My Mother is Nuts

I started sharing some stories of things my mother has said with a few friends of mine.  These are a hundred percent true.  Enjoy!

Convo #1 

Mom (to me):  Remember Tracey Vanbeesriech?
Me: No. I don't know that name.
Mom: Sure you do. She was a good friend of yours when you were little.
Me: No, mom. I have never heard that name before in my life. I don't know what you're talking about.
Mom: Don't you remember? She lived the next street over.
Me: I remember being friends with Deb Tedford who lived a block over.
Mom: Oh, that's it. Deb Tedford.
Me: How did you get Tracey Vanbeesriech from Deb Tedford?
Mom: Tracey Vanbeesriech was a friend of mine when I was little.

Convo #2

(My mom and dad are sitting on the couch and my dad starts talking to me.)
Dad: So you'll have to watch that movie I burned off and brought out for you.
Me: I can't wait.
Mom: Oh, when you're done, I want to watch it. You can lend it to me.
Dad: When I burnt it off, I put in the English subtitles when the characters are speaking Spanish, but I didn't put any subtitles in when they are speaking English. Subtitles just take up so much room.
Mom: Why didn't you put in the English subtitles?
Dad: Because we don't need them.
Mom (confused): Then how are we supposed to know what they are saying?
Dad: Um, because we speak and understand English.
Mom (very confused): But you said you only put them in for the Spanish. How are we supposed to know what they are saying when they aren't speaking Spanish?
Dad: Because they are speaking English the rest of the time.
Mom (angry and confused): But there won't be any subtitles!
(Dad and I just look at each other and shrug our shoulders. Not sure how to get this any clearer)
[5 minutes go by and then ...]
Mom: Oh, do you mean subtitles? Why would you have Spanish subtitles and not English ones?
Dad: The subtitles are in English when the characters are speaking Spanish. 
Mom: Oh, you mean subtitles. You're talking about the subtitles.
Dad: Yes.
(Dad and I look at each other again. I nod and smile indicating that I am very well aware of the fact that he's already used the word "subtitles" many, many times)

Convo #3

(cell phone rings)
(Mom answers her cell phone and starts pushing buttons)
Mom: Darn, I couldn't push number 9 fast enough. It cut off.
Me: Who was it?
Mom: I don't know. They say I won a bunch of Airmiles. I just needed to push number 9 on my phone.
Me: Um, mom, you know that's phone spam; right?
Mom: It might not be. Visa called me the other day and said because of a purchase I made that I've won a free trip for two to Florida. Your brother and I are going. It's a week at a hotel in Florida, a week cruise to the Bahamas. It includes car rental and a couple of days at Disney World. I just have to pay for our flight. Oh, and I just have to sit through some presentation for some condo or timeshare or something for an hour.
Me: Mom, that's NOT Visa. You did NOT win a trip from Visa. Visa don't give a shit if you sit through a presentation or not. Tell me you didn't give someone your credit card info over the phone.
Mom (angry with me): They gave me the name of the company and I looked it up. They are a reputable business. I'm not going to discuss this any further with you. Why can't you just be happy that I won something for nothing?

Convo #4

(Keep in mind that my mother invited herself to come with us to the Zombie Walk after I told her last year that she couldn't come with us. It's a public event, so I can't actually stop her from coming.)
Mom: So are you looking forward to the Zombie Walk tomorrow?
Dad: Yes. Never been to one before.
Mom: Are you dressing up as a zombie?
Dad: No.
Mom: I guess I won't be either. Speaking of which, have you made out a living will yet?

Convo #5

[I can't remember this all word for word, but the gist of it is worth it.]
(Mom calls me on the phone out of the blue)
Mom: I'm going to be able to watch movies from the internet on my TV.
Me: Oh, you've got your TV hooked up to your computer, or did you get an Xbox?
Mom: No. 
Me: Well, how are you going to watch movies from the internet on your TV?
Mom: I need one of your boys to come over and help me hook up the keyboard.
Me: What?
Mom: I need them to hook up the keyboard to my TV so I can watch movies from the internet on my TV.
Me: Mom, you do understand that you can't hook up a keyboard to your TV and, even if you could, that does not magically turn your TV into a computer with internet access; right?
Mom: I've got to go.
(click. Dial tone)

Convo #6

Mom: Have you seen the movie Oh Brother Where Art Though?
Me: Yup.
Mom: Did you like it?
Me: Yup. I thought it was very entertaining.
Mom: I didn't like that movie at all.
Me: [I really should know better] How come?
Mom: I didn't like the part where they were killed and eaten by those women.
Me: When in the movie was that?
Mom: I thought you said you saw it?
Me: I did. But I don't know what you're talking about.
Mom: It's about halfway through the movie.
Me: If the main characters were killed and eaten halfway through the movie, who do you think was in the rest of the movie?
Mom: I don't know. That's why I didn't like it.

Convo #7


Me:  So I found out I have a brain tumour.
Mom: A brain tumour?  Where?


Convo #8

(Youngest son and I drop off Christmas present to my mom.)
Me:  They just came out of the freezer. You can pop them straight back into the freezer or leave one out to thaw out if you want.
Mom: Oh, the freezer? Is it food?
Me (smiling): Yes, it is.
Mom: Is it edible?

Brian, is that you?

I've got an appointment to see a neurologist at the beginning of September.  First day of school.  I hope I can remember it.
In the last 30 days I've completely forgotten two appointments that I'd made for various things.  It wasn't until several days later that I was aware that I'd forgotten them.  I knew about them before.  I reminded myself a couple of times leading up to the dates.  And then it was all gone.  I looked at my calendar and noticed that I had something written in for a previous day and thought to myself "I don't remember doing anything that day.  What do I have written on the calendar?"
Oh, damn.  I had an appointment.  I was supposed to go and get a mammogram done.  Shit.
Panic sets in.  I start feeling my body to see if I have clothes on.  Yup, I do.  So, nope, I'm not asleep and having one of those "missed your exam while naked" dreams.  Damn.  This isn't like me.  I don't normally just completely forget appointments.
Brian, is that you?  Are you responsible for this forgetfulness?
My head hurts.  I have a headache.  I get headaches all the time.  I'm talking several times a month.  Thankfully, Advil and Tylenol seem to really help.  T3 helps when those other two aren't enough.  I was told and believed they were hormonal migraines.  But now I'm not so sure.
Brian, is that you?  Are you the reason why my head hurts?
When my head hurts, I feel like I'm only partly connected to this plane of existence.  It's hard to explain or describe.  Best analogy I can come up with involves the term "opacity" like one would use for a paintbrush tool in some Photoshop type of program.  When my head doesn't hurt and I'm not sick, my mind and body have 100% opacity.  I feel completely here.  When my head is hurting, depending on how bad, I start to feel somewhere between 70 and 60% opacity.  Like I'm mostly here, but there is a chunk of me floating off somewhere in the ether.  And it's really exhausting and takes a lot of effort to concentrate and be more here. Which doesn't really work, so I'm still not completely connected and now I'm really tired.
Brian, is that you?  Are you dragging my consciousness away?
And then there are those times where my stomach feels off (comes with the headaches).
I'm nauseous, but I don't feel like I'm going to throw up [and I don't].  My tummy just feels icky.  I have no appetite.
Brian, is that you?  How the hell did you get into my belly?  Why?
My left eye bothers me sometimes.  It gets dry and sore.  It often feels like there is something in it, but I can never ever find anything.  It lasts for about three days and then goes away ... then comes back again about a month later.  No rhyme or reason to it.  I end up pulling out a few eyelashes because it feels like one of them must be poking me in the eye.  But it's only ever the left eye.  Never the right.
Brian, is that you?  Are you messing with my eye?
When I feel good, I don't think about Brian at all.  But now, whenever I have any ache or pain or feel off, I can't help but wonder if it's just some random thing or is Brian responsible for it.
I don't think I've gotten completely ridiculous with it yet.  I was farting away the other night, but I blamed that on the chilli that I ate and not Brian.  He gets a pass on that one.  At least for now.

Suburban Tourist

On Thursday, Bob and I took the youngest boys up to Whistler.  I've been there once before (many, many years ago).  I've gotten it into my head that the boys HAVE to see certain things in this province.  Maybe it's because I've spent a lot of time in various places and haven't bothered to do the "tourist" thing and check out what other people from other places come here to check out.  So I kind of feel like a tool when someone asks me something about BC and I don't have an answer nor do I even have a good excuse for why I don't have an answer.
"Oh, you live near Vancouver.  Have you ever been to Whistler?"
"Nope."
"Why not?"
"Because it's for tourists."
Once upon a time that answer made some kind of sense to me.  It just sounds stupid now.

It really is a beautiful drive from Vancouver up to Whistler.  The sun was out, the weather was hot, and we had the car windows rolled down.  A perfect summer day.
We stopped on the way up to get a few photos at Brandywine Falls.

What's a terribly not cool thing to do?  Well, it's photobombing your own family, of course.

Whistler Village is an interesting place.  I think it's the love child of Disneyland and Las Vegas.  I fully expected to find either a Venetian gondola or a band of colourfully dressed characters singing theme songs from some movie or another to be just around the next corner.

We decide to be adventurous and take the Whistler Village Gondola (I knew there'd be a gondola around somewhere) up the mountain.  Really not a good idea for those of us with height issues, passing out issues and anxiety issues.  

Despite our discomfort, Lucas and I manage to get to the top in one piece.  I wasn't feeling all that great when we got to the end of the line, and I was wondering if it was just me and my health issues.  But as we stepped off our gondola, the group from the car in front was on the platform and a young girl of maybe 12 or 13 years of age was emptying the entire contents of her stomach right there.  I was never so happy to see someone vomit as I was then.  Yay, I'm not the only one who feels sick on these things!  Happy dance!
Let's go romp in the snow to celebrate!

 

I know it's hard to tell from the previous photos how deep the snow still is in July, so the next photo is to help with that.  It comes up to Lucas's shoulders.

So what is one to do after spending the afternoon on a mountain top?  Head to the lake and get wet!  We stopped off at Lost Lake, which, despite its name, was really easy to find and get to.

After the sun set, we left for home.  We barely scratched the surface of things to do in Whistler.  Maybe next time we'll either look for a nearby campground or rent a room in Squamish for a few days.  There's a slide and a maze that we might try and get to in a few weeks.  Or there's a whole bunch of hiking trails that we didn't get to go explore.  Or there's a bunch of stores that we just walked past.  So much more to explore.  All in all, it was a really good day.

Seriously?

I have a brain tumour.

I have been saying that to myself over and over for a little while now.  Ever since the doctor called yesterday morning to inform me of my CT scan results.  It looks like something called a meningioma.  Usually they are non malignant (NOT cancer).  I have no reason to believe that mine is cancerous.  It's small.  About the size of a cherry pit, I am told.  On the surface of the brain, high left side.  That's about all I was told in that call.  I mean, next steps were discussed:  trying to push up an appointment date to see a neurologist, go for an EEG, et cetera.
But I have a brain tumour.
I wasn't sure if I was going to say or blog anything about it.  But then I thought, this is a part of my life, a part of my experience, so why the hell not?  I'm not writing it for "prayers" or as part of a "poor me" thing.  I'm just writing about it because it's what I'm going through and it's on my mind (literally - the tumour is in the meninges which is the covering of the brain).
My third son is a cancer survivor.  He had bi-lateral Wilms when he was a year old.  I remember at that time thinking that I wished it was me going through it and not him.  Well, now I do have a tumour.  But it isn't cancer.  Maybe it's because of what I went through with him that I'm not really upset at the moment.
Or maybe it really hasn't sunk in and I'm in denial or in shock.
When I told my second son, he said he had mixed emotions about it.  On the one hand, he thought it was terrible.  But on the other hand, he thought it was cool.  That pretty much sums up nicely how I feel about it.  I feel terrible because I think I'm supposed to feel terrible about it.  But I also find it incredibly fascinating and, dare I say it, even funny.
I must have been away or not paying attention the day the pamphlet on "How to Feel about having a Brain Tumour" was passed around.  I spent a lot of time yesterday saying "I have a brain tumour" to myself and then giggling.  Maybe in time, when we start really getting into the nitty gritty of it and deciding what to do about it, I won't find it so fucking funny then.  But, right now, it amuses me.  And that's okay; isn't it?  There's nothing I can do about it at this very moment.  Being upset, sad, scared or serious isn't going to make it go away.  If it would, I guess I could muster up a good cry.  But it won't.  Life is chaos.  Throws shit at us all the time.  Lots of stuff we simply can't control (no matter how much we lie to ourselves and try and convince ourselves we do).  I can't, at this moment, control the fact that I have a brain tumour.  So if I think it's funny and want to laugh about it, I will.  I'd rather have a tumour and be happy than to have a tumour and be miserable.  
Either way, I still have the tumour.  
Don't get me wrong.  I'll be sad, angry, serious, scared when I have to be or when it just comes naturally on its own.  But I'm not going to force myself to be those things because that's what I think other people think I *should* be feeling.
If other people think I'm having an inappropriate emotional response, I suppose I can always blame it on the tumour.  Yes!  I have an excuse for my insanity now.  I can just be me and do my thing and if anyone has a problem with it, BAM, "I have a brain tumour.  What's your excuse?"

I guess this is the point when I should backtrack a bit and talk about how I got to here.  I mean, how did I find out I had a tumour.
Two weeks ago I had an "episode."  I've had similar episodes over the last, oh, four or five years, but I just poo-pooed them.  Basically, I was fainting in my sleep.  Although, three of the five episodes I was up and in the bathroom going pee.  All five episodes happened in the middle of the night, wee hours of the morning.
First two episodes, I'd gotten up to go and empty my bladder.  After I'd done my business, I felt "funny," so I laid on the bathroom floor and passed out.  I'd had a couple of drinks the night before and since I don't often drink alcohol, I blamed it on that.  I'm older; I don't drink much; my body must have changed and I can't handle it.  Those two episodes were over a year apart.  I pretty much avoided alcohol after that and things were going good.  Until last year.
Last fall, I got up in the middle of the night because I had cramps.  Actually, I was sick.  I had some kind of noro-type virus.  I went to the bathroom, had terrible runs.  I remember sitting on the toilet.  Next thing I remember is lying on the bathroom floor with my husband standing over me asking me if I'm okay.  I couldn't move and I couldn't speak.  Body fluids are coming out both ends:  vomit and diarrhea.  Hubby calls 911 and gets an ambulance to come for me.  He says I got up off the toilet, hit the floor, then got up again and fell again.  I hit my head on something on one of the ways down.  I do NOT remember doing it twice.
Anyways, I do remember asking hubby to help me clean up and put something on.  I was more worried about having strangers come into my home and find me naked covered in "stuff" lying on the bathroom floor than if I was sick or not.  Stupid vanity.
I'm taken to the hospital.  They do a finger prick and determine I'm not diabetic.  Give me fluids and Gravol intravenously.  Everyone figures I just passed out because I was dehydrated.  I didn't argue because it made sense to me.  Alcohol dehydrates, stomach virus dehydrates.  I wrote off those episodes as my body not liking to be dehydrated.  
The fact that I've had alcohol and noro-type viruses in the past and NOT had any episodes just wasn't that strong in my mind.
Then a few months later, on Christmas Eve, it happens again.  This time I hadn't had any alcohol and I didn't have a stomach bug.  But I did have a cold.  
What was weird about this time, though, was that I didn't make it to the bathroom.  I didn't make it out of bed.  I was sound asleep and woke up because I just felt wrong.  I don't know how else to explain it.  I just felt wrong and woke up just in time to pass out.  While I am still in bed.  
I have a needle/blood phobia.  I am prone to fainting at the sight of blood or when I have to get a blood test or get an IV put in.  That's happened all my life.  I'm not a stranger to "fainting."
The episode on Christmas Eve felt different than a normal faint.  When I faint, I remember what I was doing before, and then my memory picks up when I'm coming to.  I don't have any memories of anything in between.  But the episode on Christmas Eve, I do have memories of the "in between."  I remember seeing flashes of bright colours and weird shapes; I remember hearing a sound that I can only describe as a loud roar that sounded like a thousand people all speaking at once.  I couldn't make out what they were saying or even if they were speaking the same language as me.  And that terrified me.  I remember feeling absolutely terrified because there was all this sensory input that made no sense.  I was struggling to make any sense of it, and I couldn't.  
The colours and shapes faded to black.  The roar dulled into silence.  I remember being aware of sweat covering my body.  It felt good.  It was the FIRST thing that made sense.  I was aware of my body and aware of being in it.  It was a huge relief, and it felt really good.  So good that I felt like I was in a state of bliss.  I didn't want to move or speak.  I just wanted to stay in the bliss.  So I fell back asleep.  Next day is Christmas Day.  I feel weak and tired, but I'm sick with a cold.  I let it go as just another "sick" thing.
Until two weeks ago.  The same thing that happened on Christmas Eve happened again.  Except this time, I'm not sick.  I am aware in the morning that I feel tired and weak.  I'm weepy.  I'm crying for no reason.  I'm not sad; I'm not scared.  Tears just coming out of nowhere.  At this point I'm now wondering if I am actually fainting or am I having a seizure.  And then I'm not sure if I'd know the difference.  I'm not outside of myself when this is happening, so I don't know what I look like when it does happen.
I'm thinking about "connections."  These episodes all happen in the middle of the night.  All five episodes happened within 24 hours of me starting my menstrual cycle.  For the past five or six years, I've had horrible migraines associated with my menstrual cycle.  I'm at an age where being pre-menopausal is not out of the question.  Is this a hormonal thing?  
I figure I better call my doctor and get a medical opinion.  So I call, make an appointment to go in that day.  Doctor wants me to see a neurologist, but in the meantime sends me for blood work and schedules me to get a head CT scan done.  I get the blood work done and it comes back normal.  I expected that it would.  

I go in last week for my head CT.  I had a blast. It was so much fun.
Technician was a good looking young guy who was really nice and made me laugh (as well as I think I made him laugh).
When I got in, I explained the whole needle fainting thing, and he said I didn't have to worry because I'd be lying down when he put the needle in for IV contrast. So I'm climbing on the table and trying to get in position, and I ask him if I'm in the right place or do I need to move up further. 
He says, "No, you're perfect." Pauses a couple of seconds and follows up with "But I bet you're used to hearing that several times a day every day."
I wasn't quite sure how to respond to that, so I immediately started telling him about how I caught a big ass frog last week and frightened my boys with it.
Then I asked him if the contrast was radioactive. He told me it wasn't. I said I was disappointed because I was hoping to be able to get some kind of super power from the experience. He laughs.
He gets the IV in, gets me in position, starts the contrast going and the test begins. I had my eyes open at first, but then closed them because I could see the spinning thing and it made me a little dizzy. It was fun sliding back and forth on the table with my eyes closed ... felt like I was on a theme park ride.
So then the technician comes and takes out the IV. He asks the other tech in the booth if they turned off the contrast pump. Then he turns to me and says, "I think you broke the pump."
Other tech comes around and says all the screens just suddenly went blank and now everything is flashing and they'd never seen anything like that. Technician says to me, "You definitely broke it."
I smile and say, "See, I did get a super power! Yay for me!"

I have a really, really good relationship with my doctor.  We've known each other for over 20 years.  
I appreciate the fact that she called me on the phone with the results and didn't make me come in for an appointment to tell me.  She was there through my son's diagnosis and treatment.  She knows I can handle this.

So that's where I'm at currently.
I have decided to name my tumour "Brian."  If it's going to be living in my head for a little while, it might as well have a name.  "Meningioma" isn't a very good name.

Sorry, what the hell is a Scoper anyway?

In my spare time, I proof and scope court and discovery transcripts. Okay; proofing is easy to figure out, but what is scoping? Scoping is when the rough transcript comes and you have an audio file and you listen along while going through the transcript correcting any spelling mistakes and filling in any words that were missed. Once the transcript has been scoped, it's then sent on to a proofer who makes sure the whole thing is squeaky clean and sparkly.
Basically, proofing and scoping are fancy ways of saying "a court reporter's assistant." And by "assistant," think Igor to Dr. Frankenstein. "Yes, Master. Right away, Master."
So what's it like to be a court reporter's assistant?  It's a fun, exciting and glamourous job.  I get to dress up and travel the world.
I think I can almost hear all the court reporters, scopers and proofers laughing their asses off right now.  All right.  So the truth is I'm actually wearing my pyjamas and daydreaming about other places I could be and other things I could be doing.  But that counts, doesn't it?
Yes, sometimes - most times - the transcripts can be excruciatingly boring.  Anyone up for six hours of expert accountant testimony?  Yeah?  Great!  Let's turn that into a week.
But most of the time I learn stuff I didn't know I didn't know.  For example, I know about "shy distance" and how to build a log cabin.  Two things that aren't related to each other, by the way, unless you're attempting to build a log cabin while driving down the road.  Now there's a transcript I look forward to working on!
Everyone I know who does this job - and who doesn't run away screaming right at the beginning - is a little strange.  We can talk with each other for hours about how people speak versus how it comes out on the printed page.  And it actually interests us!

For example, it amuses me that the stereotype of Canadians is that they say the word "eh" a lot.  I actually very rarely encounter that word in a transcript.  The word "sorry," however, will pop up several times on every page.
I am endlessly fascinated by how Canadians use the word "sorry."  I've heard some folks from other geographical locations comment on how polite Canadians are and how they're always apologizing for things.  Fact is that there is no actual apology being given 95% of the time the word "sorry" is used.  At least not in a nice way.  "Sorry, I disagree," translates to the insult "I'm sorry you're such a moron, but my opinion is educated and superior to yours."
Canadians will use "sorry" as an interjection:  "Sorry, I was here first."  Means the same as "Hey, I was here first," but also means "Sorry you're such a moron, but I was here first."  So it can do double duty as an attention getter as well as an insult.
But Canadians will often say it without thinking at all.  It becomes just a fluff word like "like."  "Like, I was going, like, up the road when, like, this guy, like, waved at me," in Canadian comes out as "Sorry, I was going, sorry, up the road when, sorry, this guy, like, waved at me."  Canadians will use the word "like" too.
"Sorry?"  That's the same as "Pardon me?"  If it's spoken softly and the inflection goes quite high at the end, it means "Excuse me, I couldn't hear you.  Please say that again."  If it's spoken loudly and the inflection doesn't go quite that high, it means "What the fuck did you just say to me?"
Quick test.  You bump into a Canadian and they say "Sorry," what are they actually saying?
a)  I'm sorry I was in your way.
b)  I'm sorry you're such a moron and couldn't see me standing here.
For a more scholarly analysis on the Canadian usage of "Sorry" go here.  See?  I wasn't kidding when I said this kind of stuff intrigues me.