Off to the big city

Friday night saw the arrival of my mother from New Zealand. She had decided she wanted to be here with me and help me get through this initial round of appointments and treatment, rather than facing it all alone. It's a bitter sweet visit - as much as I love having her here and am enjoying showing her our new life here in Canada, it is always in the background that she is here because I'm sick.

As well as my mother, Friday night also graced us with the first snowfall of the season! We were all very excited, mom not so much. I'm sure she thinks we are nuts for actually enjoying this weather! :)

Before we knew it, Tuesday had arrived and it was time to load the car up and head to the city. After a couple of delays to get the keys for the place we would be staying in, food and drink for the long 5 hour drive, and a full tank of gas, it was time to hit the road.

Now the drive to edmonton is loooooong. 5 hours of straight roads, maniac drivers and lots of big trucks.  Thankfully the roads had cleared from the lovely dumping of snow over the weekend, so I didn't have to deal with *that* too!  So we're cruising along, chatting away when all of a sudden my car starts beeping at me and my engine overheat warning comes on. I pull over and discover I have not a single drop of coolant left, which is strange because there was some there the week before when I checked! Thank god for AMA membership - a quick call to them to come rescue me, with a promise that someone would be there within the hour.

So here we are, 2 hours out of town, on the side of the highway, waiting to be rescued. Something I hadn't considered before, it gets really really cold sitting in a car on the side of the highway, surrounded by snow, and unable to run the engine to keep warm! I did ponder at one pint - why can't they make cars out of sheepskin instead of metal? It would be much more cozier when you've broken down!

Finally, two hours later (I guess the AMA has a different concept of time to us normal stranded people) the tow truck arrived - literally my knight in shining armour, of sorts.  We debated what to do from here. I thought there is no point dropping me at the local gas station to buy coolant - I had obviously lost my coolant for a reason, so I'd likely just break down again. I needed it checked by a mechanic. I also needed to be in edmonton, so might as well tow me directly there. So he loaded the car up, and we were on our way. Great, I'll really be arriving in style now!

The tow guy - mike - asked if we would mind stopping at the next town so he could buy some food. We said that would be fine - was busting for the toilet by this stage anyway. So we stopped for a   quick stop, and about 20 minutes later, we were back on the road again. Then Mike dropped the next bombshell. He needed to fill the truck with gas, and for that he had to go back to base. So now we were detouring through Athabasca. We finally get to the fuelling stop, and the drama starts. Mike can't find his wallet. He hunts through the truck, through his bag, his coat, any place he could think of. Nothing, nada, zilch, zippo. There is no wallet. He calls his boss, and arranges to get a spare fuel card. Then he calls the place we stopped at - thankfully his wallet is there, he must have dropped it in his hurry. Crisis over. So now we head back to the tow truck company to collect the fuel card, back to the fuelling stop to fill the truck, and hallelujah, we are finally back on the road to Edmonton! Hopefully we should get into town by 8pm, so it's all good.

Mom and I had to laugh when we were driving into the truck yard - it's off a back deserted road, it's dark, and there is no one else around. It was like a scene from a cheesy movie - had we just been abducted and naively trusted a serial killer? Because really, how do this many things go wrong to set it up so nicely to lure us into a deserted area? Hahahaha. Thankfully, he was actually a nice guy who just wanted a fuel card :)

Now blow me down if we didn't get 10 minutes down the road when the truck starts driving funny. So he stops to check it out - the trucks lug nuts are loose. I have no idea what this means, but it seemed to upset poor Mike, who now had to call his boss again! So we are now sitting on the side of the road waiting for some special tool to arrive. Thank god we are only 10 minutes out! Ah, no, scrap that. It still took over half an hour for the guy to arrive with the special tool. So they're fussing around, scratching their heads a bit, and then he breaks the news. The truck is stuffed and we will have to change tow trucks. What?????? Are you freaking kidding me?

So it's back to the truck yard to offload the car onto another truck.

After a bit of stuffing around, we finally had the car loaded onto the new truck and we were on our way!  Wait, no.  Scrap that.  Back to the fuelling stop to fill up - again - and then we were on our way!  Long story short, we spent the rest of the night in an over hot truck (i think he thought we would be cold because we weren't used to Alberta winters yet) listening to loud country music.  My mother and I were pretty cranky by the time we *finally* reached Edmonton!  We found the car dealership to off load the car, and then the tow truck guy was kind enough to drive us to the place we were going to be staying at.  We finally got to our final destination just on midnight.  It had taken just over 12 hours to get here - crazy!

I had been booked for several tests the next day - and I was to be fasting from midnight, but I hadn't eaten since around 11am.  So I crossed my fingers that I wouldn't get into trouble for eating just past midnight, and scoffed down a bowl of rice and soup.   Then it was into bed to get a few hours sleep before my fun filled day of getting scanned.

I tell ya - after such a run of bad luck today, surely things can only get better from here!