Cynical Saturday.

The latest trendy phrase that annoys me is the ever more frequently heard (and heard in a cynical and/or arrogant and/or condescending tone) "Phffft. First world problems...."

You've heard it. You may have even said it.  I say it to myself quite often. Myself. I say it to myself in the context that I would say "Oh for gods sake Shannon, don't cry over spilled milk."  Prime example: I received the niftiest little table calendar in the mail a few months ago, and completely forgot about it until today, when I was at the table, and needed a calendar. I searched and searched and just couldn't remember  where I put it. I stomped around in a funk for hours. Well, for 15 minutes. And then I looked at my other calendars and said "Stop whining. Sheesh....first world problems. Gads. Grow up."

(And I accidentally came across it a cupboard shortly thereafter, thanks for asking.)

And of course there are complaints that really are first world problems  but they're not news articles or complaints on Internet forums or Facebook. Things that we joke about because we are lucky enough to be able to joke about them. Things that you don't really take seriously.

But when a person does have what they consider a genuine complaint or concern  about something, or even just a rant about something that went wrong that day, and someone else says "Oh, first world problems", that person is trivializing someone else's concerns. Who gets to decide what a valid problem is? Why should your decision about what constitutes a problem be the only correct decision?

To me, it's like a backhanded, "pretend to be polite" way to say "Shut up. Your problems aren't important to me. You're ridiculous."

I might complain because I can't get in to see my Doctor in a timely manner. Don't tell me "First world problems....you're lucky to have a doctor." My concern about my health care is a valid concern, and please don't make it sound like I'm selfish.  

I might complain about having to walk somewhere in the slush and snow. Don't tell me "First world problems....you're lucky to have waterproof boots." Or even worse, please don't dare tell me that I'm lucky to have feet. If I am upset about having to walk somewhere, I have every right to voice that feeling without being made to feel like I'm self-centered. Yes, I know that there are people with no feet. That is not relevant to my problem.

I know that I'm lucky to have so many petty problems to complain about. Really, I do know that. So please, do not trivialize my problems to satisfy your own Western guilt. You have no idea what genuine problems I may (or may not...) have. Or what charities I may (or may not) support. 

And if you truly feel that my problems are not worth a moment of your time to listen to, then kindly go away. And take your #arrogance with you, and remember:

"Every man is guilty of all the good he did not do."

~Voltaire.

The cost of Health.

 This was finally The Year of Remicade.

I'll give you a brief rundown of what it took to get approval. We first heard of Remicade a few years ago, and it was being touted as "the wonder drug" for severe Crohns patients who had exhausted all other avenues. At that time Steven was on a regimen of drugs  that seemed to be working quite well, his Crohns was in remission, so he was not eligible for Remicade. 

Then, his Crohns came back with a vengeance and he needed surgery, so they were hoping the operation would solve his problems, so once again he was not eligible, and, as a matter of fact, he was pretty much symptom free for almost 5 glorious years.

Then, as Crohns is prone to do, it returned. This time surgery wasn't an option, or, I should say, it was but it would mean a colostomy. What the BC Health care system now has to decide is whether the money they spend on his ever more frequent hospital visits is more or less money than the cost of Remicade every 8 weeks, perhaps for life.

It's $4500 per infusion. 

He was in the hospital for a week in April, again for a few days in May, 2 ER visits in June, an overnight in July and a week in August. Finally, the powers that be decided to set up a visit with a gastroenterologist in Calgary.

Really long story short....a pain in the leg bad enough to warrant a visit to ER, diagnoses: blood clot, ambulance to Calgary (they wanted to fly him,but this was the week of the rains and floods and the airports were closed, the highways were closed, the detours and delays were unbelievable, but eventually he got there, but not before the ambulance actually broke down half way there, and they limped to Sparwood and borrowed one of theirs...jaysus!) anyhow, when they got there..., diagnosis: broken bone in foot (what? Yes, you read that correctly) Meanwhile, the specialist in Calgary phones to book an appointment, and when they discovered he was already in Calgary, they set the visit up. Result? A plethora of tests and an "OK...let's do this!" And the first Remicade was ready to be administered when....hold on....what's this? A anomaly on the ultrasound? More specialists.....diagnosis: ....kidney cancer. Cancel everything for 24 hours....more specialists....diagnosis:  just a (whew) genetically deformed kidney.

Actually....this is what the oncologist said: "Considering the amount of test results I've seen, I'd say the chances are a million to one that you didn't have cancer. Today I'm telling you to go and buy a lottery ticket, because you're that "one".

So, the Remicade is once again a go, and it actually got done. The first infusion is monitored very closely because there can be so many side effects, but he sailed through without a problem.  It's 3 vials of Remicade.

Eight weeks later he had the second treatment done here in Cranbrook, also no problems, also three vials. The third one is four vials, didn't go so well, we ended up back in emergency that night, with severe abdominal pains, but apparently that's "normal" because it's a higher dose. 

The fourth sort of went well, a few days prior to the infusion we ended up in emerg again, a Crohns flare up, and the doctors here decided to admit him for a few days, on IV fluids to give his gut a chance to "rest", and they ended up doing the infusion while he was there, in his room, and the nurses on that floor weren't used to doing it, there was all sorts of running around and question asking, plus Steven was to fly to Calgary the next day to see his specialist and the Drs here were not sure that they'd discharge him, plus, while there was no rain and flood this time, there was snow storms.....the worst in years with temps of -40, flights being cancelled, all this resulting in one huge stress attack....will the flight be cancelled? Will the Dr in Calgary even be able to make it to his clinic? Will our motorhome shelter collapse due to the heavy, wet and freezing snow? (see below for the answer to that.) So infusion 4 was rife with panic and more unneeded stress.

(I didn't tell him about this until he was home from his Calgary visit.) and "booo" to the fellow up the street who drove by as I was trying to get the snow off the roof, before it collapsed and hollered "Put a hat on....it's cold outside." Oh well. We got it fixed up shortly thereafter.

But infusion 5 was the other day. We arrived a few minutes early, and got a bed a few minutes early. They nurse got the IV in on her first try (that never happens, they usually have two or three nurses give it a try, and often the anesthesiologist has to come and do it, the result of years of prednisone that ruins your veins). Anyhow, kudos to Sharon who had him hooked up and on the drip in minutes, she said we should be done by 12:15, and we were done and out the door at 12:20! We both slept like logs that night, finally, a successful infusion in Cranbrook, and the weather was beautiful!

So the hope is, now he can have the same thing every 8 weeks for about a year and then they reassess the situation and we'll take it from there.  

Each infusion requires a "letter of special authority" from his Calgary specialist to BC Medical, as BC does not cover Remicade. Then, when they eventaully agree to pay 80%, we have then go to bio-advance (the distributor)  and after more back and forth, they pick up the rest. It's a long procedure, and kind of a pain, but the end results will hopefully be worth it, and I'm just thankful that I live in a country where we can at least get the help we need....in one way or another. 

  

Others stuff we did in Nevada. Like go to California.

One can only see so many cars before they all start to look alike. It's like churches and cathedrals and castles in Europe, when you first go inside, you want to sleep there. To live there. You can't wait to see the next and the next and the next. Who could ever get tired of these magnificent edifices? Not I. Well, not right away, but eventually.....they really all start to look alike and when you look at your pictures you wish you had taken better notes. Thank goodness for Google.

So we hopped in our rental and headed out of town to Virginia City. Yee-haw! 

It's quite a spectacular drive from Reno to Virginia City, the road is twisty and climbs steadily uphill. We looked in vain for wild mustangs, but alas, not this time. We did see this however, not as exciting as a wild horse, but cute nonetheless.

This is a nice spot to stop and stretch and go for a little hike. The scenery is beautiful and as we clambered over the rocks, which were warm from heat, I didn't have a care in the world. Until afterwards when I realized that that was probably prime rattlesnake and scorpion territory and I silently berated myself for being such an idiot. I don't want to ever be "that" foolish tourist who ends up injured or in a hospital for not using common sense. 😡

I'll just plunk my ass down on a rattlesnakes front door, and precariously balance my camera on a rock.

The drive to Virginia City is super short, I think it's about 30 miles, but it took us longer because around every corner was a new photo op. In hindsite, around every corner was the same view, just a little further away, but I still like to stop and look around. Eventually we arrived.

Our first stop was the graveyard, which we had managed to not visit every other time we've been here. It's a short walk, as in 10 minutes, if that, but we've always been with other people who: #1. Didn't want to stop there and then walk. #2. We were on a tour that simply didn't go there.  #3. We were with someone who had injured her foot and was in a wheelchair and couldn't manage it. #4. We were with people who didn't even want to leave Reno! I have a passion for graveyards though, and we spent a lovely hour just wandering through, reading the epitaphs and looking at the crumbling remains. (Of tombstones that is, not of bodies.)

The dusty little town of Virginia City though, it's changed. It's nothing but a tourist trap now. The wooden sidewalks are jammed full of souvenir shops and trendy cafes serving fancy coffees and gluten-free this and vegan that. There are a few tiny and dusty museums that still remain, but they look  like no one has gone into them in many a year. There's no shop owners dressed in period costume, no honky-tonk music being played, no street performances. We went into the old Bucket of Blood Saloon, which still has the original bar, but it was surrounded with neon beer signs touting the joys of Miller and Coors. 

Perhaps I'm just used to the authenticity of our Fort Steele. 

And I do have to say, the architecture is well maintained and really interesting, the signage on the buildings is well written and informative, there are a few fun displays, like the Suicide Table and a lot of Mark Twain memorabilia and the town was spotless...no garbage in sight.

But it still made me sad to see the struggle to survive the tough US economy, and the compromises that the town has to make to entice tourists. 

So, off to Lake Tahoe! A place that makes no pretense about the fact that it was  built for tourists.

I love this place, it's beautiful and wild, and tacky and glitzy, it's outdoorsy and Gucci. It's got something for everyone. First stop: Lunch outdoors, looking at the Lake.

Yum. After being fortified with sugar and coffee, we decided to take the gondola up to the top of the ski hill and hike back down. Kidding....we are most assuredly taking the gondola both ways. 

I was surprised to discover that the gondola goes up about 3/4 of the way only. You can hop off and then get on the ski lift to go the rest of the way, or you can get off and have a coffe or beer at this great  viewpoint, and then hop on the lift and go to the top. 

The gondola ride ended way back at the building you can see (follow the cable) and the ski lift took us to the top. I don't ski and was thus quite nervous that I'd fall off and plummet to the ground. It was quite a way down. The total ride took about 45 minutes, and it was a hot day, so we enjoyed being in the open air. At the top there was an amazing amount of things to do....tubing down a "sand slide", rock wall climbing, hikes, and a large lodge to have a beer or meal.

We wandered around, walked over to California, because I am such a geek, I love state lines and province lines, and even more so, country lines. Borders I guess. In this case, you come up the hill in Nevada, but you can choose to ski down in California or Nevada. 

It's the little things that make me happy. When we got down to the bottom, we did the same thing in the city...I'm such a tourist. 

We stopped in a few of the casinos and gambled a little bit and then decided to drive back to Reno the long way around the lake, so that we ended up circling the entire lake. Its a spectacular drive, more so for me, being a passenger, as the roads are very twisty and narrow. There are a lot of viewpoints to pull over at though, so we stopped quite often for a stretch and a photo and a pee. 

We got back to Reno shortly after supper and stopped at this place:

Because Ive started googling places that are on "Diners, Drive-ins and Dives", hoping that they might be a bit off the tourist trail, and will hopefully have good food. This place has been owned by the same owner since, I think, the 1950's (going along nicely with the Hot August Nights theme) and I think it has the original tables and carpet. It was a little dicey looking, but I enjoyed the food. I had a taco salad thing that was about the size of my head, and Steven had a beef dip. No frills and no extras, but a huge portion and pretty darn tasty.

We headed back to our hotel and decided that we should get tickets to see "Grease". Once again, I have a weakness for the 50's, and also for Broadway Musicals. The tickets were inexpensive, around $60 each, but here's a nifty story. With our hotel card, you could scan it in this giant pyramid thing every two hours and win some sort of prize, or discount. We scanned it an awful lot of times and got things like 10% off at the gift store, 15% off meals, things that are all pretty much useless. But on our way to buy tickets, I scanned it and "voila," a two for one on Grease Tickets, and 2 free drinks! That was the only time I ever saw that particular prize. So that made it even more enjoyable, getting freebies. And the show was faaaabulous!

We spent the rest of our time there wandering through pawn stores and second hand shops, going to the few remaining older casinos from "back in the day" and looking for fun places to eat.

A yummy salad in a rosemary bread bowl.

Now, isn't this about the ugliest meal you've ever seen? I know, right? But, oh, was it good!

It was a veggie layered thing. Layers of quinoa, sweet potato, carrots, asparagus, portobello mushroom, zucchini, cheeses (mmmm....lots of cheeses) topped with, no, not an egg, buffalo mozzarella. And surrounded by a roasted red pepper sauce. Seriously, it was SO good.

The hotel had an outdoor pool on the 7th floor, and no one seemed to use it, so we spent some relaxing time there as well.

So, between a bit of gambling,

And some great sightseeing walks,

Checking out the old and the new.

(I love the old retro signs, I hope the leave them alone. The juxtaposition between them and the new high rises is amazing.)

We also went to Scheels, which is a store for outdoorsmen, hunters, campers, fishermen etc, and this store is the size of a mall. With a Ferris wheel inside. And animatronic presidents. And an aquarium that you can walk underneath. It's huge!

I realize that this looks like the walking around part of a mall, but it's ALL ONE STORE. It was very odd walk into into a department and grab your item and then leave and walk through the rest of the building. The tills were at the main doors that led outside. 

Anyhow, between all these things to see and so, the time sped by and before I knew it, we were back at the airport and heading home. It was a really great holiday, a person doesn't always have to go somewhere foreign to have fun.

Checking out the next time that Barrett-Jackson is in Reno. 

I'm baaaack.

I can't believe I've not been blogging for almost 6 months. I've been busy, by which you can interpret to mean "lazy" and also have had a severe case of writers block. But all of a sudden I've seen a few of my friends return to blogging, and reading their posts gave me the kick I needed. 

To catch up on my life, I'll quickly zip back to August and give a quick rundown of our trip to Reno. We've been to Reno quite a few times, but not for years and years. If we feel a yearning for a small gambling holiday, well, the packages to Vegas are just so cheap that you can hardly afford not to go there. 

However, we've both always sort of wanted to go to Reno during the Hot August Nights, which is a whole 10 days of 50's Rock n Roll; the cars, the music, the entertainment....it's like a trip back to 1950, and you do know how I have a passion for that decade. And as well, Stevens biggest "travel want" was to someday go to the Barrett-Jackson car auction, but it's almost always in Palm Springs and Scottsdale....two places where neither of us have any desire to go. 

But, this year, guess where the auction was? Yes! In Reno! And guess when it was? Yes! during the week of Hot August Nights.

When I stumbled across that on the Internet, I hollered upstairs to Steven, and he said: "Book it! Book us a trip right now!" So I did. Booked flights, rooms, and three day passes to the auction, and a rental car...all within minutes. The joys of the World Wide Web.

It was amazingly fun! Amazingly! Reno has changed a lot, the majority of the old, original casinos and hotels are gone, which is sad, they used to be so much fun, but now they've either been turned into what seems to be low income rooms, not hotels, but apartments, or boarded right up. It's a depressing sight, and when we went out walking at night, the streets were literally almost empty. We were often the only ones on a block...and this is at 9 or 10 in the evening. Needless to say, a lot of tourists are, ummm, quite elderly, and they retire to their rooms early. 

But during the day, wow, so much fun! The entire main drag was closed to regular traffic and the streets were just jammed full of show cars. Every parking spot was full and the all took turns cruising up and down. Every casino had a huge Show n' Shine in their parking lot, and every day it was full of different cars. There are only three major casinos on the strip, but there are 4 or 5 huge Vegas style ones towards the outskirts of town. A 10 minute local bus ride took us everywhere we needed to go. (We didn't get the rental car for the full week, we didn't see the need to have it in the city and to try and find parking every day when the bus service was so excellent)

Steven was so thrilled, he and every other man there were like the proverbial kids in candy stores, eyes agog at all the cars, nudging each other with knowing looks  and murmuring words about engines and clutches and horsepower and other car-ish matters. I was really happy to see him so happy. We'd had a lot of health issues and hospital stays in the few months prior to this trip, so to see him enjoying himself so much was pleasure enough for me. Seriously, it was.

As far as the eye could see....cars and cars and cars. There were bands in most of the parking lots as well, 50's music pervading the air all day and half the night (well, until 9 pm anyhow...)

Even the street food was 50's style:

We spend an awful lot of time just wandering the strip and looking at the vehicles. Every night they were gone, and the roads were washed and swept, and then every morning there was a whole different set of vehicles on display. There was something like 6,000 registered cars; where they went at night I have no idea, but they magically disappeared every evening and reappeared in different places in the morning.

During our daily wanderings we discovered that the river flows right through the city, and it's set up for picnics, tubing, swimming and relaxing. In all the times we've been to Reno, we never knew this. Or, we never walked down that way, it's just a quick 5 minute walk in the other direction...away from the casinos. 

And then....(drum roll......) The Barrett-Jackson Auction! I won't go on and on about it, but I will say it was one of the most well organized, smoothly run events I have ever been to. When you first walk in, you're in thismassive, massive space that is filled with hundreds of the most expensive, shiniest, phenomenal vehicles that I have ever seen. Incredible things that you can wander right up to and gaze upon with car-lust.

We managed to get seats very lose to the front, even though it was standing room only as you first walk in, people were coming and going all the time, so you just moved up as people left. Steven also wandered over to the staging area and spent a long time there, up close and personal with the drivers and vehicles. 

I would never have dreamed that I'd find a car show so fascinating, but it was so well run and everything moved along so quickly, that there was no time to be bored. The convention centre was attached by a skywalk to the Atlantis casino and resort, so it was easy to slip away for a quick lunch of dim sum and a speedy bit of gambling.

Here are a few more amazing car pictures. I can hardly believe that I am posting car pictures, it's very unlike me to care about the looks of a car, but these were just so beautiful.

They remind me of something from a Dick Tracy comic book.

We also did some touring around the state, but I'll write about that in the next post.