham-it's my favourite meal of the year. Rebekah's three boys are now old enough that we call all play games, so after presents we all found something to entertain us, from chess to PS3 karaoke. Grandma didn't quite know what to make of our singing, but she smiled and nodded along. We were blessed to have our Cousins Tiffany and Monsef from Amsterdam come for desert. It was great to catch up with them. I love hearing about their lives, although I'm sure it's tiring for them to repeat everything to everyone they see in their short two weeks here.

Although we were preparing to move, both Ben and I were able to get into the spirit of Christmas way more this year than ever before. Ben had exams up to the 20th, but then we were free to enjoy our time. It helped that we didn't host any parties, so there was less stress for us, but last year we were settling in after returning of a year and a half of changes. This year the changes were happening after Christmas so we could just enjoy.

ps. there are lots of pictures but for some reason, our camera doesn't want to give them up, so check back