Sugar, Spice and Everything Nice

Stuff of Life I just went back and re-read one of my blogs which had left off with a bit of a "cliff hanger." I mentioned our trip to the West Edmonton Mall waterpark, and my MRI experience! I thought maybe I'd fill you in on the details today. First, the MRI. I decided to participate in a University of Alberta study on post-partum depression and glucose levels in certain areas of the brain (at least I think it was glucose... it was related anyways). At the time I was nearly 8 months post-partum, and I was still dealing with some of the aftereffects of giving birth in terms of finding balance emotionally and what-not. As well, I figure it's important to help where you can with research. especially if it may lead to quality of life improvements for others. The good thing about the study was that childcare was provided! I seriously would not have participated if it wasn't... if I arrange childcare myself, trust me, I am NOT using to participate in medical research! So the nurse in the office took the kiddies and played with them in a little room full of toys, and took them for a walk and even bought them french fries! They were quite happy with the whole experience. As for myself, I answered a LOT of questions about myself, my history, my family, my medical history (surgeries, etc...). I have to tell you right now that that sort of interview process reeeealy makes me look crazy on paper! The question about have you ever seen visions or heard voices in your head - my answer was "yes." Now tell me that doesn't make you think I'm just a wee bit unbalanced! Of course I had to explain that it was during a prayer experience many years ago and it wasn't so much an audible voice as a sort of understandable wordless presence... okay, I just realized that no matter how I explain it, I'm gonna look weird on paper! Oh well. That's me. It's who I am! I've been in an MRI machine before for my knee, but this was completely different because they were doing a brain scan, so as well as being inserted in a very narrow tube, I also had this visor-like thing around my head. Quite claustrophobia inducing really! They had attached a mirror to the visor so that you could see out the end of the tube to the clock on the wall, but that's about it! As well the clock appeared not only upside down, but backwards as well so tellin time was quite a brain teaser! I decided to close my eyes for as long as I could so that my anxiety about a small semi-enclosed space would decrease... what you can't see can't hurt you, right? So after 15 minutes I opened my eyes, checked the time, and closed them again. Ten minutes passed... check the clock... close my eyes... five minutes... check... five... check... I should tell you that the MRI machine is REALLY LOUD! I had earplugs in (yuck they gross me out) and those ear protectors like you see air traffic controllers on the runway wearing. But it was still a lot of banging and clicking and thumping. The magnets in the machine are really strong and basically what they do is polarize all the atoms (molecules?) in your body by spinning them with the magnets, then they "release" the molecules and take pictures while the molecules reorient themselves. Some molecules reorient slower than others so that's how they can take pictures and tell one kind of molecule (e.g. glucose) from another (e.g. protein). It doesn't hurt... in fact you can't feel anything. So there I am in the machine and I'm hearing: boom... click... kang kang kang... buh-boom... tat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat... brrrrrrrrrrr... king... king... boom... And so forth. And I'm waiting for time to pass thinking this will definitely be worth the $150 bonus they give for participating (which I'm using to treat myself to scrapbooking supplies and which, by the way, they haven't sent me yet, so I'll have to e-mail and remind them). And the last time I looked at the clock there was 25 minutes left. The next thing I know there's a bright light and I'm being extracted from the machine. I had fallen asleep. That's like falling asleep next to a jackhammer! Well, it just goes to show how tired a mother of 3 can get! REALLY TIRED! Well, I intended to share about WEM, but I'm going to go take a bath gefore wrapping Christmas presents! Scrapbook Idea of the Day Another Layout for you... this time without pictures! Yes. I am the great unfinisher! Used the Symphony (I think that's the title) paper pack and some chipoard letters which i covered with the paper (see detail above). I also ran a pice of the solid paper through an embossing/diecutting machine then sanded the embossed areas to bring out the pattern (see bottom right of the left page. All in all it turned out okay. I really like the papers, but have to find pictures to match!