RESILIENT PEOPLE - BLOG
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2020 has been a heavy yearWe celebrated New Year's Eve with a lot of anticipation for the year ahead. Even just saying 2020 sounded fun. But only in the first few months of this year we've seen the Olympics postponed to 2021, movie houses closed indefinitely and a US election that many speculate will be fraught with heightened anxiety and violence. 2020 has not delivered on the fun but instead brought a lot of bad news and heaviness. |
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Grief will be joining us this EasterMy husband Adam passed away almost two months ago. Since then I've barely cried or felt any deep sorrow. Today is Easter and I woke up feeling very alone. As if today was somehow different than any other day. I've heard many times that the first holidays are the hardest when you lose someone. This is our first. |
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My husband's death leaves life feeling surrealIt hasn't even been three weeks since Adam passed away and I find myself wondering if it was all a dream? Not a bad dream or a good dream...just wondering if any of it even happened? |
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Who is caring for you?"Can you talk to someone whose husband also has glioblastoma?", was the text I got from a friend. Only a few weeks later she would send me another note asking me to speak with someone else. Within a month I met two women whose husbands were diagnosed with the same terminal illness as my husband. G. was the first, and then N. |
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New book offers advice to brain tumour caregiversThe Brain Tumour Foundation of Canada recently released the first "Brain Tumour Caregiver Handbook". The purpose of the book is to address the specific needs of caregivers when caring for a loved one with a brain tumour. Over a year ago I was approached to conduct interviews and write the background stories of four caregivers. |
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Make mine a triple decker - the sandwich generation redefinedThe sandwich generation has forever been defined by people in their 30s and 40s who are caring for their children as well as their parents. My sandwich has an added layer - my husband who at only 50 years old has been suffering from glioblastoma, an aggressive form of brain cancer. |
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Laughing at the absurdI recently ran into an old acquaintance who learned of the return of my husband's cancer. It took them by surprise that while I was sharing his symptoms, the 10 days of radiation that followed and aggressive intravenous infusion that he was now taking bi-weekly that I laughed about it. |
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Flying on her own - how my daughter exemplifies resilienceMy baby, my first born, the one who has trained me in parenting. She's left on her first solo flight. Albeit on a school credit trip, with many others studying the same marine biology course, but she is not travelling with us. As many times as I have encouraged her to take advantage of these opportunities, I couldn't deny the mixed feelings I had while leaving her at the airport. I reflected on the story that Alana Salsberg contributed to RESILIENT PEOPLE on motherhood. As she put it, "This is what I wanted: happy, excited, confident, resilient kids who have become happy, excited, confident, resilient young adults." |
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The Tragically Hip's farewell concert and our own brain cancer storyThe Tragically Hip were one of Canada's most beloved bands. Although I couldn’t count myself as one of their lifelong fans I did get caught up in the farewell fandemonium. Part of my reason for wanting to watch the show was to see the band’s lead singer Gord Downie perform that night. Only a few months earlier it was announced that he had stage 4 brain cancer, specifically called glioblastoma (GBM). Little did I know that watching his performance would signal my own family's upcoming battle with this same illness. |
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Betterhelp offers 24/7 online counsellingBetterHelp provides online connections to licensed behaviour therapists and counsellors via text or phone conversations and I gave it a try. |
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What volunteering has done for me
I was young when I started to volunteer. My first memory is being around 10 years old and calling constituents on behalf of our local municipal candidate in a Toronto election. All I remember is saying to people, "I hope we can count on your support for Yuri Shymko." |
