Friday, April 8, 2016

Foto Friday

Hellooooooooo!

It's been a busy week and today is a catchup kind of a day. Since I last posted, which was a week ago today, I've helped a friend move, done a million or two things around the house, and then looked after my brother after cataract surgery which was a by-product of his surgery last year for a detached retina. He is doing well although he continues to have some vision problems. When he looks at something he sees some zigzag outlines with his left (bad) eye.


He thinks this may not go away and that it was caused by the original detached retina. Complications also include being far-sighted and having one eye that is distinctly worse than the other. After he heals up he will get different lenses in his glasses to try to improve his vision but the distortion may always remain. He's not entirely sure at this point that it's better to have distorted vision that has been made more clear or whether it was better when the distortion was a bit blurry. This is my brother who is an oil painter and teaches painting for a living. Yeah. To his credit he never complains and "seems" to have taken this major setback in stride though I'm sure he has had some dark moments when home alone.

One of my sisters also had eye surgery recently - she lives about a 4-5 hour drive away from me. She is being helped by her son and a few friends and seems to be making a brilliant recovery so far. She is able to email and go on facebook a few times a day to keep us updated.

My friend, Troy, moved back in with her mother for a number of reasons. She wants to be able to help care for her nephew who has leukemia. Due to his cancer treatment his pancreas has been damaged and he now also has Type 1 diabetes, permanently. He just turned 4. He has a 1 year old sister who has some vision problems and both parents, while gainfully employed, are near the end of their benefits and need at least one of them to go back to work. Tough situation. Troy's mom, the boy's grandmother has been doing a lot of babysitting to help them out. Troy wants to help out with care for the kids and financially if she can but her work contract is up at the end of May so she is also looking for work. She is 50 years old this year.

Sometimes life is really hard. I'm trying to appreciate my own good health and not take it for granted.

I am also checking my phone every hour or so as my sister-in-law's 95 year old mother is in palliative care in hospital and her death is imminent. My sister-in-law has been coping wonderfully but she's been at her mother's side for weeks now without respite. I worry that she'll get sick from the stress.

So there you have it...it's a time for caring for family and friends. On the bright side my sister and her husband who live in PEI  are coming to visit family and friends in Ontario starting next week. They will arrive at my house next Thursday. I think she picked a good time to visit!

The kitties are well and are having a restorative nap as I type :) and Kazi is in Detroit to watch some season opening baseball - yes, she took her heavy duty winter coat, hat, boots, scarf, mittens etc as it looks like it may be the coldest start ever to the baseball season! (Yuck!)

So....what are the pictures from one year ago today?

I was walking the track at the BMO centre (I haven't been there one single time this year!)

I spied some strange creature emerging from the bathroom vanity.... looks like a black widow!!??

....but thankfully NOT...it turned out to be my daughter's hair extensions...

...which motivated me to clean out said vanity, install some new shelf liner and a shelf...

 ....MUCH better!

 Must go - have some activist work to do (a sit-in at our local MP's office!) and the sun is trying to peek out after a week of absolute gloom and torrential rain and snow.

See you again soon!

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