Story about John Robertson

Last Saturday, it was October 16th. For me and my family it is a day that we will always have in your minds. That same day last year, my dad died of an pneumonia. It wasn't only because of the pneumonia. He had a lot of complications that he was battling with for several years. Not one time have I seen him give up and say that he couldn't support the pain anymore. He fought until the end until he was breathless. For the past week, I've been having something on my heart that needs to come out. And I think that by talking it out to the world, it will make me feel better. So everyone, here is my dad's story:

Before everything started, my dad had normal complications like epilepsy, high blood pressure and diabetes. But that didn't keep him from doing what he loved the most: being surrounded with computers. He was a computer technician certified by Microsoft which means he had a lot of talent in him. He also worked in Nunavut which is the province at the north of Canada where there is no sun for like a month during winter and sun 24/7 for a month in summer. He was working for the their government. He had to come back home when he started to feel not well. That was about 7 to 8 years ago. His kidneys were starting to shut down on him. That's when he was diagnosed with kidney malfunction.

At first, the kidney may seem like an organ that doesn't do much for the body. But I was myself surprised. Without kidneys, everything that you consume that has liquids will stay in your body. So let's say for example you drink alcohol and you get drunk but you don't have kidneys to excrete the alcohol, you will stay drunk. Lucky for my dad, they were still working but he still needed to follow a treatment that consisted to pass a saline solution in his kidneys. For that treatment he needed a catheter in his stomach. With that he could still have a normal life and travel since we could transport his little machine for the treatment.

After maybe a year or two, his kidneys stopped working. He now had to do the full treatment which is called Hemodialysis. This treatment consists in cleaning the blood of the body because the kidneys can’t do it anymore. His catheter in the abdomen was removed and a new one was installed on the upper chest. The catheter was attached to a big artery so the blood could go in and out of his body in a tube, into an artificial kidney, cleaned in the artificial kidney and back into his body. He started doing the treatment 3 times a week at the hospital. Each treatment is about 4 to 5 hours. The treatment given at the hospital is a treatment that is really hard on the body and you feel very weak after the treatment. Being tired of always going to the hospital, he started to do the treatment at home. A lot of work had to be done with the master bedroom that was converted into a hospital room with two machines that would take care of that dialysis. My mom couldn't sleep in the room anymore. So we made a bedding area in the living room for her to sleep.

There weren’t many people in Montreal that had the machine at home. When he started, he was only the second person in the area. The treatment at home was done over night (8 hours of treatment) and it was 6 days a week. We could see that he was less weak and that he had more energy than doing the treatment at the hospital. The only disadvantage is that he couldn’t travel anymore and had to be home by 8 to start preparing. After a few years, he started the treatment with an artificial artery in the arm. It consists to a tube in your left arm and you use a big needle to go in the arm to do the treatment. It was a safer and healthier way to do the treatment since he didn’t have an open wound like it was with the catheter. The only disadvantage with the artificial artery is that after a year or so, it becomes hard to do the treatment because the artificial artery is all used up and a new artificial artery needs to be put in. The surgery to take out an old tube is quite dangerous because the patient could bleed to death. So the old tube was left there and the new one was place at another area on the arm.

And then suddenly, last year, when we thought everything was going on a right track, my dad started to do blood transfusions because his red blood cells were too low. After doing the bone marrow test, we were told that he was starting to do leukemia. Since it was just the beginning there was hope for a cure. So we started to do treatment immediately. The cancer was so small that chemo wasn’t needed. But the treatment wasn’t effective. He started to need platelet transfusion too. Now his blood was getting as thin as water which was very dangerous. The slightest poke gave him a bruise the size of a golf ball.

Another bone marrow test was needed. We were told that if his leukemia got worse, that he was given two years. If not, around 10 years he should live. When the results came out, it didn’t look good but a new treatment that just came out could help him. That treatment was a type of chemo. The treatment was only five days straight which consisted to destroy the entire immune system to rebuilt it afterward. That treatment was probably the worse one my dad ever went through. The treatment had to be stopped because he got really sick. But the thing is that that treatment needs to be done 5 days in a row without interruption or else it needs to be done all over again. He finally succeeded to finish the treatment after two weeks. Now the only thing was that we have to wait for the immune system to destroy itself. While waiting, my dad was back at the treatment at the hospital because of the low amount of platelets in his body. Doing the treatment with the artificial catheter was very dangerous for him in his condition. So he had to go back with the catheter treatment.

It was only at mid September that my dad got an pneumonia. Even with medication, it was getting worse. The week before he died, we were told that only a year was left for him. Two days after that, he got in the hospital by emergency because he fell off his bed. When I went to visit him at the hospital, he had an obvious black eye. The hospital had to keep him because his lungs were filling up with liquid very fast. We didn’t know if it was water or blood.Taking him to take X-rays was hard because a single movement was giving him bruises.

I still remember his face the last time I saw him. It was like yesterday that I hold him in my arms and told him that I loved him very much and he told me that he wanted to eat a hamburger. It was his way of telling me that everything was ok and not to worry about anything. He took his last breathe on October 16th at 5:30am. He was incinerated like he wished to be. Even though we were told and we all knew that it was coming one day or the other, it was a very hard moment. Sometimes, I still think that he’s alive and living with us, but just not home. . .

A little area that I have for him in my room

Picture taken a month before his death

For me he was my hero, because after all he went through, he would still smile and enjoy his life like any other person. Every time I meet someone that has the same problems of my dad, I tell them his story and I try to help them. My family and I are now supporting the Kidney Foundation of Canada to help others in that are in the same situation as us.

If you can relate to what I’ve just told here, the best thing to do is keep your head high, smile and be positive.

I love you dad and I miss you

♥♥♥

Drama rating

Hi everyone! How have you been all doing?

So I will keep this entry short for now. Just want to give you guys a heads up on what I plan do blog about in the future =) I'm a big fan of drama watching (mostly korean dramas) So I thought about giving ratings about dramas that I saw in the past or a summary of episodes of a drama that is currently airing that is very popular (or something around that). It is something that I have been thinking about doing but was too lazy to start a blog about but now that the blog is already started, why not go ahead and do the drama rating =)

I also know a few websites that you could watch them with and without downloading them on your computer. Downloading dramas on your computer is great but it does take a lot of memory.

If you guys have any suggestions or questions on dramas, don't hesitate to ask me, I will try my best to answer them, since I have seen a big amount of dramas =)

See you all soon =)

~Past, Present, Future~

Hi everyone~!

I know that I haven't been blogging that much ever since I started this blog. Why is that so? I'm working fulltime as a frontdesk clerk in a hotel in Montreal. Since I do the evening shifts ( 3pm~11pm), I gotta go to the gym for my workout in the morning. The rest of my free time during the week, I'm sleeping trying to regain some energy and during the weekend, I spend it with my boyfriend ( he doesn't have the internet). But don't get me wrong, I adore my job =D. Since the low season is coming for the hotel, the hours were cut back. I finish at 10pm at night during week days and I finish at 7:30pm on Saturday. Which means free time to atleast blog once or twice a week =). So that was the present part =P

Now let's head to the past ~

Last week, I was doing a back to back at work with my friend. Our supervisor was kindly enough to let us have a complimentary room for the night. For sure I have seen the rooms before but I haven't been in the bed to test it to see how comfy it is =P. So here is my description, as a guest, sleeping at the hotel =)

~ It was a room with two queen sized beds;

~ We were located on the 15th (couldn't be greater =P);

~ There were 5 pillows in the bed ( i love pillows!);

~ The pillows were big but comfy;

~ The down was very comfy;

~ The wake up call was soooooo loud =O

Overall, my stay was really nice, even though I had to wake up at 6am =(

At the beginning of the week, I went to a small staff diner at this awesome sushi restaurant located on Ste-Catherine's street. It's called Tokyo Sushi Inc. It's an all you can eat type of restaurant and it isn't that expensive either! One word to describe the food: awesome!

Now for the future part, I would like to tell you guys what I would like to talk about in my future blogs! So I'm a girl that follows fashion so I will try to make weekly updates on different areas in fashion such as:

~ clothing;
~ make-up;
~ hair products;
~ nail care;
~ and so on =)

So that's it for now and hopefully I will do a new entry soon enough =)

Wisdom

Ok so I just got rid of two wisdom tooth last Friday. The week before, I kept asking my friends:

"Hey! how was it when you had your wisdom tooth extracted?"

And what I got as an answer is:

"when the dentist asks you if you can feel it, say no"
"the dentist had to break my teeth in three to take it out"
"If you bleed too much, put tea bags in your mouth"

So yes, I was freaked out the week before my tooth extraction. Thinking about everything everyone has told me about the wisdom tooth extraction. So on that morning, wake up at 8 to go to my deadly 9 O'Clock appointment. My mum is a secretary in the dental office, so while waiting for my appointment, I talked to her since we are not living together anymore.

So the dentist calls me. I walk to the chair, all stressed up. I sit down with my I-pod in my hands. I was told by my sister that you hear the cracking sounds because the wisdom teeth is just next to the ear. So she starts to anesthetize my gum. Even with the music, I could hear the needle piercing my skin. So I started to panic inside:

"OMG! I hear the needle piercing through my skin! It's painful! It's going to be very painful!"

Yes, I do tend to start panicking for nothing. So here I am, on the dentist chair waiting to the extraction of two of my wisdom tooth and my gum, tongue and lip under anesthesia. So she starts asking me if I feel her poking in my mouth. So everything is good, I feel nothing. So there it is, she starts the procedure. After moving away the gum around the teeth, she takes out this big instrument to slide under the teeth to push it upwards. So she starts to push to tooth up. And there it is, the pain. I told her to stop right away. Because of the pain, she anesthetize my gum once again on that side. After two minutes, my teeth was out. It came out as easy as a hand comes out of a glove.
Now for the second teeth, she anesthetized my twice on the side. I couldn't feel the whole of my ear (I had problems putting in my earphone =P). That teeth was as easy to pull out as the first one. So I was like:

"Wow, that was quick, not painful and soundless!"

Maybe 3 hours after, my bleeding has stopped and the anesthesia has started to worn off. So here comes the first pain killer. It didn't work at all. I had to call my mum so she could talk to the dentist to prescribe me a second painkiller to make the pain go away.

The second day, I was waiting to wake up with swollen and bruised cheeks. Not at all. It didn't eve look like I just had my wisdom tooth extracted the day before. Now on Monday, I still have a lot of pain and I still have to be on a liquid diet. Now, let's see how my day at work tomorrow and the business party will be =P

Taken just a few hours after the extraction

Japanese Boyfriend

Hey everyone!
I know that it has been a very long time since I haven't updated my blog. I have been taken care of my boyfriend. He's been having big back problems and he could barely stand up and sit. So as a good girlfriend, I went to take good care of him when I wasn't working. And while that we are on the subject, I'll present to you all my boyfriend =)

He is named Lakou Inoue and he is from Japan. We've known each for almost three years right now. We've meet through a friend that I was working with. We became very close friends. Best friends. I was always there for him and he has always been there for me in the moments that I needed someone the most in my life. It's been only since March this year that we have been dating.If you are all asking what does he do in life, he's an artist. He is one of the best artists that I've seen throughout my life. Always making something new and always persevering in his project. He's currently working on a book, on his portfolio and on his website. The website is the biggest project for the moment. Many sleepless nights have passed and it should be up and running next month =). Here's a couple of his creations:

A small sizes maquette of a dragon's lair



Paintings of Joker and Venom

Pictures made on Photoshop

Busy week

Hi everyone~! I'm back for an update on my week.

So many things have been changing and happening. First thing is that I know have to be careful with my finance. As some know, I currently live with my grandmother since the beginning of the month of June. No it's not because I've lost my parents. My mum decided to move on the south shore of Montreal and since I don't have a car, it will be difficult for me to travel down to Montreal every time I'm scheduled to work. So back to the subject. I now have bills to pay like extra cable for the TV, the internet and half of the rent (which is not very expensive I must say). I do get a good pay since I work in a hotel, but since I'm planning to go to Japan next year with my boyfriend, I want to save a lot of money because a ticket to Japan around the month of April should be around 1700$CAD >.< for the airplane ticket.

Second of all, my phone may be small but it's making a big story right now. I've had it for only a year and a half and i'm only through half of my contract with Telus. So I've been searching to purchase a phone.So I had three phones that I was interested in: the Iphone, the Nokia X6 and the LG Lollipop. All my friends that are iphone haters are alll on my back but all my friends that has an iphone are telling me to get it. For the Nokia X6, it is a very nice phone but on the internet it is a very expensive phone =(. And for the LG lollipop, I've been trying to purchase it online but I've been having problems with the website and the person I contacted for help wasn't even helpful. At all. I have made my choice for the phone I want after a week. I'm keeping my choice a secret until I purchase it because I don't want people changing my mind anymore because I'm tired of looking online for more information on the phone. I have told myself that it's my decision only since I will be the one using and paying the phone.

Third of all, I went to the hair dresser this week =) I went to see EunYoung (suggested by Shmoo!!) She gives such a good service! She gave me a coloration and she was so helpful to help me choice the right color. She also gave me a haircut but it was just a trim since I already like the cut that I had but there were a lot of split ends >.< haircut =")">

My new haircut and haircolor (sorry for the lighting >.<)

And a last, I've been going to the gym since last week. Trying to get fit and lose that tummy fat and my muffin top hips that I have. I find it very hard when my boyfriend is my coach because he's hard on me, but it's for a good reason though. I need a lot of discipline when it comes to fitness because I'm a lazy person and I just love food. So now I go to the gym 4 mornings a week and I try to eat as healthy as possible. My goal is to go to 120lbs. I don't have a long way to go but I know that if I go to the gym regularly and eat healthy it's a possible goal before winter that's for sure =)

So that will be all for now. I'll try to update every week during my days off of work =)

New Arrival!!

Hey all readers!

This is my first ever blog post. Some may know me as the best friend of Fred (A.K.A Shmoo). She has inspired me of starting my own blog talking about my everyday life =)
I know that my blog may look a little boring but don't you all worry, it will be fixed up in a couple of days after I've put my new background design with a new blog entry also. Now let's start with the presentation =D

Name : Migy
Sex : Girl
Age : In the twenties =)
Status : In a relationship
Occupation : Frontdesk clerk in a hotel
Location : Montreal!!
Favorite Food : Raspberries

Feel free to ask me questions on my blog or on formspring =)

I hope to see you all soon