College Begins

It is hard to believe I have already completed 3 weeks of classes. I have already handed in major assignments and next week one of the classes has its final exam! We will be doing up to 3 classes at a time in a rather intense, accelerated pace --then get the mark and move on to different credit classes with the same teachers. Yes, it is being wonderful and yes, this is difficult!!!

 I think I should start by introducing my new cast of characters.

 There are 15 people in our class and we make quite the demographic picture, There are two men and 13 women, 2 of us are in our fifties , a few in their forties and thirties and  7 young women that are about 19 to 25. There are 4 that are living in the rural area outside of the city and have a long drive in every morning. There are several other people besides me with learning or health challenges.  We are all starting to form a group and learning to work with each other. How appropriate that the first assignment for the writing class is about group formation.

 We have 3 instructors.
T is an intense, jovial guy that has years and years in the Therapeutic Recreation field and has developed innovative programs and policies for personal care homes. I believe he holds degrees in Recreation, Kinesiology and also in Gerontology.
J., who is a lovely, knowledgeable woman  is very experienced in community based care.  She has a very warm approachable style coupled with a much more academic teaching approach than the other two instructors.
The last teacher, B., is the one I had last year when I took that course in Interpersonal Communication in order to prove that I really can do this. He comes from a background with law enforcement and has been a college instructor for about 30 years.  His classes in writing, interpersonal skills and computer skills are considered fundamental and he  teaches the same classes to many other social based programs throughout the college.


I want to keep this blog going but since I have so much writing with school I think I will try to write shorter but more frequent posts. I am learning a lot of interesting information that I would love to share and I am having lots of new experiences and meeting new challenges.


I look forward to telling you all about my new adventures.

Closing Doors and Opening Windows

Open Window, Etretat

by Henri Matisse

 

When one door closes, another opens; but we often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door that we do not see the one which has opened for us.

Alexander Graham Bell

 

The staff of the college program I am entering, the disability advisor and my job coach have all stressed that I need to let go of my different activities for this coming year. I need to focus on school. I know that college is going to use up most of my energy and that spare time will become a thing of the past.

You know what? It is hard to let go of my activities and social life.  I keep trying to negotiate a way that I can keep doing all the things I have been doing. Moving forward to new experiences means I have to leave past activities behind, at least for a while.

Yesterday I called my guitar teacher and told him I was quitting for now and then I cried. I have put a lot of time into getting that darn thing to sound half decent and I was just started to feel like I was making music instead of doing finger and hand therapy.

Volunteering at the hospital is another hard one to give up. The volunteer coordinator sent me the mailing of the recreation activities they need help with for September and I really want to volunteer with  most of them  but I won't be free. I realized with a smile that my reaction is a good thing. It probably means this Therapeutic Recreation program is a good choice for me.

Girl Guides? Actually this one feels okay. I will maintain my membership, and I will still attend the occasional event with girls and hopefully be a bit of a mentor for the younger leaders in my group. I will kind of take on a Grandma role. I will come to the enrollment and take pictures, I will show up for a couple of events over the year.  Guiding has a Trefoil Group for older leaders to meet for fun activities on a monthly basis and I have participated in that group for a couple of years. I already had to send my regrets regarding attending  a day in the country with the group that will occur on my first day of classes.  I am confident that I have the support of this group of women who have devoted years with a recreation and learning program for girls and young women. They understand about the value of the training program I am about to start.

On Wednesday I chaired my last meeting of the Peer Support Group that I have been involved with over the past several years. I am passing the group on to a couple of wonderful people who have been part of the group and I know that things will go even better with their fresh ideas, I am sorry to be moving away from Stroke Recovery Association of Manitoba but that feels right too. I will still show up when I can and I will keep in touch  with my friends but it won't be quite the same. I talked to the organization's Administrator, Russ, about what a home away from home the organization has been for me. He said that one part of the organization's official objectives is  "To assist the Stroke Survivor to again become a participating member of society through mental stimulation, self-help, and socialization" .  He said that is exactly what I was doing.
Moving forward is what is supposed to happen.

Sunshine Award

Sunshine

I have a wonderful life long friend named Susan. Susan is an author of young adult historical fiction and she started a blog this year about her writing experiences.  Please visit Susan at My Withershins. The authors blogging community she now finds herself in has had several challenges and awards that they have been sharing. This lets the group members know they are appreciated and at the same time promotes viewing others blogs and finding new sites of interest.  Susan nominated me for the Sunshine Award and I thought It was an honor and also a great opportunity to have some fun with other bloggers.

The Sunshine Award has some rules:

• Include the award’s logo in a post or on your blog
• Answer 10 questions about yourself )
• Nominate 10-12 other fabulous bloggers
• Link your nominees to the post and comment on their blogs, letting them know they have been nominated
• Share the love and link the person who nominated you.

  
TEN QUESTIONS

Favorite color:  Blue
Favorite animal:  At the moment my daughters cat Storm.
Favorite number: 10
Favorite non-alcoholic drink: Eggnog!
Prefer Facebook or Twitter?  Facebook
My passion: My family
Prefer getting or giving presents:  giving
Favorite pattern:  Nautical stripes for this year
Favorite day of the week:  Sunday
Favorite flower:  Apple blossoms and all they promise for the fall.


There are so many bloggers out there that I admire and respect.   I never thought I would find so many wonderful people that I would have so much in common with especially after I became ill, but our blogging community has become so  special to me!  I do understand that not everyone will find the time to participate in this award, but I do hope you are happy to be appreciated.

I would like to give this award to the following 10 Bloggers.

• My Happy Stroke because I love the little snippets of life that she shares and how she can find the humor in so many situations.
• Barb's Recovery  is an inspiration with all her hard work and perseverance. I love reading her blog.
• Dean's Stroke Musing  because Dean keeps us up to date with all the latest research.
• Up Stroke is a wonderful writer with terrific insights. She makes me look at things in a different way.
• My New Look at Life after Surviving Strokes for her great sense of humor and no holds barred approach to life and blogging.
• The Pink House on the Corner for being such an amazing wife and caregiver who faces daily struggles with love and optimism and writes with such honesty.
• Geoff Hathaway His family keeps up such a great blog. I love hearing how his family and friends are cheering him along.
• Home After a Stroke  for her wisdom and her practical advice and ideas.
• Andrea from Blue Shoe Farm & Living in my Head  for her interesting blogs and her determination to keep on going with her life.
• Cousin Murray  He really is our cousin and he writes about his vacations with a dry wit  that makes me laugh out loud.

Movie Day at the Stroke Recovery Association

We decided to have a Movie Day at SAM (Stroke Association of Manitoba) 

The decision was made to try having a movie event in the afternoon because so many of our members are free during the day. On the other hand many family members would not be able to attend at that time but we have to start somewhere. The movie Date Night was chosen because it seemed funny and like it might have an appeal to people who like an action show as well as people who enjoy romantic comedy.

We made some posters to put up around SAM, made popcorn, picked up some pop and rented the movie. Amongst other things, we learned that microwave popcorn is hard to make in an older microwave you are not used to. Next time I think would buy pre-popped popcorn and just relax at the event instead of worrying about how long to cook popcorn.

Our biggest challenge was that we had a large wall mount TV purchased recently and it was not yet installed on the wall. We went back and forth about getting a date to install it and we really appreciated Peter getting in installed on the wall for us.  The TV looks good and it we thing we will be getting more use of it with time. We don't have cable into the space so we can't actually watch TV, but we have lots of DVDs and videos.   We are hoping to get cable some time in the future. A few of us can picture the fun of Grey Cup and Super Bowl and a few of us would like together to see the Oscars and other broadcasts as a group. There is a fair bit of interest is watching curling too.

We didn't have a huge group attending our first Movie Day but everyone who did attend seemed to have a really good time. We are thinking this would make a good seasonal event and plan on doing it again perhaps in the Fall.

The King's Speech Won!

I didn't see a lot of this years nominees, but I sure am glad that this one won. I wonder what impact the Oscar win by this film will have on awareness of speech related disabilities.


The portrayal by Colin Firth was so incredibly moving and seemed so authentic. It may have been the story of a monarch at war time, but it really portrays the amazing perseverance and human resiliency through the struggles of a man with a disability.

The support of his wife and the guidance of his therapist and friend contributed to his success. The humor that is displayed is such a real part of coping day to day and it is good to see that shared on the big screen too.

I hope you get to see this movie sometime soon and I hope you find it to be the encouraging and uplifting story that I did.

Swimming Time

My friend and I have been going swimming on the past two Tuesdays.

There is an organization in the city that arranged for one of the city pools to be closed to the public between 5 pm and 8 pm on Tuesday and open for disabled people to come and swim for free along with assistants if needed!

When we went two weeks ago Shawn and I were not too sure what we were getting into but though the worse that could happen would be that we would sit and chat and wait for our rides to come to take us back home. It turned out that I was worrying for nothing. Everything was great. There were not very many people so that made me happy because a lot of noise and movement really bothers me. We changed in a large accessible family area with great accessible showers and bathrooms and then we proceeded to the pool area. There was no wheelchair lift for Shawn. Instead, she transferred to a water proof wheelchair since the pool has a ramp that goes straight into the water. It was so much fun to watch Shawn roll into the water all by herself and basically swim out of the chair! The water is pretty warm at about 83 degrees. We chatted with a couple of other ladies and swam around and this week played with pool noodles.

Shawn and I have the same physiotherapist and he was thrilled to find out that we are voluntarily getting out there and being active. It is so cold right now that it is hard to get out much and do any kind of walking or any other kind of exercise, but this was such a treat to be moving and playing. We are going to try and go every week and I think we have already convinced two more people to come with us next week.