In the land of no snow

After 3 flights, plenty of lay-over time in Tokyo and Detroit, and a two hour drive, we were greeted by Mom, Anice, cousin Jenny and Henry at Horseshoe Ski Lodge. We were told that that day my (maternal) grandma was admitted to hospital for kidney failure, requiring emergency dialysis, but at that time was stable. However, that evening she lapsed into a coma and we all rushed down to the hospital in Toronto, joining the rest of the extended family. The next 2 days were a blur of hospital noises, smells, bad cafeteria food, waiting lounges, anxiety, tests, frustration at "the cold doctors and incompetent nurses", sleeplessness, unspoken questions and worries. Grandma stayed in the hospital for the entire duration of our Canada trip. She is now at home resting, under a strict diet (due to her diabetes) and 24/7 care. It has brought up many issues amongst my family members, young and old, about how to deal with the sudden changes that will require long-term care. I felt both a mixture of helplessness (so many questions and so little concrete answers) and thankfulness that at least we were there when it happened and could be emotionally available. I boarded the plane 12 days later with great apprehension, but i suppose we must continue on with as much normalcy as possible.

For the rest of our visit, we did manage to squeeze in a day of snowboarding on man-made snow. Although global warming has come full force this year and record high temperatures have been set, we were lucky to have the lifts and trails pretty much to ourselves. Oh, there was a short interval of real falling flakes in the early afternoon – very very nice!

After a visit to my other grandma's place, where we pursuaded her to try on Matt's huge sheepskin coat (she refused to stand up or wear the furry hat, too bad!), we headed off to Ottawa at 5am, after shopping at a 24 hour grocery store and stopping by Timmy's for breakfast. Jet lag had the better of us and we consistently woke up between 4:30 and 4:40 am for the first week.