Birthday full of surprises

Well, today I turned 38 years old. What is that saying - another year older, another year wiser? Well, older yes, wiser -will have to get back to you on that or better yet ask friends or family if that is the case. Personally, I think I have become stronger - this year so far professionally has been like WOW. The doors that can lead to different avenues in my field were open - the reabstracting study; my scanning of charts at the cancer (this is the beginning end of the infamous electronic paperless health record); becoming an inpatient coding trainer on top of being a trainer for the Daysurgery discipline and recently being a data collection assistance for a breast cancer research project (it is on the molecular level - genetics to your risk of metastasic breast cancer). I have grown stronger in my confidence to push my "comfort zone" larger to encompass so much more than my own expectations. For me it is a cool observation - knowing how low my self esteem was at one point.

Yesterday (16th), I walked into the Tom Baker scanning room and I saw in the distance a gift bag - and I replied - thanks gals (kidding of course) - here it was actually for me. Lori, Karen and Jen had bought me this cute teddy bear (oh my - is it ever soft). I was so touched as it was totally unexpected. Just the thoughtfulness - wow. This morning I arrived at my desk at ACH (my home site is FMC), and my desk is fully decorated with a balloon, noise makers and Happy Birthday Banners and a plate of homemade lemon cookies. Here, Rhonda from FMC (we sit beside each other at FMC) had come over last night and did all that for me. The coders at ACH smiled as they were impressed on how "all out we go" for our birthdays. The ACH had given me a card on Friday - unexpected as I only met them like 2 weeks ago when I came over to train a coder in the inpatient discipline.

I got singing messages too - My sister inlaw Kristin sang for me as well as my "sister" Amy - they both did beautiful - thanks guys!!

Of course, my Birthday week started off with so much fun with my second family and all the kids. I smile every time I see my elephant - it is going to be a great memory for me and I am thinking for all of them too. We have plenty of photos capturing our time together too - I have our group photo as my desktop wallpaper at both FMC and ACH!!! One more celebrate get together - tomorrow I am meeting up with close family friends Marilyn and Wally as well as their son Chris at Stage West - dinner theatre. Marilyn and Wally have spoiled me -ever since I have moved to Calgary in 2005 they have treated me to a night at Stage West. It is always a great time to catch up from our busy summers.

If you can't already figure it out - this has been a great birthay - the best birthday present one can receive is the time with family and friends - plus if you have someone like me - camera happy - you will have photos to look back on to remind you of those times too.

Thank you everyone for your wishes - I have loved all of them.