Margery Tee: sometimes you just have those days

Today was a fun/interesting day. I decided I was going to knit myself a hat. I started out really well, for a first time hat maker, but the problem was the circular needles I was working on at first were way too long and were stretching out my work to the point where it was messing up my tension. So I started again. but this time the wire part of the circular needles were all screwy and bent, which made working with them a living hell. To fix this I boiled them in water and they are now sitting in between a tonne of books and printer paper flattening out.

Later on Johanna, Jackie and I met up to go to Fair November (a craft show) in the UC (university centre). It was a bit of a let down this year, usually it's great but it just seemed to be a whole lot of the same things. There were a tonne of woodworking, sewing, and jewelry, but not much else. There were very few food people, and one or two metal workers. sort of boring really.

Then the fun part of the day started, Jo and I went off to our foal watch orientation. For those of you who don't know foal watch is a group of volunteers who work 24/7 in the neo-natal intensive care unit in Guelph's large animal clinic. Anyways, usually this is a fairly boring routine thing. So we all arrive, Jo, my friend Brittany, and I were the only three in the orientation of about 9 who had experience doing foal watch. While were were reviewing/learning about naso-gastric tubes and how to feed a foal using one one of the girls standing right in front of me passed out! She completely collapsed to the side fell down and hit her head sickeningly hard on the corner of the cinder block wall! It was absolutely terrifying. There was a moment when she was crumpled on the floor that we were all sort of standing there thinking should we touch her? when she rolled over the "leader" of the orientation went over to her and asked if she was ok etc. She had the complete look of "who are you...who am I?...what's going on?" and wasn't answereing anyquestions and already had a gigantic purple lump on her head. The leader was trying to get her to talk, and then all of a suddden she decided she was going to get up, the leader was very nice and was saying "oooohhh, i don't think you should be getting up, maybe you should sit down" I was like ... wait a second here I have first aid training! so I walked up to she looked her in the eye and told her to sit down. VOILA! she sat! (boy can I command a group) anyways so, i started going through protocol; medic-alert bracelet? nope. Has this happened before? she couldn't tell me. Do you know where you are? can't tell me. do you want water? yes. ok got a fresh bottle of water from one of the girls. The bump was about the size of a ping pong ball now, so I told the leader to keep her down and keep talking to her. Brittany and I went to get ice...(luckily we were in a sorta hospital :P) Came back with the ice, she wasn't doing much better. So, Jo and I went and phoned First Response the on campus first aid team. Jo waited for them at the front desk and I stayed on the phone with emergency services, to keep them updated on her condition. the "first wave" of people came and I went to wait for the next batch. They came and took over the situation. Now what to do with the rest of the people, we felt really bad because everyone was just standing around watching. So, Brittany, Jo, and I lead the rest of the orientation! and we did a better job than the real leader if i say so myself! Hooray for us! First Response called a cab and sent her and her friend off to the hospital. Personally if you ask non doctor me I think she's gonna have a good concussion.

I also thought I would share some photos I took on a walk down to the speed river. It was so pretty the day I went, and there definitely wasn't as much snow as there is now.