Umm….the shorter one

Well, hello there. It's Saturday and I'm on call which means I have time to update the blog as my one phone call so far has been to give an elder the number for the dental team who are in for the week and a call from them to dispense some antibiotics. I hope it's a situation where they are very good at work but not so much with life skills because it's a constant battle to keep the bathroom doors unlocked. There is a note above the knob in both the public and staff washrooms reminding you to unlock the door before leaving but….at least four or five times a day someone announces they can't get in to the BR. sigh. The dental health is MUCH better in this area than western Nunavut and the smiles here are very complete which is a good thing. I have seen only one patient with dental pain in over a month and it was just that a filling had fallen out. 

My namesake left to go home on Thursday as she is preparing for a trip to France. They are doing a home exchange in Bordeaux (likely no wine imbibed there) and visiting various regions for a few weeks. She diligently studied her French over her time here so it should go well. We received a new EKG machine this week and it is a beauty. We convinced Terrance (the DPW maintenance dude) to assemble the cart and then it took both of us to read the instructions and set it up. The dialogue ran to "what's a WAM? do we need it? oh excuse me I think my WAM is in the way" with accompanying hysteria as the leads were wrapped around my neck and I snorted. The clerk did some photos and videos of the shenanigans which if shown to the boss would get both of us canned. The machine was very user friendly and we found the one page of the manual with useful information, copied it and put it in a plastic sleeve. 

With two of us sharing the same first name it did lead to some 'situations' and I am unable now to say "it was the other one" when confronted with issues. Last week someone called to follow up with some paperwork and asked for the nurse by first name. When the clerk asked him to clarify which one, he replied thoughtfully "well….it's not the skinny one, it's the……shorter one". I asked the clerk if he was a politician or just a married guy and she confirmed it was the latter. When the clerk and I were discussing body types and family traits she shared that her family were all large and she "had to work at it to be this size" so I showed her my much slimmer self in my wedding photo and said "my family is skinny, I have to work to be this size now too" and we both chuckled. She'd given up food for lent and survived on strange blender created juices so had lost 26 lbs. Clearly I'm not in her league - nor do I wish to be. In my mind the term cleanses fits with soap not drinks. 

The replacement nurse who came in on Thursday lives in my home province as well and does casual contracts. She works on coast guard ships such as scientific research vessels and icebreakers, usually in the summer. She mentioned that CGS is crying for electricians when I disclosed I have an electrician daughter. Will have to track down just how to apply as it sounds like a good lead where they do four to five week contracts with the same amount of 'lay days' and are paid for both work (12 hr days)  and non work times. Would allow for travel when off - obviously something I consider a perk.  My coworker offered to do call every day (something she had apparently done here years ago when there was one nurse and she was brought in to give her a break) which I graciously declined. She got that 'this is my not impressed look' on her face and tried to convince me but I've raised four kids and so ….I smiled and said I'd "let her know if I changed my mind". Call is not busy, no worrying it's going to be and it adds to the base salary so….not gonna happen. Glad that my outgoing co-worker suggested I do the acting nurse in charge position these two weeks so there wasn't a challenge. Not like I'm anyone's boss as there's not enough work here for one nurse but we are going to share call… I spent the afternoon attempting to find my way around the binders and computer in the NIC office. We checked the crash cart and the lab, ordered supplies and attempted to have the cleaner actually clean. Well that part was the largest struggle. Today I noticed that after my insistence he had emptied the garbage cans but…. hadn't replaced garbage bags. sigh

The SUV had a "burning smell" according to the clerk who had taken it to pick up the mail - post office is open for 90 minutes two days a week so you need to be on your game for the timing. We called Terrance (our go-to DPW guy) and he said it was low on coolant and it took a couple of days to locate the person in the hamlet garage who had some. The most amusing part of our service call was that Terrance used the command start for the vehicle. The Equinox has been here since last fall when it came in on the barge and the clerk had no idea it had an automatic start! When she was going out to start her skidoo (her Bravo as she calls it because they are often named by brand vs 'my machine' in Nunavut) before lunch I asked if she used the command start and she grinned before heading out to pull the cord. Terrance (the clerks nephew because everyone here is as related as rural NS communities) had gotten a polar bear this week which she showed me a iPhone photo of - nice fat one it was too. So with 26 community tags and only 80 residents the odds are much better here than in my last Nunavut community with pop. 850 and four polar bear tags. 

And while on the subject of the post office I decided to give northern mail a shot. I haven't bothered in the past as am never sure if I've been returning to the same community but this time with my residency established and general talk about online ordering from various companies coming with an additional surcharge (even Amazon and Walmart which had previously not put limits) I have chanced it. I noticed that MEC (Mountain Equipment Coop) had a free shipping deal on. I ordered some trekking poles and backpacking food to be shipped here because who wants to schlepp more stuff than you have to 3/4 of the way across Canada when you commute to work? The order has been shipped without shipping fees on the invoice and with an anticipated delivery date of April 29th which will be good for me to examine it if so, if not it can be stored here in the apartment.  Not sure how the shipping date relates to three (possible) flights per week.  There was no milk at the COOP so the clerk kindly added a carton of milk to her food mail order and even delivered it to me on Thursday pm from the flight before they headed out on the land to the cabin for the weekend. She looks after me well at and outside of work. 

As I have climbed to the midpoint of my contract and am now sliding down to the home stretch with less than four weeks remaining I am always amazed at how quickly the time passes in the north. I am looking forward to my travel home (even though it involves three travel days and two overnight stays (you can get back to the Maritimes from Asia quicker than that) and have been thinking about the small plane and how much better prepared I'll be for the experience. With my infection control experience, I abhor airplane bathrooms so always make a trek to the terminal facilities before departure, but I will make sure to pick up a beverage as well as I coveted my neighbours orange juice on the flight over. When the Dr. visited he shared the story of having flown over to Inuvik one fall with some local folks, including two elders who were taking their crafts to the Christmas market to sell. It was a very rough flight and as he looked out the window he realized that with the blowing snow he had no idea where they were as the small plane smoothly landed at the airport. Everyone on the flight exhaled a sigh of relief and one of the grannies leaned over and said quietly to the other "some good pilot" in a moment of clear understatement. "Spiritual" he said. Even in an extremely quiet spot such as this the days unfold in rapid succession. I continue with my crocheting and have offered to help the RCMP wife learn. She does lovely sewing so will be a quick study I'm sure. My sealskin slippers are languishing in my bag at present but perhaps I'll sew while she stitches and get more done. Haven't done much writing (although I promise myself I will) but I always do some entries in the Mom Journal my firstborn gave me at my birthday celebration in Edmonton as I left for my initial Nunavut contract. I do keep a daily journal when working (how else can I record material for the Same Country Different Planet memoir I'm going to write) but am considering doing a daily one line recording for my busier at home times as per Gretchin Rubin of The Happiness Project:

gretchenrubin.com

Before the coworker with the social life left we watched a borrowed copy of The Theory of Everything about Stephen Hawkings life which was a great flick. I've watched a few of the movies I downloaded and enjoyed Paddington, St. Vincent, Wild and Stand Up Guys (even though it was silly) and The Hangover Part 3 and Anchorman 2 were as expected - a diversion. 

I had started to do an online course from Future Learn called Medical Arts and Humanities, which I really enjoyed but….it ate up my bandwidth as we pay for satellite internet service measured in GB of data so….those courses aren't ones I'll be able to do north. My coworker had tried to use Rosetta Stone and it chewed up 1 GB/day of my 10GB per month account so she was cut off too. Netflix or any kind of streaming and excessive videos of any type are on the banned list. Likely most of those in this list would meet only my 'down south' criteria:

the-open-mind.com/11-amazing-sites-to-teach-yourself-anything

Thinking of taking the vehicle out for a little spin tomorrow to check out the area as the coworker was contemplating that today. With more hours of sunlight and a 10:30 pm sunset 

and continued dusk until midnight, the locals are gearing up for springtime (although at -22c with a wind chill it's not top of my mind). They approach this season (which is a combo of east coast summer camping/fall hunting) with an almost manic fervour and head out 'on the land' to cabins or those large white tents en masse. By the end of May there will not be much 'in community' activity on the go. Never enough hours on the clock….how can anyone say they are bored? So I leave you with a quote for the day:

“Any pleasure that does no harm to other people is to be valued.”
- Bertrand Russell,