Vacay pics

As you may or may not know, my wonderful in-laws flew me out to Big City in the Prairies to visit with our son Awesome. It was a wonderful time. We packed a lot into a few short days, including a visit to the Place with the Hot Springs where we saw the most beautiful part of Canada - the mountains.

We also, of course, did what all good lemming consumers do in the Big City - we went to the mall. For the record, we took more pictures than parcels home with us.

Anyway, here are some pics...

There's a skating rink...



The wave pool with slides...



The pirate ship (they were just starting a tour when we got there....) Beside the pirate ship is an actual submarine (insert joke about Canadian Navy here...)



We didn't get any pictures of the mini-golf or the massive children's play area, but they were amazing. We didn't take in anything at the two movie theatres or Imax either. Sorry Big Mall in Minneapolis, but you don't hold a candle to this place.

And then, wow, the Mountains...


And the Hot Springs (prior to the Code D)...


There are more pics of mountains, but they include people and in the interest of maintaining a loosely (ok, very loosely) anonymous blog, I'll hold on to those.

This trip was good medicine for me.

Now I'm working through some tough things relating to the next steps in terms of accessing health care services to help with The Headache. I'll give myself this much credit - whatever I've done so far (and you've read about most of it here) I have done because I've advocated for myself. I have never, not once, placed my pain issues in another person's hands and said "Here, fix this." Never. I've searched out the health care I need, be it western medicine or alternative care, and I've stood my ground when barriers have been put in my way. Somewhere in the Great Mystery, Tommy Douglas (the visionary behind Canada's universal health care) is saying, "You go girl!"

I refuse to believe that I'm out of options for care. I'll keep turning over those rocks until my arms can't lift them anymore. Under one of them is a way for me to have my life back.

In the meantime, being with my son and seeing so much beauty in God's creation is medicine enough.