Camping is Fun! (sarcasm)

What a day.

Our plan was simple: go to the hospital to meet with Buie, drop off some extra supplies with the ostomy nurses, pick up some dressing supplies, get my port flushed and make an appointment for chemo then go camping and have some fun. Our meeting with Dr Buie was good. He was very sympathetic to our situation (as usual) and had some great things to say. One thing in particular was of great benefit to us. He suggested that we think of my cancer as a disease that needs to be managed (like diabetes) rather than a terminal illness. He said that while a cure for cancer (colorectal cancer in particular) is unlikely in his lifetime, long term management of the disease is possible and can extent life expectancies greatly, even compared to a few years ago. He gave the example of one of his patients in particular who was in the situation that I am now and he lived 6 years by successfully managing his disease. The crappy part about our meeting was that he thinks my drain/abscess is infected AGAIN. He set me up with a sinogram for next week to see if the abscess is connected to small bowel, large bowel or if it is just an infected blood clot from the surgery. So, the infection saga continues, but at least this drain I have in now is more comfortable. I might even be able to rig up a system so that I can swim!

The rest of our hospital errands went off without any trouble. Actually, that's a lie. It was pretty hard for the nurse to access my port for my monthly flush. I had to contort my body into a variety of positions to try and facilitate access, all without success. Eventually a guy nurse came and had the magic touch. It's good they could get it to work otherwise I would have had to go on blood thinners to clean out the clots.

The real gong show started when we left to go camping. As we were leaving town I noticed that the brake controller for the trailer brakes didn't appear to be working. So, we had to stop at the side of the road and trouble shoot. It turned out to be a loose connection and was easily fixable. I was pretty happy I found it early otherwise it could have been an ugly trip out. Once we got on the highway (#1 West) and got up to speed I noticed that one of our trailer mirrors (mirror extensions so the driver can see back pst the trailer) was about to fall off. It was on the passenger side so, since I was driving, Penny had to roll down her window and try to get it inside without dropping it. We were eating dinner on the go so Penny had to roll down her window, grab the mirror and pull it in while holding a pizza box, texting on her phone, and trying to manage two hungry winey kids in the back seat all while doing 110km/h in long weekend traffic. In the end she got the mirror and all was well.

Once we arrived at the site (at the Bow Valley provincial campground) we set up and put the kids down. On our last camping trip (May long weekend) we devised a clever system for the kids to sleep. We put Andrew in the top bunk and barricaded him in with a bed rail and cushions from the dinette while Carly slept on the lower bunk. We had four night of blissful slumber with that set up in May so we (erroneously) thought the same situation would work for Canada Day. Two hours after putting the kids down I heard a thump in the trailer so I went in to see what was going on. I was greeted by a histerical Andrew with Carly trying to explain what happened. I was a little alarmed and confused at the fact that Andrew had somehow Houdinied himself out of his bunk. Carly was quick to explain that it wasn't her fault and that Andrew had fallen out of this bunk. I tried unsuccessfully for 20 mins to calm him down but he seemed overly pissed off and a little in pain. The only way I could get him to stop crying was to have him sit up in our bed with me holding his wrist. This went on for while and every time we tried to move him or put him to sleep he screamed. It was becoming readily apparent that we were going to need to go to the hospital.

Penny drew the short straw and packed herself and Andrew up and headed into Canmore (about 15 mins away) to see the doctor. Luckily the ER there was dead so they got right in. The doctor did some x-rays and it was apparent that Andrew had broken a chip off his elbow and was going to need a cast. After a little Tylenol 3 (see pictures on Flickr of Andrew stoned on codeine) he got his cast and he and Penny made it back to the campsite around 2 am. After that, things didn't get much better. Since it was his thumb sucking arm that he broke, he spent most of the night demanding we take off his cast so he could suck his thumb and go to sleep. Of course his crying and moaning kept us all awake so most of the night Carly AND Andrew were up weeping. Penny and I (especially me) were nearly crying as well. It was altogether a crappy night and a bad start to the long weekend. Now Andrew is so tired he just wants to sit still although he is pretty proud of his "big oweee".

Ahhhhhh camping.