Wednesday, September 3rd, Day 2 Hamilton

Yesterday, I spent seven and a half hours in getting to Hamilton, and I noticed a thing that I've noticed many times before: hours spent travelling count twice. Right? They certainly feel as if they do. When I finally closed my eyes for sleep, I slept the unencumbered sleep of a child; almost instantly, it was morning. 

The flight from Calgary to Toronto was uneventful, I got my luggage without incident, and the shuttle ride out from the Lester B. Pearson International Airport was, honestly, really boring until we got past Burlington and could see the lakes and some actual scenery. The van driver dropped me off at the front doors of the Juravinski Cancer Centre, and I promptly managed to leave my wallet inside of the van. You know, as a tip, or something. I noticed it about ten minutes later, after having made my way through the JCC to the Lakeview Lodge, which is connected. I called the shuttle company, and they got in touch with the driver, who found it, and turned around to get it to me. Crisis averted. Stand down, people. Stand down!

I checked in, made several friends with staff members along the way, put my things in my room, and set about obtaining supper. For the most part, I'm going to get my meals from the hospital cafeteria, but for last night, I needed to find something on my own. Fortunately, there are a number of cafes and a very nice buffeteria in the JCC, from which I took nourishment. In fact, I took it right back to my room, ate there, and read, texted with friends, and had a couple of video chats with Ash until bedtime (which was a bit chancy, because Sasktel has changed their plans, and I wasn't actually sure at the time if I still had unlimited data; spoiler alert - I do).

Today's business has already been accomplished. I had my consult with my doctor, nurses and administrative staff, had a little photo shoot for pre/post/during comparison purposes, and got back to the Lodge just in time for my lunch tray. I made some more friends, got angry at CNN several times (because the day/dining room TV was on daytime 'news') and went to go read. 

An aside:

How CNN has the cojones to call what it shows 'news' is beyond me. Shallow, Milquetoast, washed out, brain dead garbage, being passed off as in depth analysis. It has all the depth and journalistic integrity of a floral print kiddy pool filled with Coors Light. There are one hundred and ninety-six countries in the world, and they can't find anything better to fill up a twenty-four hour news cycle than endless speculation about how political decisions today will potentially affect the next American election? Pull your collective heads out of your bottoms and do some goddamn journalism. And for the love of Jahweh, Allah, Buddha, Zeus, Odin, Home Depot, Whatever, stop pretending that rationality lies in splitting the difference between those ultra conservative wackjobs passing as today's Republican Party and everyone else.

I don't like CNN. More broadly, I don't much care for what the all-day, always-on news cycle has done to reporting, in its constant drive for ratings. 

Anyway.

Since I start my treatments tomorrow, and since I'm going to be very much required to take it easy the whole time that I'm here, there won't be much of a tourism angle to my Hamilton posts. I might go for a walk this afternoon, see if I can find a Tim Horton's, just because it's Canada, and I expect there to be one within a kilometre of me at all times, in any city. I'm not even a double-double enthusiast, it's just nice to see something familiar from time to time.

I took the shell off my racing snail, thinking it would make him run faster. If anything, it made him more sluggish.