Traffic jams and lobster sandwiches

An update just because I can and….because it's too early to call it a night when I'm first on call. Never good to settle down too soon, then get called out all disorientated and try to get back to sleep.  There has to be a balance however as I had one of those 'went to bed too late and then got called at 5:30 am nights' my first night on call, resulting in only four hours of sleep.  An hour is not quite enough time to get back to dreamland before the alarm rings and the total of four hours is not enough for even this night owl. 

Part of the reason for staying up too late on a weeknight was the excitement of hearing from the team leader at Cape Cares and finding out hat I was in for the April 12 - 19th volunteer mission in Honduras with the added carrot of a second (optional) week at an orphanage with some vacationing tossed in. Yes, please sign me up. So, you can logically see there was good reason to be up until 1 am downloading Spanish medical dictionaries and texts to my Kindle. Truthfully - I was just too pumped to get to sleep! Only three more months, but who's counting?

It is of course, the usual for this time of year in Nunavut weather here, which means -40c and 24 hours of darkness. So you can imagine that there is a lot of smiling and shaking of heads about 'down south' where folks are caught in a 'polar freeze' this past few weeks. One of the locals shared that he'd seen a story where the Chicago Zoo was taking the polar bear inside as it was too cold - this was funny to him on a number of levels. I cautioned him not to be so quick stating "I flew through Chicago in December and it felt colder than here" and he left chuckling. The weather in western Canada has been colder many days than north of the arctic circle, there was the nasty blizzard in the Maritimes which I narrowly missed and then this week a snafu in Toronto which is still working its way out of the system. A nurse from NS flying into a neighbouring community here left Halifax early Monday morning and only made it out of Pearson today, is overnighting in Edmonton as I type and will make her way north of 60 tomorrow. Just a five day commute! And usually it's the northern travel which gets a bum rap. 

The large weather system which wrecked havoc in central Canada moved up through Nunavik (northern Quebec) and then Baffin / Kivalliq causing a major blizzard which had winds of over 120 km/hr with low temperatures, blowing snow and lots of folks without power - not a good thing at those temps! This of course made the news and I had some thoughtful inquiries about my safety from southern friends. I reassured that Nunavut is huge - 2 million sq. km and three time zones - so here on the NW Passage (see red arrow) we were well and truly away from all the action. I shared this route map from one of the airlines to illustrate my point. And you really should enjoy Rick Mercer's weather rant on Youtube (just Google) it - it will cause a smile. 

I am not suggesting that I am finding the temperatures balmy here as I go through my second annual readjustment to Nunavut in January. It is eyeball freezing cold as that is the only part of my anatomy exposed to the environment! As i shuffled (only way to describe walking in that many layers) up the hill to the health centre/apt back from the COOP I muttered to myself about my choice of work areas etc etc. But I had been on a mission to buy bread (and yes I asked someone if there was bread at the COOP before I ventured out - the second option would have been to call the store) as I had promised lobster sandwiches to the local staff. None of them had ever eaten lobster (no surprise) but after today they are all eager lobster sandwich fans. 

Today as I made the sandwiches and grabbed a quick lunch, I looked out the window to see

Traffic jam

the school bus at the intersection near the health centre as it prepared to make its way to Netsilik School for the afternoon. There are very few vehicles here so snapping a photo with the bus and a truck together - constituting rush hour - is quite a coup. And as someone who used to work in the community commented " wow a traffic jam and with Disneyland in the background too" as that is what the area of coloured houses are known. And yes, it is as cold as it looks. 

My first week back after resting my brain for two months has been a busy one. Perhaps folks are getting back into the routine with the kids in school again after 'fixing their sleep' which some loyal blog readers might remember as discontinuing staying up all night and sleeping all day as they did over the Christmas break. There was the combined frantic schedule of having both the physician and dental team in a small health centre at the same time. The dental team arrived on Monday unbeknownst to the Nurse in Charge after there had been a lot of effort employed in readying the space for the Dr. clinic. Not good. There are just so many available spaces to be used and it was a game of musical offices for the nurses until late this afternoon. And of course extra blood draws, procedures, requests for information by the Dr. because as any nurse knows…. that is what physicians do best. Now we go back to just doing our thing and using the phone. The H1N1 influenza outbreak is moving across Alberta and it will be only a matter of time before we find ourselves dealing with it. Some of those who chose not to, or couldn't be enticed to have influenza immunization have now changed their minds and are asking for it. Too late as all the vaccine has been given. 

Now that I've finished my pistachio dreams tea perhaps it's safe to take the phone to bed and read a few screens of The 100 Year Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window - it is a wonderful read!