The Healing Power of Social Support

Nature is a great healer, but so is the support you get from relatives and friends.  I wasn't really aware of what was going on for the first few weeks way back in Feb., but recently I've learned that my wife, my son, and my sister were all there for three weeks straight.  That was a huge part of my survival!

After that, they all took turns coming for 1-3 days a week.  Sure made me feel wanted!  My room was known to the nurses as the room with the music, the photographs, the cards and the flowers.  It was all an enormous support.  Other  friends supported my wife, who I'm now totally dependent on.  The role of caregivers is sadly under-estimated.  We have a long list of friends wanting to visit once I get home.

I can't leave out the nurses, who provide all the day-to-day care, and the therapists who have brought me to this point.  And here at Parkwood the patients get to know each other.  It makes you feel like you have an extended family.

I'm even at the point of appreciating social media.  When something like this happens, you need all the communication tools you can find.

   

The Healing Power of Nature

As I near the end of my stay here at Parkwood, I think about things that have helped me recover.  One thing that was really important were the people who supported me.  The other thing was nature, the outdoors and the fresh air.

 It doesn't have to be wild nature.  As my cousin said on one visit out in the gardens here, "It's just so GREEN!"  For me it's the trees, the huge ornamental grasses, the breeze in the leaves, the birds, the pathways that let me get out and enjoy it.  There's lots of shade and lots of sun.

Parkwood is unusual in this respect.  Originally built at the edge of the city, it retains a lot of open space around it - there are no city buildings in sight to the south or east at all.  But above all are the gardens, several acres of pathways, trees and resting spots, ideal for visiting.  They have made good use of ornamental grasses, there are two water features, the frog pond and a small fountain, and there are seven raised beds of flowers and veggies.

This morning, like so many others, it was beautiful.  I was out early, and the sun was shining bright green through the leaves.  And along came a pair of Monarch butterflies, their wings brilliant orange in the sun.  Out again later I saw two Monarchs again, these ones by the frog pond.  The flock of House Sparrows is still here, lots of Blue Jays are calling, and now there are other birds, apparently heading south.

The chance to get out in this magical place every day has come to mean a great deal to me, and I know the gardens have been great therapy for me.  I'm a firm believer in the healing power of nature.

Travelling Vicariously Through Blogs

I've always enjoyed blog posts that tell the story of a big trip.  Before this all happened my wife and I had big plans for further travels in the next decade.  Now that's not going to happen, but I fully expect to find bloggers writing about their travels so I can follow along.

In the immediate future, Al and Kelly of Travel with the Bayfield Bunch, are leaving for the maritimes in the next few days.  I expect to really enjoy their trip, as will many others among their faithful followers.  Another style of blog is Travels with Gord and Cathie, written by Gord, a good friend of mine.  His blog is in the form of a trip journal, something they have always kept over years of travel.  He only established his blog recently, but he has uploaded the stories of 11 different trips dating back to 2007.

There are numerous other blogs that emphasize travel, a number by full-time RVers.  Let me just cite three examples.

The first blog, Island Girl Walkabout, by Hector, Brenda and Angel, is now retired.  But you can still read it, and find the story of their several month long trip to Alaska in 2015.  It's illustrated with spectacular photography; Hector now has a professional photography website, H.M.Lopez Photography.  And there are lots of stories of their trips around the southwest where they now live.

Another example is The Chouters, who went on a similar trip to Alaska in 2016.  Their stories made great reading.  Finally there's Take to the Highway, by Suzanne.  Suzanne travelled through all four of the Canadian Atlantic provinces in 2017, and provides some great stories of the out-of-the-way places she visited, especially lighthouses.  Her photography is spectacular.

I'm sure there are many others I could cite, but these ones stick with me.  Do you have any favourite travel stories from the blogs you read?

New Chariot!

There was a car show here last night, featuring about a dozen vehicles adapted to carry a wheelchair.  It is amazing how technology has brought us to this point.  Side-entry, rear-entry, and various cranes that reach out and lift your chair into the vehicle.  We're buying a simple side-entry van I can drive into, and be locked in place.  A big step toward getting out and exploring once we get home.

My next-to-final wheelchair has arrived, and it's a great chariot!  This chair, unlike the loaner I've been using, has a battery that lasts - two or three days so far.  It also goes FAST!  This chair has four gears and I haven't gone above 2nd gear yet, which is a good deal faster than a person can walk. It's also comfortable, which is pretty important when you spend your entire day in it.

I've explored further down the hospital hallways than I dared before.  I was taken out across the big parking lots, across a busy four-lane road to a restaurant, and back again.  I left my chaperone in the dust.  I've been out in the gardens practicing riding on grass, up and down slopes.  It worked fine in all cases.  And it's fun to drive.

The one glitch is that this chair does not have the vertical-rising feature we had ordered, so we're going to have to come back to pick the final chair up in 5-10 weeks.  I was not impressed, but we're living with it. In the meantime I'm certainly enjoying this one.

One week and counting.

Another busy day

Another busy day here, but still on schedule.  Our brief 3 day cold spell has passed, but the days are shorter and shorter!  Just ran out of time tonight.

Bureaucratic Frustrations!&$#£{!

I had another post in mind on travel blogs, but it's been "one of those days"!  Eventually I'll tell you about it, but for now just relax annd know that I am one day closer to discharge!

Living Vicariously Through Blogs

I often think the bloggers don't realize how important their blog is to some of their followers.  Certainly blogs on my reading list quietly disappear at a discouraging rate.  So I want to write a post or two on how much blogs that I follow mean to me.  I can't possibly mention more than a few of the dozens I follow, so please don't be disappointed if yours isn't mentioned.

Now that I'm in a wheelchair, this has become enormously more important to me.  I expect that reading blogs will be a real lifeline when I can't get out and do some of these things myself.

Perhaps my favourit is Al, who writes 'Travel with the Bayfield Bunch', and it's because Al likes to do things that I enjoy, like going for a drive in the country.  There aren't many of his posts that don't feature some cows, birds, forest trails or farm fields.  I look forward to it every day.

Patsy's blog, 'Chillin' with Patsy' is a daily journal about what they've doing.  I guess it's mostly ordinary stuff, but based on a rural country property where they park their 5th wheel for 6 months a year, I can really relate to it.  And her husband Bill builds and flies model airplanes - not something I will ever do, but a fascinating hobby.

Further away is DJan, who writes 'DJan-ity'.  Based in Bellingham in the Pacific Northwest, DJan was sky-diving well into her seventies.  Now she's replaced that hobby with hiking in the mountains, another thing I'd like to do more of.

As a final example, Jaqueline Donnelly writes 'Saratoga woods and waterways'.  Jaqueline is a serious botanist, and writes about what she finds exploring forest trails, lakes and rivers near her home in New York State.  Perhaps the most specialized of these 4 blogs I've mentioned, but one I
really enjoy and almost always learn something from.

The point is not these particular blogs, but how much I enjoy them.  Reading them means a lot to me, and in the future will mean even more.  Each provides a taste of the outdoors that I like.  So bloggers, don't ever think your writing is not worthwhile, because it is.  I get outdoors vicariously through your stories.