I got the blues!

I am very sick with a cold virus. It was getting worse.  I coughed every two hours the night before. Last night hubby took me into our ER. I had an X-ray, and I don't have pneumonia! Thankfully, I was two hours in the ER, including the X-ray, it wasn't too busy at all. They put me on a ventolin mask for a half hour. What relief! 

Hubby has been amazing! I'm not really hungry. Drowning in phlegm, it takes a lot of coughing to clear out my lungs in the morning. There are worries about antibiotic resistant bacteria, and physicians are being really careful about prescribing unnecessary antibiotics. Our young ER physician, seriously, looked old enough to drive, but not old enough to vote. He is a caring, educated doctor, though. I told him, with my raspy voice (laryngitis, too), that I think I picked up this terrible virus from my hospice client! He said, 'That's ironic!' Yeppers.

We've had 45 visits to healthcare for his cancer appointments. It's been give and take. He is a good nurse!

2014

Even more ironic that my client battled it more easily than I did.
I got all sorts of bugs from my students. In 25 years teaching there wasn't a bug I didn't come across! It always lands in my lungs. I often had laryngitis, I know many teachers do, too! Not to moan and roil in self-pity, I'm so grateful I don't have to worry about calling in sick! I am lounging on the couch with chick flicks hubby has brought home. He's a peach!

Memories

I remember being home sick at one point in 2000. I had a gr. 8 class. We had several projects in the works, including a video we were making about Blues in the Schools. There was a timeline. I emailed Red, one of my favourite students, and told her she was in charge. She was up to it. When you write in your day book, 'video', there is no way to tell an occasional teacher what to do. Thankfully, we had a good one, and the video was made. Red had a blast being in charge. This was the year we participated in Blues in the Schools! The ultimate event was a July performance on the Bluesfest stage.

I saw Red a couple of years later. She was volunteering at an Ottawa festival. You get comfort knowing you helped a young lady find her footing.

learning the drums

Happy memories!

They called themselves the Spice Girls!

I taught some kids to use the camera and the school videocamera. 

"Ya sing the blues,
so ya don't got the blues no more!" –T.J. Wheeler

Not only playing music, we integrated the arts and created murals for Bluesfest. The roots of blues music are the slave songs and sorrow songs African slaves would sing in the fields. They were forced to leave behind their beautiful musical instruments, but created a diddley bo in the 30's (Hey, Bo Diddley!) and the blues had a baby, they called it rock and roll!

Derek Debeer and Trevor Findlay,
Ottawa-based musicians