No swimming at the lake this year; 230 days away from home

For at least the past 10 years we as a family have been going to a camp to spend a week together. It has become a part of my annual rhythm of life to go there with other family friends, leave behind the day-to-day grind, enjoy being in nature, and relax. One of my favourite things to do there was to swim every afternoon in the lake. Something about floating around in lake water really does it for me (especially being able to pee guilt free in the water…) I think partially because it evens the playing field. When I’m in the water I don’t need to walk and I seem to be able to swim just fine. Like everyone else, I’m simply swimming around without the need of a mobility device.

• 0
• September 12, 2018

Day 222 away from home…

The other day one of the people I am getting to know here at Bellwoods showed me her garden. She has been in a wheelchair for her entire life due to a disease that she was born with. She’s very smart and kind though sometimes people look down on her because they judge the disease and not the person.
But I digress…

• 1
• September 4, 2018

I will not let you go until you bless me

When I saw this picture for the first time, possibly a decade ago now, it pierced my heart. I just couldn’t forget it. It really spoke to me in that I felt as though it was a picture of my own story. I promised myself that I would someday tattoo that picture on my arm. Yesterday, after way too many years of thinking about it, I finally did it.

• 1
• August 24, 2018

199 Days Away from Home

there is that big giant tree in front of me. I suppose if I knew about trees I would know what kind of tree this was. But as I gaze on it in a form of meditation, I see two things. One is a tree that is reaching to the blue sky at any cost. The other is a tree that is heavy with its burden of the leaves and branches drooping towards the ground.

• 1
• August 12, 2018

A Shitty few weeks (191 Days away from home)

It happened to be the same night that some guy in his 20s with apparently significant mental health issues took a gun and went out onto the Danforth and shot up the whole neighborhood. It was the same street that my family and I had dinner on just a few hours earlier.
People lost their lives.
People lost their friends.
People lost their sense of safety.

• 9
• August 4, 2018

170 days away from home: An Update

One last major update is that the renovations on our home have finally kicked into high gear. Our basement is now officially demolished and we’re soon about to dig down the floor and do the underpinning so as to make our basement more liveable for me.

• 0
• July 14, 2018

I Gotta Pee- A Poem

Riding my bike the 7km to work
Can’t make it
Down the alley
Behind the dumpster
Ah. Relief

• 1
• July 9, 2018

On finishing 21 years of living with MS.

At Summer solstice I’m reminded that this was around the time of year when I was first diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 1997.
I’m ‘celebrating’ 21 years of life with this disease.

• 0
• June 24, 2018

Who am I?

Since having to leave work because of my health, I’ve had nothing but time on my hands. And when I have all kinds of time, I have all kinds of thoughts.
Lately the main one running through my head is ‘who the heck am I now?’

• 6
• June 16, 2018

Endings and New Beginnings. Day 114 of being in hospital. (Part 3 of 3)

But here’s where you might think I’m losing it; It all started with a dream. I don’t remember dreams well, including this one, but I woke up the next morning feeling as though it’d be worth checking out becoming a SD myself. Up until that point in time, I never once had this thought.

• 0
• May 19, 2018