Remember When?

Remember a couple of weeks ago when I had to go downtown to Mount Sinai Hospital and I bitched and complained about how much I hated going downtown?

Well, we had to go again yesterday for (what I thought was) my MRI guided biopsy. As it turned out it was just a plain old breast MRI. I almost started crying when the tech told me it wasn't a biopsy, I know my surgeon was specific about this. I can have an MRI anywhere, I don't need to go to the ends of the earth for it. The reason for going there was for the biopsy part, that only some hospitals are equipped to do. I explained the whole thing to her - still nearly crying.

She explained to me that yes, they do it, but that there was no way their Dr's would do it just on the request of another Dr. Their Dr's would do an initial MRI to see if there was anything worth biopsying (did I make a word up?) at all.  It did make sense and I should be happy that it's like a second opinion on that breast, they aren't just looking at other images and reading other Dr's reports. And, as the tech pointed out, these Dr's are breast specialists, they ONLY deal with breasts so they may interpret the results differently, knowing what "blips" may be worth investigating further and which ones aren't.  

The downside is that I will likely have to go back to Mt Sinai again to have the biopsy.  Oh well, that's my life now.

The appointment was at night so when we got out of the hospital it was dark, cold and raining. And I loved it. The hospital is right down the street from Queen's Park which looks pretty in the day and even prettier at night.

It made me think about when Sean and I were younger; when we were dating. In the winter we used to go down to Nathan Phillips Square and go skating. We'd get hot chocolate and then after we'd walk down to The Bay and  look at the Christmas windows.  It reminded me of one time we brought my brother in law with us down there, he had just moved to Ontario from Newfoundland.  He rented skates and they broke right out from under him.

For years now I've wanted to do that with the kids, take them skating at the Square and see the Christmas windows at the Bay. But there has always been reasons we couldn't. And again this year, another reason. There is no way I could skate with this sciatica and by then I'll likely feel even crappier because of the cumulative affect of the chemo. Next year. For sure.

On our way home, I was starving so I asked Sean to stop at Texas Burger. Texas Burger is to Durham as Johnny's is to Scarborough (though the owners are less 'Soup Nazi'ish when you order and you can sit down to eat)  When we lived in Ajax Sean and I went there all the time. So we went in and ordered and when the guy called me up to get my burger he said "It was great to see you guys again" 

Now really, this place does some serious business. And we haven't been there in like 2 year and before that it was probably another 2 years. But he remembered us. That to me, is really customer service, remembering someone who had been a regular almost 10 years ago. Amazing.

We also drove around our old neighbourhood. We talked about when life was simpler. We laughed about the park took Emily tobogganing at for the first time and  I was too scared to let her go down the bigger hill so I had Sean push her sled along a little slope. We passed the park that we had to drive to because the one walking distance from our house was too crappy for our little girl. We talked about the qualities our old house had that we loved that our new house lacks ( a big kitchen, huge bedrooms, a walk in and en suite in the master) but that this house is  better because it has room for our whole family and a big backyard.

Last night was nice walk down memory lane.