Blog 35 May 22, 2013

Blog 35 May 22, 2013

The 1^st, 2^nd and 6^th

It has been a long time since a wrote a blog since (Jan 1, 2013) that I must apologies for not writing sooner. In fact I have not done much in the way of e-mails or responding to e-mails or reading comments or Jokes or witty comments, it has taken everything I had to just get through this semester.

I have been dealing with so much stuff that I just could not take on anymore. My doctor felt it necessary to keep trying to find that winning combination of lucky pills that would make it all better. After the 3^rd time of trying a combination I told her for now think of it as when you get your security code wrong 3 times you loose access to that account. I told her it was for the same with me that was the third try there is no 4^th!

I was trying to deal with 4 major things at that time. The 1^st was my foot injury after healing one I got another, while compensating on side of foot it created another injury on the other. This meant more staying in bed and adapted transport, and for those who have never had the pleasure of adapted transport if you want to go somewhere you need the day to travel. If it is a 2hr trip you can count on 5 hours to get it done. If you have a dog, be prepared to share a taxi Car with 2 other adults and have your 80lb dog sit in your lap, Great fun and stressful on me and the dog!

So I missed some first very important dates and events. The first being it was a somber moment when the date came for the 1^st anniversary of death of my very good friend Sylvain Downs, I don’t know how many times that  I wanted to call him just to say or stop by with Lucky our family still misses him. The next firs we celebrated Lucky’s 3^rd birthday on Feb 14 but it was his first with us. The next first was Lucky and mine first year anniversary together as a team. We came together April 11 2012 and it has been great ever since.

We did our first year evaluation on May 3^rd and went great. The next first was our youngest sons first year in College and although it is a special program trust me there was nothing special about the homework. He worked hard to learn and understand, he learned sciences, he had personal growth, he took two college courses and did really well. He had some hard times but no matter how hard or tried he was never quit! I have tell you this he is my Hero but to me and Arlene all our kids are our Hero’s!

As I am writing this Blog we are coming upon 2 major anniversaries. The first is the 2^nd year of the passing of my nephew Eric I keep his picture on the wall along with Jagger because there dates are intertwined. The second is the anniversary of Jagger and have to tell you that as sad as that makes me feel, I see a lot of him in Lucky. I feel very privileged to have been a part of all of them.

The 6 anniversary of, talking at the schools. I was asked to come back and speak once again at the high school to the science class. The interesting part of this was I have now spoke to every student in the school on personal level.

It was the 1^st year for Lucky and they loved him and enjoyed hearing about the whole process.

These talks are really no longer about what it is like to be visually impaired it is more about life and how you approach it. I talk about Eric and Jagger. I talk about how Eric was and his stand on bulling and talk about Jagger and how he was and on his lasts days made sure I got to the hospital and made sure I was okay.

People , ask me what are you doing with your Certificate Pastoral Ministry? I tell them sit in on one of my talks and find out!

I will be blogging more now.

We are on the Move once again wait for some more blogs we are doing our First walk- a-thon on May 26 2013 and we will doing it in our area from starting from our church and ending it will be a 4km walk.  

Here is a link to my online donation do not let the 0 donations scare you because we have raised some money.  

http://my.e2rm.com/personalPage.aspx?registrationID=1839614&langPref=en-CA&Referrer=http%3a%2f%2fwww.guidedogs.ca%2findex2.php

  

Blog 34 January 03 2013 New Start

Blog 34 January 03 2013

New Start!

I love the start of a New-Year! It gives you a chance to put away the hard times you had over the last 12 months and it gives you the opportunity to have a fresh start for 12 more months.

 I have to start by apologizing for not writing a Christmas Blog or a New-Year eve Blog. Some might say I dropped off the earth! I assure you we have not.

I have been still trying to adjust to the new medication that the doctor gave me in October and trying to heal that foot injury both are very frustrating. The foot injury is healing quite well thanks in large part to my friend who has volunteered to change my dressings and make sure that no infections occur. It is most important especially over the holiday’s.

I have had the experiences with home nurses coming to change dressings and the overall experience has not been good. The problem with that is you don’t always get the same nurse and each one has their own way of doing things which sometimes causes a problem in treatment, which in turn causes a longer healing process. So to have someone close to help with the day to day management of the wound care is great and it takes the pressure off my wife is such a blessing. 

All that aside let me share a couple of thoughts with you. As we went into the holiday’s some great things happened. Lucky and I have celebrated our 8 month anniversary together. Yes 8 months I got Lucky on the 13 of April 2012 and we are now headed in to the 9 month as a team. We are doing well together.

We finished our first semester at university and he was great. I am always amazed on how they find their way after  only once going to a place. It was like old times we got off the elevator and he would bring me to class, it was awesome, he did well! We did a lot of kilometers/miles together not as much as I wanted but a lot.

As we came into the Christmas season of 2012 I realized I was not in the same place I was in 2011. It was our first Christmas without Eric and Jagger, we did not feel much like being apart of Christmas but our youngest son took care of that.

My wife had a gastro and we did not really celebrate much. This year we sat back to remember Eric and Jagger and we told some happy stories and good things we remember. Once again our youngest son and Lucky quickly reminded us that this was a Happy, Happy, Happy time of year. Our daughter came over and spent the Christmas Eve and to share in my birthday and it was nice.   She was not ready for our youngest and Lucky getting up at 5am, our youngest for gifts and Lucky for bathroom and food, and he is quite good at reminding you when it is time to eat!

Someone once asked me what it was like to have a new guide dog so young? I answered it like being 50 years old and having a child in the terrible two’s. Like every two year old when they are quiet you go and see what they are up too. Sometimes he is in mischief taking (socks and underwear) or there perfect angels sleeping most of the time it is first one. This is his sign of being board and it is time for a walk.

I also had Lucky out in our first snow and he loved it! I stopped at the park on the way to class and you guessed it, he could not wait to roll around in the snow. Every body who walked were laughing and I think this is why we are such a good fit loves to be outside no matter what and he is always up to having fun. I have to admit that we have not been out since we got the 50cm/ 3feet of snow, snow clearing is very slow here and not good.

Our 1^st Christmas and New-year with Lucky was great. He was happy to get his new bed and a toy for Christmas, his other bed did not make it after an uncomfortable night sleep. It was quiet New-Year’s eve we had our good friends over, we had some finger food we watched a funny movie until midnight and we brought in the New year. As we hugged and kissed each other

It was nice to have Lucky with us to bring in the New-year he has been a good addition to our family.

So my New-Years resolution is much the same as last year. I am not promising to lose a hundred pounds that usually doesn’t work, I will train more not hard but more. I will blog more since we have worked out this med issue. If I manage to do one or two of these resolutions I am doing good!

The most important of all resolutions are! 2013 will not be my year, I am going to make 2013 my year!

I am not waiting for something to happen I am going to make something happen. This is what I did for 2012 and it was a good year. Yes there will be bumps, but if you keep in mind to make more good things happen than bad you will have a good year!

Have more Fun! If it is not fun I am not doing it!

I have to admit with some of the bumps we had in the road, we had a lot of fun in the process, and that is the key; (don’t for get to laugh at the little things and belly laugh at the big ones)!

Happy New-Year

John & Lucky and family 

Blessings to you all.      

Lucky waiting to open gift.

Lucky looking outside.

Blog 33 November 9 2012 Service

Blog 33 November 9 2012

Service!

We get many opportunities to serve but very few rarely do, and those who do get little reconnection. As we come to this time of remembrances I reflect on those soldiers who gave their lives for us! With the end of world war two the second war that was to end all wars and of course all the other wars that followed those wars it seems it is a never ending war all for different reasons. As Canada officially closed it combat role in Afghanistan and the US out of Iraq and their mission coming to an end in Afghanistan the threat of veterans being forgotten is unlikely. Although as the veterans from world war two pass-away we have created a whole new generation to take their place.  The most amazing part of this is the lack of respect that is shown in schools, work places, and even homes. It is almost as if people believe that their freedom and safety is their right and not a gift that was paid for with lives and great sacrifice.  We remember the soldiers that served but we forget the sacrifices that families and friends pay when they loose that one they love. When we talk about service we are also talking about those families that gave so much for us.
I had a chance to speak this week at the University for a Class on diversity what it is like being student with a handy cap. It was a great talk since the other two people that were to speak with me could not make it. I was asked to speak for two hours (for those who know me that is easy part). I got to hear a lot of things that you would not get here in a 30min talk. I spoke about the sacrifice that the puppy raisers did so I could have great dogs. I spoke about how Lucky saved my life 2 times in 20mins from cars not paying attention. They asked about the training we did and the sacrifice my wife made for being home with our son for a month on her own! Having to trust that our son would close the front door when he left the house never mind locking it if he closed it we are happy. My close friends helping my wife out, and being there as well as driving her to visit me! I speak about my sisters, who visited me while I was there and making sure that I was ok and feeding me. I got to speak about Jagger and Lucky and my commitment to them and there’s to me. I got to speak about the dedication that my family and friends give me on non conditional bases.

At the of the talk of course the students were very happy and I had a lot of questions, the professor was very pleased and impressed that I could talk and keep their attention and answer all the questions she was very pleased. As I was packing up my things and getting ready to leave a young man probably in twenties came up and asked if he could shake my hand. As we shook hands he said thank you and thank you for talking about your military experiences. He further went on to say that he is in the reserves and will be heading to Afghanistan in a few weeks for a tour providing security.

I stop what I was doing and put my hand out and said “ I want to thank you for your sacrifice and your service” he was amazed that someone thanked him. I like to think that maybe somewhere down deep inside of him that he got some hope that if something happens to him that he could bounce back. There is a great line from the movie the Big Red one. During a patrol the section comes across a memorial dedicated to the Big Red One division! The soldier asks how they put this monument up so fast? The sergeant replies they didn’t! This monument is from world war 1.

The soldier replies “yah but all the names are the same” Yes said the sergeant the names are all the same but the dates is new”!         

Blog 32 October 11 2012

Blog 32 October 11 2012

Being Thankful!

October is always a special time for me. It reminds me of special time of when my family was together; my mom and brother were still with us. My other brother was flown in from BC he was in the military. I can’t say it was a happy period that we got together but as a family we came together!

In October 1978 at the age of fifteen I received a bone marrow transplant from my older brother. At a time when bone-marrow where new and cutting edge technique. There were not many doctors doing these procedures. The doctor who did my transplant had literally just got off the plane a couple of weeks earlier and was in Montreal to setup a Bone-marrow transplant department.  In 1978 the guidelines were strict in regards to donors. Unlike today where donors only have to be a parciule match to be considered a donor back then you almost had to be an exact match.

I am remember sitting with the doctor with all my family in the room and he asked if we had anymore relatives to test because we would need a lot of family to find a good match.

(just like back then and today God gave me many blessings), after all the testing of the immediate-family the doctor came back and broke the news to us that we did not have one donor but we had two donors! The other donor that could have given me the transplant was my sister. So thought was if it did not work the first time, we could do it again since there were two donors.

The rest of the siblings were matches for other vital nutrients that I would need after in the way of transfusions.

It was a long road before to get to the transplant stage and it was a longer road to recovery! I thank God for my family every day and friends.

Today is no exception I thank God for my wife and kids.  I thank him for my sister and brothers, I thank him for my friends who are also to me my family.

This October I also got to celebrate my first year wedding anniversary to a wonderful woman who loves me and takes care of me.

As I look back over these 34 years and recount everything that has gone on in my life, I can’t say it was easy but nothing in my life! I am thankful that I had another opportunity be the father I wanted to be! To be the husband I wanted to be! To be a better friend!

To be the man God intended me to be!

I am very thankful and to celebrate I went and had my eye adjusted today and it feels great, and Lucky is doing fantastic!

Look for more Adventures around the corner!  

Lucky has been working really hard these last couple of day's. This photo was just after his supper.      

Blog 31 Oct 1 2012 End of September !

Blog   31 Oct 1 2012

End of September !

The end of summer and the beginning of fall is upon us and what I mean by that is! That I start back to school on September 6 , Chris has started back to school already!  The College students are already backing to class, and although Chris is only auditing classes he is still considered a part of the college. We are very glad that the strikes have not affected him.

As I look back over the summer and wonder where all the time went? I was sitting in my office and recounting all things I wanted to do over the summer. I had to ask myself did accomplish what I wanted to do or like always did I over book my schedule.

As I reviewed my list of things I realized that I did the important things!

The things I did not get done , were I did not blog as much as I wanted, I did not travel as much as I wanted and I did not write a paper for the course for the class I took at the Prespiterina college. I did not train as hard as I wanted too.

The big thing I realized was I need to get an air conditioner for my home office! The summer we had was horrific for the heat. I  think a lot of what I did do, I trained with Lucky! The training with Lucky was the most important part of the summer. We really have come together as a team. I got him to the campus we found our classes, we traveled on the bus and I have be bringing him on the metro. I have to say out of all the training we did over the summer the metro was for me was the scariest! The metro in Montreal scares sight people half the time so imagine being visually impaired!  It is chaos at its best.

People running to catch the metro and people trying to get off, sometimes the announcement on what stop we are coming to does not work! I then have to count from where we are to where we are getting off. It gets very confusing most of the time people on the metro do not want to talk to you.

Most of all I have to apologize to everyone for not staying in touch through my Blog or by e-mail or calling.

I have been going through a transition the last two months. I had to go through  a medication transition. Some of t he medication I have been taking was starting to cause me some discomfort, most of all I have been sleeping a lot. I seen my doctor at the end of July we did some adjustments however the adjustments took some time to work in the mean time I have just been resting when I can and going to school and working Lucky and that has been just enough. We have traveling 3 days a week into Montreal for class. Our day starts at 5am and we are home by 4pm, by the end of the day Lucky and I are ready to rest.

The other transition I have been doing is taking Jaws classes. JAWS, is a total speaking program that allows you to type or read documents without looking at the screen. This has been a big adjustment going from sighted computer work to non sighted and just listening to what being said were you are in the document and then doing corrections without seeing the words.  

The hardest part is when I leave my screen on when I work in Jaws I see the outline of the document but I cannot see what is being typed. This is frustrating since with the little sight I have in my one eye I end up trying to see where I am, I end up just turning off the screen so I can work.

The other hardest part of the transition to Jaws remembering all the commands! The hard part is there is no mouse to use all the commands are done either through the number key pad or the key board.

So with that said I waited to this blog until I could do it using JAWS that’s right I finished the word part of the training and now it is just practice, practice.

The other thing about using Jaws is I have to use head phones to work not because it is hard to hear, but my wife and I share an office.

Sometimes when we are working together she will type some of the words or letters that are being said or she will turn to me and say I got to tell you what I just read so there goes my concentration on what I was trying to write. Then sometimes out of the blue the computer will say something without me in the room she then thinks someone else is the office with me.

This year has been an exciting and hard year but the most important part is we celebrate our one year wedding anniversary today we look forward to many more.

I will attach a picture of Lucky and Addison at the office of my academic adviser who is also visually impaired who also just got his guide dog.

I hope to be blogging more now since I am doing a lot better.        

Lucky & Addison at Concordia University

Lucky -& Addison at Concordia University

Taken on Sep 10 2012 

Blog 30 Summer of Training!

Blog 30 July 20 2012

Summer of Training!

It is coming to the end of July and the training never ends I have had Lucky 3 months and it feels like we have been together for year!  I been working with Lucky for the past few months a lot of it has been street work and, we have graduated to the social aspect of the training along with traveling on the bus in our area to different locations not far from where we live and I have been working him back home. Being a guide dog and being in crowds is a normal everyday occurrence,. The thing that we must understand, is that guide dogs are just that dogs and through each part of his training he is introduced to crowds this is a normal part of training.  In each part of that training the dog is always with the same people and for most part the environment is somewhat regular. In training we are instructed it is not advisable to bring your dog  into big social  environments until they get use to their new surroundings . So we now have started introducing Lucky to different social environments.  small gatherings  (dinners),   coffee time after church, restaurants and other small events, and he has been doing great I have his puppy walkers to thank for that, they did a great job! However nothing could prepare Lucky for the social environment that he will encounter with me!  Last week our youngest son graduated so like good parents we went to the ceremonies. This is normally a very quiet affair, as most of you all know that our son is Autistic. The graduation was held at his school which is a special needs school, and since I am visually impaired they gave me a seat right in the front-row. So I will set the picture we have Lucky in a down stay there about 80 kids jumping around with music and streamers flying  all over the place and he did not move a muscle he got up to change positions for comfort but other than that he did not move nor was he scared by all the noise.

I brought Lucky to Church one Sunday and we stood at the door and greeted people once he got settled he was great he did not move and people were so happy to see us there.

I got my biggest surprise when I had to go into Montreal with all the construction and people, (no riots! Thank God!) Lucky was fantastic and that’s when I realized that he was a city dog! The traffic can get quite busy were we live but it’s nothing like Montreal with Taxi drivers trying to run people over, and people not watching were they are walking and other drivers just trying to get through the pedestrians. I must not forget the Mayor of Montreal putting up all those orange cones for an obstacle course, (I must write him a thank you letter) with all that going on Lucky was great he kept his head down moved around obstacles, people open doors construction sites like he had done it a hundred times before. It was hard to believe that it was our first time down town, and it was not a quick trip, we probably down town for about 5hrs we did take a break for a meeting but that is a long time for a guide dog that is just getting to the know the area.

He did fantastic! Since then we have been back and forth to the campus down town walked around and just started to get familiar with the campus.

Next week we start traveling to west end of the island to the other campus.

I think he will do great and I can’t say enough about how much more pleasant it is to walk with a good guide dog than with a cane, the freedom that I feel is still overwhelming sometimes. I just hope the weather stays cooler so traveling is not so difficult!

Photos of Lucky!

Lucky Knackered after a day of work Down Town.

Portrait of Lucky



University Certificate of Pastoral Ministry May 2012 .



          

Blog 29 Fond Memories

Blog 29 June 29 2012

Fond Memories

These last few weeks of June have been really difficult, in the way of many fond memories of Jagger.  Lucky has this uncanny way of doing silly things when he is up to mischief.  He reminds me so much of Jagger that over the last few days my wife has caught me calling Lucky by Jagger’s name.  The way Lucky looks at you when you to talk to him, and the way he drops his tail and goes under the table, when he knows he is in trouble is so uncanny.

I was thinking a lot about him lately, today Jagger would have been 8 years old, and we would have been a team for 6 years in September.  I was talking with my wife about his first birthday we had with him!  She stopped by the baker and got him a cake, with Sponge Bob-Square-Pants doing the back stroke in the lake, (that is because Jagger loved the water) over the years we had different parties for him and we would make sure all our kids came over to have cake.  One year we had a BBQ and we told people not to feed him, but sometimes they would slip him something when I was not looking! lol

I went downtown today with my son, and it was Lucky’s first trip downtown to the city core, I stopped at the park were Jagger and I would stop so I could relieve him, or give him water or just give him a break before or after a long bus ride.  I stood in his favorite place where he liked to sniff and roll around in the grass, after I spent so much time brushing him out in the mornings (I swear some people would tell me that my dog needs to be brushed, I would tell them he was, until he went to the park) as a smile came over my face remembering how silly and goofy he was.  I decided that I should start introducing Lucky to this place because this is where we will be stopping in the future.  I never was so reminded of Jagger as when I took off  Lucky’s harness today.  I gave him a long leash and gave him the busy command and then you know what he did? Yup, sniffed the ground, put the side of his nose on the ground and then proceeded to roll around in the grass, and the first thing I said to him was “what are you doing you nut, I just finished brushing you” I think it was the boy coming to say hi to me and let me know that he is still with us, as long as we hold him in our hearts and thoughts and prayers!