The 57-year-old Thorold, Ontario resident – an employee with Revenue Canada and a part-time farmer who lost a leg above his knee following a farming accident 17 years ago – was sitting on the grass at Queen’s Park with his daughter Sarah and two other young people this June 26, during the G20 summit, where he assumed it would be safe.

Read the rest of the story here.

I am going to just throw this out here, for what its worth. Feel free to point me back to this post anytime you think I need to be reminded of my words. I will (try my best to) never complain again when someone gets a little behind on the housework. I know that keeping up with things like laundry and dishes and all the other fun stuff that goes into keeping a house neat and clean is a lot of work. I never really realized how much work it was until I started doing it all myself. It has been almost three weeks since we got home from the hospital and although I am almost caught up on my sleep, I am far from being caught up on the housework. I think I really realized how much work it is this week especially. It is spring, so that means mowing season has started, and it only takes one day of coming home from work, mowing the lawn followed by laundry and washing dishes to give you a greater appreciation for what other people do all the time.

I appreciate all the work you do around here, and I certainly don’t mind doing it all while you are not able. I need to tell you more often how much I appreciate it, and not wait until times like this. I understand now how easy it is to get overwhelmed and to get behind. Staying on top of things around here is a full time job by itself, and If I ever complain in the future, just politely point me back to this posts and I will cease at once.

Sincerely,
Me

Yahoo has tricked me once again. A week or so ago I got on the computer to catch up on all the sites I read daily and I started checking out some of the news stories on yahoo. I got really excited when I read one of the headlines about about a Major League Baseball pitcher who was using a custom made glove with six fingers. I was slightly disappointed when I clicked the link and read that he did not have six fingers, he just pitched with both hands so the glove was custom made so he could switch pitch. Oh well, they can’t all be winners.

I enjoyed playing sports when I was younger, but felt awkward at times because using things like baseball gloves was always just a little different for me. We played softball at one of the churches we attended when I was younger, and I remember practising with my parents in the evenings. The fact that I was different and that wearing a softball glove was awkward was only awkward for me. My parents just treated it like everything else. They had the same expectations for me as anyone else, they expected me to try my best, and believed that I could do anything I wanted to do. If I dropped a ball they never made excuses for me or chalked it up to my lack of fingers, they just told me what I did wrong and gave me their best advice and expected me to catch the next one. I am sure I had my moments of self pity or whatever but they never let those moments last long. They were always encouraging and I know that is one of the major reasons I look at things the way I do now.

It is past my bed time, but I have another story about gloves that I will have to tell you about next time.

Wow, it has been a while hasn’t it? To say the last couple of weeks were a bit crazy would be an understatement of epic proportions. This time last week I was sitting in a hospital room fuming over dealing with the nurses the night before, waiting to find out when we were going to be able to go home. After a little over a week in the hospital my wife is back at home, and slowly getting better, which I am very thankful for. This past week has been kind of a blur and even though I did manage to catch on my sleep over the weekend I still feel like I could sleep for two or three days and still need more. I would never complain about taking care of a loved one that wasn’t able to take care of themselves. That’s what I signed up for when I agreed to “for better or for worse”. I admit I do grumble a little in the middle of the night when I haven’t had much sleep and it is time to do another round of medicine and all that good stuff, but I don’t mind at all. I know that she would do the same thing for me in a heartbeat, although I hope she never has to. I know that not being able to bend a knee or put any weight on it at all, and having to use a walker or crutches to get a round has to be way worse than the trips I make through the house to take care of her. I tried showing her how sympathetic I was by putting on one of her knee braces and refusing to bend my knee for an entire day, I think her amusement wore off after a few minutes. At the end of the day, the most important thing is her health and getting that knee back to working, everything else is just details as far as I am concerned, and thankfully she is slowly getting better. I know a few of you have sent me emails and left comments saying that you were thinking about us or praying for us, and I am very thankful for those of you that were.

I don’t know if there will any sort of regularity to it, but I am going to try my best to get back to writing this week. I have some thoughts on health care in Oklahoma as well as some amusing stories from my experiences roaming the hospital halls in the middle of the night that I am looking forward to sharing with you.

Instead of life getting less hectic, like I had hoped for, things have been steadily piling on over the last couple of weeks. We are currently back in the hospital trying to get my wife back to healthy after a set back with her knee surgery. We are both running on minimal sleep and with daily trips back and forth to the hospital, as well as some late night trips to the ER leading up to this current hospital stay most of my spare time is used trying to catch up on house work and just keeping everything from completely falling apart. Blogging has been the farthest thing from my mind here lately, even though I very much enjoy getting these thoughts out of my head, making time to do it is just very hard to do at the moment. My energy is better spent trying to keep the other things in my life running as smoothly as possible and taking care of my family at the moment. If you do believe in prayer we would surely appreciate any you could say for us right now.

I meant to post this about two days ago, but in my sleep deprived state I did not click the publish button. Does the old saying about better late than never apply to blogging?

Along with the many other things that have kept me busy since getting married six weeks ago my new wife had to have knee surgery. I haven’t had to go through any surgeries since I was a kid, so sometimes it is hard for me to relate and know what she is going through but I try my best. Since she can’t really be on her feet for a few more weeks I have been playing Mr Mom, and I have had some less than stellar moments. I don’t mind waiting on her at all, but I will admit that I haven’t done the best job at keeping up with the chores around the house. It gives me a new appreciation for women that’s for sure. I don’t necessarily think that house work is a woman’s job, and I have no problems helping out, I just know that I kind of suck at it. Last week I got way behind on laundry, and in the process of trying to get caught up, as well as keep up with every thing else around the house, I left a load of socks in the washing machine for a day or so and they had a little bit of a funky smell to them. I had to wash them again, but in the mean time I had to go to Walmart to buy some groceries, so in typical guy fashion I bought new socks so I wouldn’t have to worry about the funky socks until I got around to re-washing them. The weekend came and it was time to get out of the house for a little while and my dear sweet wife ask me if she had any clean socks. I hadn’t gotten around to re-washing the socks yet, but I told her not to worry as I had brand new socks in my drawer and I would be happy to loan her a pair. That seemed like the perfect solution until I opened the drawer and realized there was only one brand new sock in there. I laughed when I explained that there was only one new sock and told her that was one of the draw backs of marrying an amputee. We just don’t go through socks two at a time like everyone else. We both got a good laugh out of it.

I am trying to make a little more time to blog even though things have not calmed down around here much. I have a couple other little stories about the last couple of weeks, but I have to go take the clothes out of the dryer now, so they will have to wait.

I think there is a big difference in people that have to grow up as an amputee versus people that become amputees later in life. I can not imagine losing a limb right now and having to cope with that loss and the adjust to life without said limb. I have always been the way I am and this is all I have know. I know it would be so much harder to have to learn to adjust as an adult versus learning to adjust through childhood. There are things in life that are beyond our control, and some of those things change our physical appearance. It may be treatment for cancer that leaves someone without hair, or someone losing a hand from a fishing accident. I personally know people that have gone through both, and I can’t imagine what that must be like to have to adjust to. I know that I have been “adjusting” to way I look physically for almost 35 years now, and I have learned a few things in that process. The main thing I have learned is that some things I just can’t change, and the quicker I make peace with those things and move on the better off I am. I know that is way easier said than done sometimes though.

A perfect example of what I am trying to say is Roger Ebert. If you have seen anything in the news on him lately you know that he has gone through a series of surgeries due to cancer and his physical appearance has change because of it. he was recently on Oprah and said something that I really loved. Even after all he has gone through, the change in his physical appearance, and not being able to speak or eat or drink, this is his outlook on life. I love it!

“Nobody looks perfect. We have to find peace with the way we look and get on with life,”

A couple of blogs that I read had very similar themes in today’s posts, that being living for the moment and making of the most of life and not worrying about what has happened in the past. I think too often it takes something bad happening to remind us that we should be living life to the fullest. I need to make more of an effort to make the most out of life without needing those reminders.

Only 19 more days to go and I am back in the habit.

They say it takes 21 days to get into a habit. I personally think it only takes 1 day to kill a habit. When I first started this blog I didn’t really think I would end up  spending as much time on it as I did, and then I learned I actually had a few readers and before I knew it I was actually spending a good amount of time writing. Over the last couple of months my life has grown increasingly hectic and before I knew I was missing 10 days in a row without writing anything. If you have ever been into a habit of doing something and then broken that habit you know how hard it is to get back into it sometimes. That’s where I am at right now. So I will use this post as a starting point to get back into the habit of writing regularly. If any of you are still checking the site I appreciate it greatly. I apologize for the extended absence and will attempt to make it up to you over the next couple of weeks. I have so much I want to talk about, so check back tomorrow for more, I promise!

Things have not gotten any less hectic around here lately. I have so much I want to blog about, and so little time to actually sit down and blog. I apologize for the lack of posting lately. I just wanted to let all of you know that I hadn’t given up on blogging, and that I would get back into a routine to where I could post more regularly. I cant say enough how much I appreciate all the emails and comments I have received since I started this blog. That is the thing that will keep me going when I have times like these. Thanks for sticking around, I will be back shortly.