Mason's Birthday Party

Today we headed out to Yorkton to celebrate Mason's first birthday. Mason is one of Dominic's heart buddies that he shared a room with after we returned to RUH from Edmonton to recover fully from his first Open Heart Surgery (OHS). There was a huge number of people there. I don't want to guess how many, but there was one very evident person that was missing physically, and that was Mason.

Mason passed away in February after some complications with his second OHS.

Although I am sure he was at his birthday party in spirit, no one could help but feel his absence physically. I felt it every time I talked about Dominic's growth, or heart condition, or milestones to people that night. All I could think of is that Mason would have been tackling the same things as Dominic had he made it through to today.

The Zipper Club. (left to right: Asher, Dominic, Emmett, and Ryker) These babes are all born within a month of eachother. Dom is the oldest, and Asher is the youngest. Dom has a different heart defect from these 3 and Mason though. They have HLHS and Dom had a Truncus Arteriosis. 

I would have killed to see Mason playing with all the heart buddies that were there to celebrate him. I would have loved to have 3 babies in our Team 3105 picture rather than just two, and 5 heart babies in the zipper club photo rather than 4, but I am super thankful for his Mamma, Sam, that invited us all over to her place to be together and remember Mason.

Love you Mason. I think about you all the time.

Team Room 3105: Asher, Kailey, Sam (Mason), Me, and Dom

The End of Mr. Y

A cursed book. A missing professor. Some nefarious men in gray suits. And a dreamworld called the Troposphere?

Ariel Manto has a fascination with nineteenth-century scientists--especially Thomas Lumas and The End of Mr. Y, a book no one alive has read. When she mysteriously uncovers a copy at a used bookstore, Ariel is launched into an adventure of science and faith, consciousness and death, space and time, and everything in between.

Seeking answers, Ariel follows in Mr. Y’s footsteps: She swallows a tincture, stares into a black dot, and is transported into the Troposphere--a wonderland where she can travel through time and space using the thoughts of others. There she begins to understand all the mysteries surrounding the book, herself, and the universe. Or is it all just a hallucination? 


This book had such great potential at so many points and it just did not pull through in any way for me, however, I think this is ultimately an issue of preference and not so much of quality. Thomas is a great writer, I definitely won't begrudge her on that. She has an excellent grasp on HOW to write, but her story left much to be desired, at least in my opinion. 

The first issue I had early on is the book within a book scenario. I don't read more than one book at a time because I worry about crossing the two stories or preferring one over the other making me want to skip parts (although I would never actually do that). In this case it is the latter. I really liked the story outside of the book, and was not a fan of the book itself. I found that in an attempt to seem as though the book was written in the 19th centurey, the author just came off as pretentious. Perhaps that was preferred style of writing at the time, but I just feel like she was trying too hard, and I am a modern literature girl myself ;) The vocabulary was irregular most of the time so I had to have my dictionary app ready at all times.  I also didn't see the point of including exerpts from the book when a vast majority of the book was just summerized in the main story anyway. I really feel that Thomas should have picked one or the other, not had a mixture of both. This concept reminded me of a book that one of my coworkers at McNally absolutely loved called House of Leaves. It was a tough one to read because it had another story going on in the footnotes of the first story. Sometimes the footnotes would go on for pages. It was too much for me. Another one I read in University called At Swim Two Birds. There were multiple stories within stories in that one. Too much. Apparently I can't handle the story within a story format.

I did enjoy the premise of though experiments throughout the book. It was a concept I had never encountered or thought about and I liked it. I think that most readers do thought experiments on their own when they get immersed in a book. The protagonist in this story said that she made a pact with herself to never identify too closely with the main character in a story because the bad, or at least most difficult, things happen to them. This made me think about my own relationship with characters in books and personally, I feel like I generally get attached to main characters (and other characters I like, for that matter) like a best friend. I mourn them or feel bad for them, or wish I could have done something to change events, but I never feel like I have been personally damaged by what happens to them. More like a lesson learned through them.

This book is meant to be a complete (excuse my language) Mind-Fuck. It weaves a story that breaks down time, and distance, and consciousness so that they don't matter any more in this fourth dimensional universe. It was a bit too much for me. Not so much that it confused or lost me, it was just all too much for me to wrap my head around. It seemed ridiculous. It was too far out there. 


Lastly, I felt at times that I was missing a lot of inside jokes that were woven into the plot. Have you ever been at a wedding where you were close to either the bride or the groom, but not so much with their new spouse, and during the speech to the one you aren't close with they tell the punchline of some story that was maybe hilarious for them, but they don't explain further, so while a handful of guests are killing themselves laughing you are rolling your eyes and wondering why they don't just tell the whole story so that everyone could be laughing? (No? Just me then? Alright...). That is what a bunch of parts of this story were like for me. I felt like because I don't really understand binary, or hieroglyphs, or all aspects of advanced math and physics, I didn't really GET the whole story. Then at the end I felt like the book was trying to tell me that all science is all a bunch of hooey that people have made up for their own purposes and we should just stick to religion. So, I'm, like, UM NO. Thanks. 

This book was really not for me, but that's not to say that it's not for you! I get the distinct impression that this book will get a wide variety of people thinking it's not good (like me), people that think it's the greatest book they have ever read, and people that think it is absolutely terrible. So I would say if you liked books like House of Leaves, or At Swim Two Birds, or liked the movie The Cell, you might like this one better than I did. This one could be for you.

I gotta say though, even though I didn't particularly like the book, it still begs the question: would you make a potion that takes you to an alternate dimension published in a book that is considered to be cursed?

Dominic's First Year

Only two days late, so not bad! After Saturday's birthday party I was a tad bit on the exhausted side and just needed to recover on Sunday, and so thus the post comes out today. Long time coming! So there is a lot to include in this one.

Wow. It's hard to believe that our big huge medical journey with Dominic started only a year ago. Roland and I played the "where we were in Dom's labour a year ago at this time" thing on Friday night via text because he was working at the bar. It's fun. I love doing that to relive such a fantastic experience. We did it with Rosalie's first birthday too.We have come SO FAR since he was born, 2 Open Heart Surgeries (OHS), battling sepsis, caths, ECHOs, Ultrasounds, meeting with specialists... to being where we are now, where there are still lots of follow-up appointments, but we have settled in to our version of normal. We don't need to worry about Dominic's life more than any other 1 year old child. He is stable and I am eternally grateful for that.

Back in June I called all of the speicalists that I figured would want to see him in the near future to see if I could book appointments for sooner or at the end of the summer in order to give us time to go to the lake and there were a few interesting things that came from the appointments we had before having a break. One was with his Audiologist. This is the doctor that was supposed to put in his eartubes during his lip surgery, and got the anesthesiologist to tell me that it didn't happen. So I was really looking forward to this appointment so I could just get more exact answers as to why the eartubes weren't put in. The doc explained that looking in to Dominic's ears there is not any fluid build up, the reason that we were getting inconclusive results back is because the three bones in Dominic's middle ear are not how they should be, they are too small, so they don't rub together to conduct sound like they should. When a headband like device was put on Dominic that causes vibration with sound he could hear perfectly. So he doesn't have any inner ear problems, it's all middle ear. So we were told that they would book another appointment in the future to get a device for him, look at his ears closer, and come up with options. So that's where we are right now with his audiologist.

We also had his G-tube clinic to just check how things are going with that, and everything looks great. So nothing really to report there.

The last appointment we had before heading up to the lake was interesting. The night before, Dominic had thrown up BIG TIME. Like HUGE! To the point I was worried about taking him to the lake. Fortunately, the appointment we had the next day was with his pediatrician, so she was the perfect person to ask about what is going on with him. When we got there it turned out she had a student working with her that day, which I don't mind, I like helping people learn, but she kept pressing me to ask her the questions I had rather than Dom's actual pediatrician. I found this frustrating because this girl had never met Dominic before and due to his 22q he's a pretty complex case. I refused to ask any questions until his doctor got there and she eventually relented. Once the doctor got there we went over all of the assessments that the student had gone through and the pediatrician noted some things that the student had missed and some related to questions that I had intended on asking. The first was during his cap refill test (this is where they push on a nail bed and see how long it takes to turn from white back to normal) The student did his hands, which were fine, but his left foot takes longer to refill and looks puffier than his other foot. I was wondering if the puffy-footness was because of his stroke, thus less developed muscle in his left foot. The doctor acknowledged that this could be why, but wanted to run some blood tests to rule out clots somewhere. Another thing that she noticed was that Dominic's legs are different lengths by about a centimeter. Once again this could be because of the stroke and less muscle tone, but she wants to rule out scoliosis, so we need to go for some medical imaging sometime in the near future. When we got to talking about Dominic's puking the night before, she chalked it up to him probably catching a bug somewhere. She said that it shouldn't prevent us from going to the lake, but if we have trouble keeping him hydrated or worry because he starts to get lethargic or show more concerning signs, we should take him to emergency in PA and they would get in touch with her. Dominic is so complicated she advised against just going to a clinic, and she advised that we take some pedialyte with us because that is a really good way to ensure he stays hydrated and it's easier than formula to keep down. He did have a bit of an issue at the lake the night after we got there, huge pukes again. So it's a good thing I went to get him the pedialyte just in case, because we did end up using it for about a day. For the most part I think Dominic was just due to catch something. One of the common issues with 22q kids is an undeveloped immune system and fortunately Dominic doesn't get sick often, so he dodged that bullet with is genetic abnormality, and I am thankful for that every day, and I am glad he was able to fight whatever he got all on his own. Also worth note, is that he also hadn't had a good poop in a couple days, which if you remember, was an issue he had in hospital after his lip surgery that almost kept us there longer. So, I can also blame some of this on Dom withholding his poop. Silly boy.

Now that the summer is winding down we have another handful of appointments coming up, mostly ones that I have postponed so we could all have a bit of a break. We will be paying for that bit of a break while our schedule fills up with people that want to see him for one reason or another. This week we have appointments with his PT, OT, SLP, and an ultrasound. Next week is his clinic that I am really looking forward to with the Cleft Lip/Palate team. This is where we will get to see his pediatrician, audiologist, dentist, plastic surgeon, a specialist SLP, and, in Dom's case, his hematologist. And at the end of the month he's scheduled for an MRI to see how that brain of his is doing and to get a more extensive and detailed picture of how his stroke has effected his brain. To be honest, I'm not looking forward to that one. Part of me doesn't want to know and just deal with it as he develops... but... we'll see... maybe it will be good news?

OK! Now for the fun stuff! Dominic had his first birthday party on Saturday and we all had a great time. For the most part I had no idea who was going to come. RSVPs were not required, and I did get a few, but I tend to take a pessimistic view on these things. But our turn out was really great. Higher than I expected, but the amount of food I had was perfect. There was so much love and support in our house that day! I appreciated every single person that showed up, just the fact that they would take time out of their Saturday to make Dominic's day special and show their love for him was amazing. A couple of guests hadn't even met him yet because although I intended to have a baby shower for him for everyone to come to, the first 6 months of his life were so hectic that there never seemed to be a good time, and after 6 months seems a bit late for a baby shower. But I loved having people over for his First Birthday. SO much love. Such a good choice to throw a party.

Dominic had his first ever cupcake, at first he just enjoyed playing with the icing (so squishy!), but with a little help from Uncle Tom he figured out it was edible...

I can't wait to see what this year brings! Dom has come so far in his first year, and I know we still have challenges ahead, but he's a tough little man! I'm sure he'll knock anything out of the park that is thrown at him. ;)

How To Tell You're a Sucker For Marketing

Boom. That /\ is how you tell.

It's a wee bit insane how happy I was to find "Dominic" last week. 

I realize that this marketing approach completely totally worked on me. I know that this effectively sold me more coke products than I may usually buy. But I am a collector at heart and I couldn't resist. So I guess that's a Win for Coke...

After searching high and low (and often :/ ) while we were in Edmonton and into the fall last year, I was relatively successful in finding our names. (I got "Annie" and "Christina" for me, not perfect but close. "Brayden" and "Carter", but missed out on Timothy. Found both "Stephen" and "John", but not Roland's first name, and nothing for Rosalie, but I can't imagine there are enough Rosalies or Portias around for coke to make those ones). It became a bit of an obsession actually. I would go to the 7-11s around the Stollery and look through every bottle they had until I found one that we needed (or not, then I would buy something else). I didn't realize they were doing it again this year, thought it might have been a bottle left over from last year, but there are little changes on it. So let the obsession begin again! Let's hope someone at Coke likes the names Rosalie and Portia this year!

(Consider this the lead up post to the update. I'll post it for Dominic's birthday. It's getting longer all the time! :) )

Too busy...

I am fully aware that I just posted that I would be updating my blog with all of these developments with Dominic, but I am at the lake until the middle of the week, and I was exhausted after coming back from Regina, and then I had to turn around and pack up everything again to head to the lake. SO! I figure it's the perfect time for a bookfession. I haven't done one in over a year, so it's time...

My To-Read bookshelf is constantly overflowing. All the more reason to get my butt reading them, but now with the different mediums I can use to read books, it's embarassing and heinous to say, that the actual real books are losing out at the moment. I get most of my reading time while I'm feeding Dominic and it is FAR too dangerous to bring an actual book around him, not only is he grabby and drooly while eating, with only the use of one hand, cracked spines, or bent pages are too much of a concern. That's not to say that I don't prefer the real book medium to purchase books in, because I do prefer to add a book for my shelf rather than adding bytes of information to my phone or ereader, but as I said, safety trumps preference at the moment. Still hasn't stopped my purchasing of books for my shelf though ;)

So Very Behind...

I have updates coming, I promise, but this summer has been busier than expected. I should really have known and seen this coming. Just because school is out does not mean that Dominic's appointments stop, but if I want some time at the lake, that means I need to try to coordinate appointments so that they can all be around the same time. It has proven exhausting. I was up at the lake for a week, then came home for a few days, then headed out of town for a wedding, and now am back home to prep to head to the lake for another week in a few days. PHEW! And all these trips ARE exhausting. Packing up the kids, getting to where we need to be, attempting to keep routines as close to the home ones as possible... I am just spent. August will be better though... ish.... Betterish... let's hope anyway...

I have updates about Dominic due to the appointments he's had recently, so as soon as I have an hour or two to spare I will be sitting down to write an entire post about him...

I have read one book and am half way done another, so there are TWO book posts coming. The one I am done is being postponed due to an upcoming Girls Night at my place. The book is part of a theme and I don't want to post it until I talk to my girlfriends about it. Partially because I don't want them reading my post and having it sway their opinions prematurely, and also partially because I want to hear what they have to say in case they sway mine. (Is that kinda hypocritical? I don't want you to change your opinion, but I want to see if you can change mine? Whatever.)

So stay tuned! Posts are coming... but right now I just need some more sleep ;)

The White Queen

Elizabeth Woodville is a woman of extraordinary beauty and ambition. Her mother is Jacquetta, also known as the mystical lady of the rivers, and she is even more determined to bring power and wealth to the family line. While riding in the woods one day, Elizabeth captures the attentions of the newly crowned King Edward IV and, despite her common upbringing, marries him in secret. 

When she is raised up to be his queen, the English court is outraged, but Elizabeth rises to the demands of her exalted position and fights for her family's dominance. Yet despite her best efforts, and even with the help of her mother's powers, her two sons become pawns in a famous unsolved mystery that has confounded historians for centuries: the lost princes in the Tower of London.

In this dazzling account of the deadly Wars of the Roses, brother turns on brother to win the ultimate prize: the throne of England.


I have kinda fallen out of love with Philippa Gregory. I really got into her back when The Other Boleyn Girl came out in the first year or two when I was working at Coles, and I can really credit her with my love of historical fiction, but now that I'm more of a book snob about it, she's really not that great. She's OK, but once you have read better Historical Fiction, like Alison Weir, it's tough to go back.

As much as she credits herself with being historically accurate, and showing that she's done her research with the long list of works cited at the back of her books, Gregory still REALLY romanticizes her stories and is a little loose with facts about how people lived in this era. Just little things about day to day life, for example how it would generally be months on end between baths. There is this one big romantic scene where Edward gets Elizabeth to let her hair out of her headress and it's all shiny and beautiful and it tumbles out of her headdress, and I am reading this thinking "UM, NO! The whole reason for headdresses was because their hair got DISGUSTING from never getting cleaned, due to the lack of available clean water  and the expense of heating said water. So there is a good chance it probably full of lice and smelled. There was NO way it would send him into a lustful frenzy". BUT, Gregory loves to romanticize her novels. 

It does bother me slightly that she romanticizes the era, but I have to admit that I probably wouldn't like this novel as much if it wasn't. The thing about the Plantagenet Era is that it wasn't all that easy to live in. As many eras previous to our own, without the medical developments informing us of the importance of living cleanly, and without technological advances to make it possible to do so, life would kinda suck. These stories are primarily written about the richest of the rich because their lives, in a way, would seem slightly livable to people today. However if you were a peasant or a serf the life expectancy wouldn't be that long and life was TOUGH. You would basically be working your ass off, popping out kids to help with the farm, barely getting by, and then dying in your 30s. So, Gregory sticks to the affluent classes, adds in the little bits of romanticism, skims over the more negative aspects of life in the era, and voila! Escapism at it's finest. 

There is something to be said for her choice of strong women during these times though. She chooses to tell the stories of the women that were the exceptions. For the most part women were sold (many would call it marrying them off with a dowry, whatever) to advance their families, but Elizabeth Woodville is an example of a woman, that came from a decent family and made her own path to royalty. So, good for her.

In conclusion, this novel was OK. Nothing spectacular in the historical fiction genre. Nothing particularly notable about it aside from a bit of theorized "goddess" lineage of the Woodvilles that made it a bit fun. I bought this as an ebook when it was onsale for $2, and it was worth that, I would say, and it is an interesting part of English History, but I don't think I will read the rest in the series unless I can get them for a comparable price. It's a fun read, but don't expect a Nobel prize for literature on this one.