Changed Forever In An Instant

Two years ago today all of our lives changed in an instant.

I can still hear the sounds of that night. My calm words as my brain knew what my heart yet did not and I asked my husband to please smile for me, my frantic scream out the door for my mother to come quick, my voice strong and steady to the 9-1-1 dispatch, my tears as I relayed what I now knew to be a certainty even before we'd left the house to my best friend and her calm voice on the other end telling me everything was going to be ok somehow.

I can still see him laying, smiling, on the floor, see the look on my bewildered friends and neighbours as I opened their door like I had so many times before, only this time unannounced and asked if my kids could stay the night as I went with the ambulance. I can still feel the acute pain, the terror, the heartache.

I can still remember how detached I felt as everyone around me at the hospital told me they couldn't believe how calm and collected I was as I was asked to sign consent forms and make decisions as a next of kin like I had many times for my children, only this time my partner, their other next of kin, was lying on a stretcher and the decisions I made were for him.

I remember the arms of my friend Jo strong around me the next morning as she'd started her shift in the ICU and had been briefed on the youngest stroke patient our hospital had taken in since starting their stroke program and then realized she knew him, knew me, knew our kids, knew what was at stake not just in the abstract but on a personal level for our family.

Three months of our lives were spent with him in that hospital, three months of daily visits with my children in tow, of visits home, of learning a whole new way of living.

Visiting with Daddy, I'd often take the kids in pjs because it would be passed their bedtime when we'd get home

Our younger two kids have no memory of Daddy as a fully able bodied person. Our oldest son is still has anger because he does. From totally healthy to hemiplegic in less than 5 minutes, and then back to able to use one limb (his right arm), and then about a month after he came home he was able to walk with a cane instead of a needing a wheelchair all the time, and now he is able to walk independently, albeit with an altered gait. His left arm remains nonfunctional.

Two years ago our lives changed in an instant. Many things about our lives are different, accessibility issues, new specialists, always more testing, work issues, learning new ways to do activities of daily living for James, learning a new way of interacting with one another. Many of the things we have learned and are learning are deeper than just the day to day though. The role of disabled people in our society. The way people view persons with disabilities and the differences between those who have a strong advocate and those who don't. The things those of us who are able bodied take for granted.

It has been two years since James' stroke. I would never have chosen this for him, for any of us, and yet it was thrust upon us and two years out I can look around and see lessons learned that were valuable, relationships made with people we would not otherwise have crossed paths with, gifts in the strangest packages.

James' first night home with us after the stroke was Halloween night, 6.5 weeks after the stroke. He wanted to be able to go trick or treating with our kids. We had a great time. He was in a wheelchair and we had a just turned 1 year old, a 2.5 year old, and a 5 year old with us. We had an amazing time and I won't ever forget the memories we made that night. Next month he and I will take those same kids trick or treating in our own neighbourhood, in the new place we call home. I am so glad he survived the stroke, grateful that we have these memories to make and the hope for many more in the future.

Halloween 2011 <3

Mid September Update

September is half way over and I'm pleased with my progress so far. I've finished 9 more books and I have several I will be finishing in the next week.

73 Books Challenge: 47/73 books read (64% done, 7% behind schedule)
Library Books Challenge: 36/50 books read (72% done)
A-Z Book Challenge: 17/26 books read (65% done, 6% behind schedule)
Classics Catch Up Challenge: 2/13 books read (15% done, 56% behind schedule)
Books by Women Challenge: 16/16 books read (DONE)
Eclectic Book Challenge: 6/12 books read (50% done, 21% behind schedule)
Literature and War Challenge: 3/12 books read (25% done, 46% behind schedule)
Classic Kids Book Challenge: 5/12 books read (41% done, 30% behind schedule)
Books Tobias Picked: 2/6 books read (33% done, 38% behind schedule)

One thing I havn't been doing as well with as I'd like is my reviews. I need to kick my butt into gear on that!

2013 Books in Review #6: Save Me

Save Me was the first book I read of the bag full of books I was given for my birthday from my Uncle Neil. It immediately caught my eye and I was hooked from the first time I read the jacket cover.

Save Me follows the story of a mother who is put in an impossible situation and has to choose between saving the life of children right in front of her, or saving the life of her daughter. In the end she makes her choice and it still ends up taking an unexpected twist that makes it seem like she didn't make the choice the way that she did.

I was expecting the book to focus mostly on the choice, when it reality that part of the story was done within the first couple of chapters and the rest of the book delved into a much deep plot that kept adding murder and mystery and intrigue to it and it ended up being a much different story line then the one that I was expecting. It wasn't a bad story, just very different and less the type that I am apt to find most interesting. 

All in all I gave this book 3/5 stars. I enjoyed it but it didn't end up being the huge winner I was hoping for.

Save Me was book #24 for the year, and my ninth book written by a woman.

2013 Books in Review #5: Roland Wright, Future Knight

Tobias chose this book from the library and we finished it in just a few days.

Roland is a young boy living in the middle ages with his father, who is an armorer who builds the best armor in the land, and Shelby, his older brother. Roland dreams of being a knight but as the child not born into nobility there does not appear to be any way for this dream to be realized.

Due to his father's skill a knight is sent to purchase a set of armor for the king himself and later it saves him in battle. After this the king sends a declaration to Mr. Wright that one of his sons may come to the castle to be trained as a page. If he succeeds he may become a squire, and then a knight.

Roland is delighted but also unsure of his ability to be sent since he is the younger son. His father puts his brother and himself through a set of skill tests and although Shelby beats Roland on most of them, Roland shows more of the characteristics that knights must possess because he remains true to himself throughout all of the challenges. In the end he wins the chance to go to the castle. 

This was a fun, easy read and it is the first in a series of books. We will be sure to pick up the next one and read that too.

 This book was #39 for me this year, #29 for my library challenge, and #2 of the books that Tobias picked.

2013 Books in Review #4: Transition

I actually listened to the audiobook version of this book in my car during the times when I was running errands or doing other time driving when the kids were not with me. I chose to read this because stories about people in the LGTBQ community are in general very interesting to me.

Transition is written by Chaz Bono, born Chastity Bono, only child of the famous couple Sonny and Cher. Chaz writes about his experiences as a transgender man who had always felt more comfortable being masculine but had a hard time expressing that within the family and community roles he was in as a child and young adult. At the age of 13 Chaz realized that he (not realizing yet that he was a transgender male, but still living as a female) was attracted to other females and believed himself to be a lesbian from that point on up until the point where he realized that he was actually a transgender male who was attracted to women.

The book is unbelievably repetitive, and while I really wanted to like it I found myself totally uninspired by the endless litany of  failed relationships with family members, friends, and lovers and his apparent need to reveal intimate secrets about these people who had been or are important in his life. Only the very end of the book does he actually talk about transitioning from female to male.

I'm glad for Chaz that he is comfortable in his own skin now and I wish him luck in the future. This book was not actually helpful IMO as a guide for other trans folk (which is what Chaz says his goal is), especially in his polarizing views such as gender being your biology and gender identity being your choice. I think many of the trans folk who have been seriously depressed or even committed suicide as a result of not being able to identify openly as the gender they really were would disagree that it was a "choice". I rated this book only 1 out of 5 stars.

Transition was book #40 for me this year, book #30 in my library book challenge, and fulfilled my LGBT requirement for the eclectic reader challenge.

2013 Books in Review #3: Freakling

Every once in a while I pick up a book as I pass it on a whim. Freakling is one of those books. I passed it at the library and brought it home because it caught my eye.

Freakling is a young adult dystopian novel, the first novel released by Lana Krumwiede. In it the residents of the world use Psi for all of their daily living. They don't use their hands at all. Taemon has quite powerful Psi but he loses it when his brother tries to kill him and he doesn't fight back. After this he has to relearn everything because he can no longer use his mind to do such activities as buttoning a shirt or feeding himself.

In addition to having to relearn these things in a new way he also must keep his loss of Psi a secret from his community. He manages to do so for a time but then he is found out and he is sent away to a colony of outsiders who do not use Psi. Taemon had always had prejudices against the outside colony but when he arrives he finds that they are not dumb, slow individuals as he was led to believe, but rather a functioning group, albeit living differently than those who use Psi instead of manual labour.

I rated this book 3/5 stars. It was a fairly solid story although some of the characters weren't as developed as I would have liked. All in all though I enjoyed it and I look forward to reading the sequel when it is released.

Freakling was book #3 for the year, #2 in the library challenge, letter F in my A-Z challenge, book #2 in my books by women challenge, and fulfilled the dystopian requirement in the eclectic reader challenge.

End of August update on Reading Challenges

We are 2/3 of the way through the year. Time to do an inventory of where I am in my challenges.

After a strong start to the year I fell off in a huge way starting in March. We moved to a new city and the next several months were a whirlwind of business to do with transferring our life to the new area and getting settled. In July I started to read again and August was a huge catch up month.

73 Books Challenge: 38/73 books read (52% done, 15% behind schedule)
Library Books Challenge: 28/50 books read (56% done, 11% behind schedule)
A-Z Book Challenge: 16/26 books read (61% done, 6% behind schedule)
Classics Catch Up Challenge: 2/13 books read (15% done, 52% behind schedule)
Books by Women Challenge: 13/16 books read (81% done)
Eclectic Book Challenge: 4/12 books read (33% done, 34% behind schedule)
Literature and War Challenge: 2/12 books read (16% done, 51% behind schedule)
Classic Kids Book Challenge: 4/12 books read (33% done, 34% behind schedule)
Books Tobias Picked: 1/6 books read (16% done, 51% behind schedule)

Looks like September will have to be another major catch up month ;-) I also want to write a review every weekday to catch up on those.