Bruce Wayne

It's a funny thing how our pets can come to reflect our own personalities, how they make us practice compassion, and how they can make us realize so much about our own character.

Bruce was a great kitty. He was really young and starving when he showed up on our back deck. I had to feed him. At that moment, he adopted us as his family. Not that any of us could get anywhere near him at first. We've been lucky to have him in our lives for almost 5 years, and only recently had he actually started to enjoy spending time inside with us. But he secretly loved to be cuddled, and loved, as long as he knew you. And, as long as you weren't too loud. Unfortunately he left us on Wednesday night.

I'm not very good at dealing with sick animals, but I was forced to deal with it on Wednesday. It was hard. I'm sensitive. Thank god I wasn't alone. It's lonely at  home without him. Another reminder of how fragile life is. I feel like the world is trying to tell me something.

Now I'm left with a grumpy old cat with arthritis. Who secretly also loves cuddles. Only on his own terms.

The Right Thing

Being disabled I have learned so much. Most of us can try and sympathize with people with disabilities, but actually living it is something completely different. Although my disabilities were temporary, I basically had the opportunity to experience being fully paralyzed, being mute, not being fully blind, but unable to read, all the while being in the most excruciating pain I've ever experienced in my life.

I was talking to a friend of mine last night and she mentioned taking a caregiving course to takeover caring for her brother, so when her parents get old there's someone to look after him. He was in an accident a few years ago and is now permanently in a wheelchair. My first question for her was if she actually asked her brother about it first. She said no, but was surprised by my reaction and of course gave the response of just trying to do the 'right thing'. The thing that I learned in the hospital is that the right thing isn't always what you would expect. Some people prefer to have a professional person from homecare come and help them to take care of themselves. And sometimes the government will help pay for these programs. Some people love to have their families take care of them. Some people's families can't handle taking care of a disabled person. That can be a very large responsibility depending on the person. My point is that it really varies, and that it's important to have open discussions about these things so that everyone can make informed decisions. There's lots of counselling and transitional services available for people if you know where to look.

It was okay for my parents when I came home because they had the freedom to take sometime away from work, but not everyone has that time. And I know how hard it is for me sometimes to still accept help from my family and I'm getting to need less and less of it. But I was definitely one grumpy Gus when I couldn't do anything on my own. I was raised to be independent, and now that I'm thirty, losing that suddenly has been unsurprisingly very difficult for me.

Practice makes perfect

I've been looking at the goals I set for last year. Oh, it's hard to imagine that there's anything in there that I might actually accomplish by the end of the sheep year, but I realized that I set a lot of similar goals for the year of the monkey since I didn't quite get to participate in a large portion of my sheep year. So it makes it a bit easier. I can just sort of start early. Get ahead of the game per say. Start getting into the habit of doing a lot of the things I got out of the habit of doing while I was laid up in the hospital, or just things I never really got the hang of in the first place. For example, mom and I are now journaling buddies. Every Wednesday we check on each other. See how things are going.

I've also been approached by one of my therapists for a project for the Glenrose Foundation. She asked me if I would be interested in journaling about my experience at the Glenrose for a couple of weeks. Apparently they're finding it difficult to communicate to donors what the Glenrose really does and what is really involved in a person's rehabilitation. I agreed to be a part although there's no guarantee that they'll use any of the things that I write. I thought it might be a good tool for me to practice my writing, particularly about such a difficult and confusing part of my life. Never turn down a good opportunity.

I find myself more tired than before (shocking I know). So it's hard to make myself accomplish the things I want. But I get even more tired when I just lay around watching movies or reading. So there's the rub I suppose. It might take me some time to figure all this new stuff out I guess.

Quantitative Measurements

My physiotherapy this week was awesome. It had been 3weeks since my last therapy because my therapist had taken some time off. We did a few reassessments that hadn't been done yet since my discharge and the results were really exciting for me. 

We did a balance test which, the first time when I arrived at the Glenrose, I scored something like 15 out of 56. Before I was discharged I did the same assessment and scored 35 out of 56. Today I scored 54 out of 56! Talk about improvement. As much as I don't like doing all those assessments it's nice sometimes to have some kind of measurement of my progress. 

One of the most frustrating things is that the advancements that I make are such minute differences from day to day, sometimes it's hard to see. But it reminds me of the progress I've made personally over the past few years with the I Ho Chuan and all of the time I spent in China. If I just looked at my progress on a daily basis the changes are hard to see. It's important to live in the moment, but sometimes it's also really valuable to take a step back and look at where you've come from. Who you used to be. And that's when you really get a fresh perspective. It gives you a way to see how much you've truly changed and grown. 

Truths

I try not to lie. I make a very strong effort to be truthful in my interactions with my friends and family and to not put myself in a position where I feel the need to lie to someone. If I lose touch with a friend because I forgot to respond to an email, or because I was struggling to find words to say, I usually am quite able to admit it honestly.  I have been working on two areas of my life in the past couple of years, and although I've made improvements, I still sometimes lose my way.

One, is if I know someone will be hurt by the truth. I know honesty is generally the best policy, but if it's someone that I really care about I struggle internally with the decision. Sometimes it really just has to be done. Rip the bandaid off so they say. But often I find I try to avoid the subject or talk my way around it trying to come up with ways to soften the blow. Usually the person doesn't appreciate that approach, but it's always this difficult approach for me. I hate hurting people.

The second struggle is myself. I made a goal this year to not lie to myself. That's about when it comes to goal setting and procrastination and also when it comes to my inhhhner motivation and taking a deep look at my actions and my decision making. I've often been the type to take action and think later, and I really wanted to spend some time this year looking at what I wanted to accomplish. Interestingly, things as we all know, didn't really go according to plan. But it has left me with a lot of things to think about. I just don't know that I ended up any more self aware. Being honest with yourself is sometimes one of the hardest things to do.. And this is totally not what I had started blogging about.. I don't know how I ended up here.

Support

Life is strange.

I've often felt grateful to be who I am. Of course I have regrets, and there's things I wish I could change. But I have a wonderful family. I've never really wanted for anything. I've followed many of my dreams. And because I worked hard to do it, I really appreciated the value in the journey. Up until this year I've been very healthy and happy.

I don't know that I could write a list of names in this blog of all the people I could thank for supporting me in the past 5 months. I could start with some of my lovely ICU nurses. I spent six weeks there. Not being able to say a word. And some of them treated me like gold. Giving me ice baths so I didn't feel like I was going to cook to death. My respiratory therapists, who came to check on me constantly to make sure my breathing was okay, especially when I was trying to get off the ventilator. The physios I had. I remember the first time I sat up. and how I cried because I was so afraid. The thought of it still makes me cry. 

The gardens at Devon. People coming to visit while we sat in the beautiful gardens. The cooks coming to deliver my meals and bringing me icecream. The nurses dancing in my room while singing some "Jam" that I had never heard. Standing for the first time with the physios. 

The Glenrose. I worked my butt off there. I barely had an open hour in my schedule. But it was so worth it. Yvonne, my OT. Jim, my hand class teacher, Renae, my rec assistant, and Andrew my physio. I spent the past month and a half with them. And it's insane how much progress I made, but also how much I enjoyed my time with them. The nurses were so great. Stop to chat in the halls, give you leftover cupcake from a nurses birthday party. 

And my family. From the beginning. My parents coming in everyday and putting up with my grumpiness. My cousin and aunt a few times a week. My grandma was there as much as possible. My aunt came up from Calgary for a week. My uncle was laid off, so he was sleeping there with me. Obviously my lovely sister. But even her husband Simon spent a large part of his holiday here in the hospital with me. 

My friends from kung fu. You guys don't really know how much it meant. It's funny. I actually made some friends in the hospital. Some people that I knew from the school, but I had never seen outside of class. But yes, you made a special effort to keep coming to see me. And your visits meant so much. A lifeline to the kwoon. So I could stay engaged as much as possible. Even when I couldn't really speak. You were willing to come 

Anyways.. as you can see, this could go on forever, and the tips of my fingers are starting to get achy from the keys, although Jim would be encouraging this activity I'm sure. The point of all this is, all of you touched my life in a very special way. Thank you.

New Fears

So I've got my discharge date... the 30th of September. I tell people, and everyone's really excited for me. Won't it be so nice to go home? I'm so lucky my parents happen to have a wheelchair accessible house. I know right?

The truth, that I don't want to tell them, is that I'm really afraid. I don't want to go home in a wheelchair. I don't want someone to have to be there taking care of me. Here, everything is designed to be easily accessible. But life isn't like that.

I can't even drive. I got my license the day I turned 16 so I could have the freedom! This is just not how I expected my life at home again to be.

I'm sure this is something a lot of people go through at this phase of their rehabilitation.

I guess this is life's next big test for me.. We'll just see how I come out on the other side.