Shift in Priorities

1:10pm - I stopped by work to figure out how to move forward with all this.  All my life I've been raised with the belief that work is extremely important and should always get my main attention.  Success was measured by how much one could work, and how much one could earn.  In the last couple of weeks I haven't even been thinking about work, and today made the decision to give up my Project Architect position for now and take the full compassionate care leave (total of 6 weeks, which means I'm off work June 7 - July 16).  Perhaps this way I can focus on my mom during the week, but be able to get some 'me time' over the weekends.  I'd love to go camping at least once this summer, just one night would be fine, and I'd still like to be able to get out there for some hikes.  Somehow being out in the mountains is therapeutic.  Maybe it's because you're away from things, or maybe because you're in nature, just something out there has a calming effect.  In the meantime, I'll be focusing on getting my strength back as well.

Some goals for the next little while:

• Look into yoga or similar drop-in classes for Calgary & Canmore
  
• Focus on cooking with more veggies.  Eat more fruit.
  
• Get out there on hikes to get a part of 'normal me' back.
  
• Stronger me = stronger mom :-)
  

10:30pm - Some sort of energy burst overcame me this evening.  My mom sounded great (when she's actually awake), I have a lot of time off work now, ate balanced food today, went for a walk through downtown, and posted a long hike for Saturday.  The latter may be a bit beyond me right now, but it's a goal and I get satisfaction out of meeting goals.  Besides, some of my hiking buddies will be there and a few of them I haven't seen in a while.  Right now I'm even enjoying listening to the rain.

My mom had a chest drain put in today.  The lung doctor drained one litre, and homecare will come in every other day to drain more.  She's been very bloated, so lots of fluid build-up not only around her lungs, but also in her abdomen.  Some people have these drains in for months.  I'm not researching the specifcs of these.  We need to focus now on the positive and moving forward, so I'm stering away from some of the medical details.  I've started to feel that taking more time off will help us all, but when I told my mom she cried and seems to believe that by taking the compassionate care leave I'll lose my job.  A. tried to reassure me that taking time off does not affect my work or what the company thinks of me.  Talk about getting confused.

I'm off to bed to read.  I finally go A Walk in the Woods back, so that book is my current distraction.

Interesting link for the day: Live in the moment