Finding my Groove again…

My life was starting to centre around a new baby arriving in approximately 6 months and I’ve had to really adjust my focus the last couple of weeks. I opened a drawer yesterday to get my scissors and immediately noticed a couple little flannel newborn nighties I picked up at the thrift store and a little pair of tiny gap shoes my friend found for the new baby. I took them upstairs and put them away in a bin in storage, along with the three ring slings I scored at the local recycling depot. Closure.

Yesterday I got a letter from the BC Foster Care agency listing the upcoming dates for the foster care orientation classes we enrolled in last month. It’s part of the grueling long process to become approved foster parents. When I woke up this morning I felt a sense of excitement that I couldn’t place, and then I remembered we are going to have a new child in our home in about 6 months. It won’t be a newborn baby like we had hoped. It will be a hurting child who has experienced too much heart ache. It will be a girl. She’ll be around 5 or 6 years old. She’ll be a child to love and welcome into our home. It’s meant to be and our hearts are aching to meet our borrowed child.

March has come in like a lamb and my hands are itching to get into the garden dirt. Herbs and veggies, mulch and compost. Organic fresh produce. Oh joy! My pasty white winter skin is longing for the sun and fresh air. I have a long checklist of things to do… find some old wood to re-use in building garden beds… get a pile of dirt to plant seeds on top of my lasagna garden beds… source some mint shoots from friends and family… get some decent tomato cages… buy more seeds… find some wood chips to use as garden paths… dig up the miles of parsley taking over the herb bed… check my garlic shoots… transplant bulbs into the flower garden… figure out how to refill the whipper snipper thread and trim the grass in the garden area…

I called my grandma Jean today. She’s going to be 87 years old in July, and is still as spunky and spry as I remember her when I was a kid. I keep her updated on the news in our family out West, and she keeps me updated on the news on our family out East. Her and Grandpa have been married for 67 years. My grandpa will be turning 89 years old in two weeks, but suffered a severe stroke last year that has affected his speech and sight, and he was already mostly deaf, so she has become his full time round-the-clock caregiver. He used to love working in his wood shop, was a voracious reader, but now he’s no longer able to communicate, hates TV, and is unable to read due to his loss of sight. Grandma says they bought a treadmill and he walks numerous times throughout the day, winding down his final years, like a hamster on a wheel. All of their friends died many years ago now, and they are now living in a grandparent suite at my Aunt and Uncle’s house. Grandma wants to come visit me and experience our little island here, but can’t leave Grandpa. I pray that his – and her – suffering will end soon.

Jobs. I have had three different job opportunities present themselves to me over the past week. I didn’t actively seek any of them out, but all three came about through friends and family recommending me for the job! I’m a blessed girl. Praying that the one I really want works out. I’ll post more when I know more…

So… my life turned upside down on Wednesday and Thursday. Today it’s righting itself. Life is a funny, strange, hurtful, joyful, wonderful thing. One of my oldest (she’s not old, we’ve just known each other a long time) and dearest friends wrote me after I told her about the miscarriage and she said some very wise words, “one of the wonders of being older is you know that life is in cycles and when you have to experience the sad ones yourself it hurts, but with that knowledge you are able to carry on…” It certainly does…

Taking a Tax Break

Tax season deadlines are looming over me, so I’ve decided to take a break from blogging in order to get caught up (and avoid late fees!). If you need to contact me, leave a comment or send a message through the contact form and I will do my best to get back to you as soon as possible.

Thanks for reading, and hopefully I’ll be back very soon!

New Site Feature: Subscribe by Email

If you’re anything like me, you find a new blog that you love, bookmark it, and then forget to ever revisit it. Some time ago, programming geniuses solved that problem. Feed Burners!

Look for this RSS Feed symbol in the sidebar of each page. You can subscribe to posts by clicking on the link  that says “Subscribe to blog post updates.” Personally I use Google Reader to subscribe to blogs that I want to revisit, but it gives you the option to use any feed burner you prefer.

The new feature that has been added is the ability to subscribe to blog posts via email. All you have to do is enter your email address, and then wait for a confirmation email in your inbox. Click on the confirm link and then any time I publish a new post, you will receive an email notification. I promise I won’t spam you. I usually average 1 post a day so your inbox won’t be flooded by me.

Gabriola Island Emergency Care Facility

The need for this facility is one that has hit close to home in recent days. My son tripped and fell onto our wood burning stove and burned a large section of his forearm. It happened on a Sunday when no medical clinics are open on Gabriola. I called 911 and was referred to the health nurse line. I knew enough to put his arm in ice cold water to stop the burning, but then sat on hold waiting for a health nurse to give me further instructions. I was on hold for 45 minutes. If we had a local emergency care facility on Gabriola I could have reached a doctor immediately and my son could have received care within moments.This type of scenario plays out way too often.

To support this important and much-needed cause, please visit the Gabriola Health Care Society page for ways you can donate.

Gabriola Island, British Columbia is in need of a permanent emergency medical treatment facility. Our resident population of approximately 5,000 people can swell to double that with summer residents, people camping in the provincial parks, children at Camp Miriam, boaters and tourists. There is no overnight ferry service from our Island to the nearest hospital.

Imagine if you or a loved one had an emergency – an accident, childbirth complications, stroke, heart attack. First you wait for an ambulance, then for the ferry, which usually runs hourly during the day then a 20 minute ferry ride, if it is running on time, then a transfer to another ambulance to get to the hospital in Nanaimo, BC. UNLESS it is delayed because of dangerous cargo runs on Wednesdays and Sundays, or for shift changes mid day. UNLESS it’s at night. Then add crossing in an open boat instead of a ferry. UNLESS the weather is too bad and all boat crossings are cancelled. Wouldn’t you want an emergency clinic?

Islanders are resourceful people. We take care of our neighbours. We don’t wait for government to solve all our problems. The Gabriola Health Care Society opened in November 2006 as a proactive response to the cancellation of overnight ferry emergency sailings and a lack of basic local emergency and after hours care for our increasing resident population and many summer residents and visitors from all over the world. We were also acutely aware of the larger possibility of natural disasters, extreme storms, earthquake, fires, or the possibility of a multiple vehicle accident. By July 2007 our community raised enough funds to develop an interim leased facility with a basic trauma care room along with four examination rooms for family practice physicians.

Our interim clinic and emergency treatment room, now two years old, is a busy place. Throughout this two-year period, the majority of emergencies have been successfully diagnosed and treated or stabilized locally. During this time, there have been examples of multiple simultaneous needs with, in one instance, three patients on site at one time.

Our efforts in creating the interim clinic were worthwhile. Lives have been saved. Through our striving, and in spite of a highly competitive physician recruiting environment, our community is delighted to welcome an additional full time family practice physician. We have learned much during this two year period. Our idea for change has taken much effort and has highlighted the long term need for a fully equipped, larger emergency treatment room. We believe it is time to create a permanent, community-owned emergency treatment and medical care facility.

We are committed to develop and build a permanent community owned, fully equipped, ecologically friendly, seismically-engineered and technologically advanced medical facility and emergency treatment room. Site specific architectural plans are in preparation, being donated by a local professional architect, based upon many hours of research and preparation, in addition to consultation with our practicing doctors.

The Gabriola Health Care Foundation was formed to raise the funds for our new clinic and has been registered as a charity for Income Tax Purposes (registration number 85193 0586 RR0001). An earnest capital campaign is underway. The spirit of our community is strong, and this issue is very dear to the hearts of many Islanders. In only four weeks, since we announced 2010 to be “The Year of the Clinic” on November 4, we have received donations of almost $50,000. Our Auxiliary has community fund raising events planned throughout the whole of the year 2010.

The estimated cost for our permanent medical facility is in the range of one million dollars, excluding the cost of the land, which has been offered as a donation. Our goal for 2010 is to reach the ‘lockup’ stage of construction, where the walls and roof are in place and doors and windows have been installed. We estimate the cost of this to be in the range of $375,000. Gabriola is not a wealthy island. With the funds we now have on hand and a $200,000 award from the Aviva Community Fund we could reach our goal. This would allow the community to focus on the fund raising required to complete the remainder of the project in 2011. On completion the project will be self-sufficient, with the rents charged to the doctors and other health care tenants sufficient to cover the operating costs of the building and provide a reserve for future maintenance.

Please visit our web site at www.ghcs.ca

We appreciate your creation of this project, we have received front page coverage in a local newspaper and many local groups have been actively involved. Thank you for your consideration of our request. (Source: Judith Graham)