Thoughts on Glamour

About a week after I gave birth to Little C I developed a blood clot in my thigh. It's a risk of pregnancy and was brought on by the trauma of delivery. I was more prone to the risk because I have one copy of factor V, which is a blood clotting disorder. I had gotten phlebitis about 7 years ago when a friend of mine died and a bunch of us drove out to Alberta for the funeral.
(I live in the MB part, basically where the blue dot is)
 Being stuck in the back of a truck for 19 hours there and 19 hours back brought it on. With the drama of that experience, I learned what to look for in case it ever happened again.

Ta-daaa.

Ok, so when I saw the red circle and felt the sore leg, I called the Dr's office immediately and was brought in same day to get an ultrasound done. It was a bit of a runaround, 20 minutes there, an hour and a half here, an hour back, but the long story short is the clot was 1 cm away from being a DVT and I was put on warfarin pills and fragmin shots. It was very dramatic at the time but things have settled down now. I go to the hospital and get my blood INR tested monthly to make sure my blood is therapeutic (ie. not too thin and not too thick).

Today I hadn't showered, I wore pants that hadn't been washed in quite some time, a shirt that 'fit' (although it feels too short) and a teal sweater. I only have one pair of black flats that feel comfy so I wore those (carrying a baby around is hard work). My hair was down except for the front part being pinned back. I felt frumpy but I was in a hurry.

After my blood was taken, I walked down to the nurses station to say hi to my mom (she's a nurse there), and one of the nurses complimented me on my outfit. Something 'are going somewhere fancy? You're all dressed up' came out of her mouth. I kinda didn't know what to say, so what came out of my mouth is "umm, these pants fit. And this shirt is clean. I don't know why I'm wearing a sweater, it's hot outside har har har...but thanks for the compliment!".

So I guess it just goes to show that glamour is in the eye of the beholder. She thought I was dressed up fancy and I thought I was dressed 'ok'. I made a conscious effort to wear makeup (which I will try to do more often) and that's just a confidence booster.

Glamour in Manitoba is almost laughable. Canada is such a multicultural world that it has no place for a one size fits all, pigeonhole 'glamorous' model. Manitoba, especially, seems like a big fashion drought. We're not Parisian, we're not beach babes, we're not boho-chic, we're not exotic. But... somehow we take a smidgen of this and a dash of that and accept everyone's style with a grain of salt. I imagine most of our style is 'American' but even that's not entirely true. Canada, especially the Prairies, should, and does, have it's own unique brand of style and I hope I can find it.