A 15 minute break during another full day with Arta

Catherine, Arta and Rebecca at the top of Mt Tolmie

It was another full day here in Victoria.  

Catherine is only in town two more days.  Every day I have watched her attempt to fit 72 hours of work into each 24 hour slot.  

Between her and Arta, they are almost managing it!    

In addition to tons of triage work on the medical front, Catherine has been helping Arta respond to the question posed by Dr. Gustavson-Vickers at the BC Cancer's Pain and Symptom Management Clinic.   

Arta recording her recollections using Zoom!

The question was, "What is most important to you, with the time you have left?"   

We loved this question.

Arta said that one important thing to her was to share stories of her ancestors, stories she was not sure that others knew.  

And so, Catherine and Arta have gone into high gear, scanning in old documents, letters, and photos, so that they can be archived up on the blog for others to see; recording short video conversations about those documents. 

Every morning, I wake up to see that the two of them have already been awake for a couple of hours, making mini-videos, and getting things organized. 

The view across the water to Washington State

They are both a bit terrifying!  Impressive.  But also terrifying.

The result of all this work is that Catherine has seen very very little of Victoria proper.  

And so today, on the way between a visit to the blood lab at the hospital (giving, not receiving) and a home visit from the Occupational Therapist, we drove to the top of Mount Tolmie so Catherine could take in the view. 

The view to hills on the Island.

We only stayed for 15 minutes, but it was, as always, glorious.  I am always struck by the way that you can see vastly different weather systems spread across the sky, depending on which way you are looking.   

Today was no exception.  What was different is that I actually tried to capture it in video format rather than just photos.  If you have time and inclination, here is a 1 minute video clip.  

[Note: I did strip out the audio track for this video since, at the same time that I was recording this, Catherine was taking a call from the OT about toilet heights.  hahaha]

If a person wanted the more detailed updates on the Arta front (ie. all the other things that happened today), we did a three part update [thanks to a zoom call with Bonnie]....  

Part 1: 8 minutes [On the experience of 'turning yellow' (jaundice) getting at another stent procedure which will likely happen next week]

Part 2: 6 minutes [On the visit from the wonderful OT, and featuring Rebecca's astonishing mime skills, and the admission that we did have some 'sweaty eyes' and swearing today]

Part 3: 8 minutes [in which we reflect on home care visits, blood collection, and what's coming up in the rest of the week, including an update on the 'poop group', and featuring some video editing magic]