So I thought I’d share another slight glimpse into what a day in my life looks like.
At the very beginning of each day I am completely dependent on somebody coming to me and helping me get dressed and out of bed. So if that person calls in sick or is late, I simply need to wait. I am utterly dependent on them.
Well this morning was quite a start to the day. I did my usual morning routine of the three S’s, with some help from my personal support worker of course (Well actually I didn’t shave but you know…)
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.
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…
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.
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.
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.
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.
Riding my bike the 7km to work
Can’t make it
Down the alley
Behind the dumpster
Ah. Relief
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.
