Saturday, November 14, 2009

Wednesday, November 11, 2009

Remembrance Day



IN FLANDERS FIELDS
by John McCrae

In Flanders Fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.


We are the dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw the sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie,
In Flanders fields.


Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.






Tuesday, November 10, 2009

65_RedRoses


I'm not quite sure what I want to write here, and even more unsure how to phrase it without sounding cheesy. So please bear with me.

The Internet can be a fantastic place. It allows us to visit far away places, introduces us to people from all walks of life and in all kinds of situations. It also opens our eyes to the plights and the triumphs of others. Over the years I've discovered a great number of people with fantastic life stories to tell. Stories of conquests, coping and just stories of, and about, really neat people! Granted, most of these stories I've discovered revolve around people who, by no fault of their own, are in need of an organ transplant. I'll probably never meet any of these people or will I ever know them, but I'm so very grateful for knowing of them through the Internet.

One such person is Eva Markvoort. She's a 26 year old dynamo with CF...and what a spirited person she is. Her story is also the focus of a documentary airing in November on CBC's 'The Passionate Eye'. I urge you to tune and watch it. Also, Visit her blog at http://65redroses.livejournal.com/ and get to know her yourself!

Oh...and please sign up to be an organ donor!

Thursday, November 5, 2009

Flu Shots

Well, yet another week slips by and I am going stir crazy sitting in this house! Don't get me wrong, I'm very appreciative of the rest...but good grief! I have a list of stuff I would love to tackle but am limited to what I can do due to the 'no heavy lifting' clause. I did do some cleaning and organising in my garage and the leaves have all been raked up and out to the curb, but I want to do some other chores and I can't! The other thing that saddens me is I've become fat. Yes, I have this dual ring of blubber that surrounds my midriff section and it is in fact fatty, blubbery, flabby tissue. The first ring is my fat belly, the newest ring is, shamefully, my gunt. My pants don't fit me anymore and I can no longer wrap a towel around my waist and have it stay there on its own just by tucking the ends over and inside. Know why? Cause I'm fat! Fat caused by inactivity! I'm hideous...look away.


So yesterday I decided to get my seasonal flu shot. Yaaa, I figured it had been way to long since I had any needles jammed into me and I missed the smell of alcohol swabs! Sooooo, I shuffled off to the walk-in flu clinic down the road....actually I drove cause I'm fat and lazy. Anyways, I try to get the flu shot every year, and even though I did the liver donation this year, I still needed a flu shot. Now, to be honest, I had no problem with them giving me the flu shot, it was the H1N1 shot that spooked me! After all, it's teeming with mercury and bleach! How would my system handle that? My body is so busy rebuilding liver cells would either shot make me sick? What if I had a reaction? What if I got the flu from the shot itself!? Bleeh!! Actually, a quick email the day before to Cailin at TGH set me straight! I would have no problem with either shot. So no worries!

The wait time at the clinic wasn't so bad, maybe 15 minutes for registering, 30 minute wait for the shots and then the 15 minute 'calm-down' period. The worst thing was they gave me one shot in each arm. The shots didn't hurt going in, but a couple of hours later my arms felt like dead weight and man were they sore! Not only that, I feel all flu-ish. Not good for fat little guys like me. Needless to say, I'm a bit sore still.

We got snow today too! No big accumulations mind you, but it snowed! Not a big of fan of the snow and cold. Winter sucks!

Oh yaa, I was going to post the video of my last blood thinner shot on here but guess what? The camera I used to record that very piece of visual history didn't save the clip! Or it did and I can't find it. In any case, if the clip should be found, I'll post it.