l’azile

Just a quick note to point out that I will not be putting any more time into this venue. Aside from the general lack of time preventing me from really writing on a regular basis, I feel that I am not getting much out of it. Not to mention the fact that most of the time, the stuff I feel like writing about ends up in my personal journals.

I will leave existing writings up for archival purposes, especially since an insane number of fans of Yao Defen as well as amputee devotees seem to like dropping by here. And who knows, I may feel like writing again in the future, although I would not count it. For those curious as to what is going on with me, my flickr is usually up to date.

Anyway, thanks for reading.

I have been granted a temporary release from the rehab institute (on the condition that someone help me navigate the 19 steps that lead to my front door) so I am home until Sunday night. It is kind of strange being here after more than a month away but it feels so good to be back among my own things and to sleep in my own bed! The place was a bit of a mess when I arrived last night but Alain helped me organise and clean things. He will be back Sunday night to take me back to the institute. A nurse comes by twice a day to give me my Luvenox shots (an anti-coagulant).

I have about three more weeks of on-site rehab to do and then I should be able to do most of it as an out-patient. I have started walking a bit with my prosthesis, about 30 minutes or so a day, and they have been having me do various simulations, like walking outside, walking up a hill, walking up and down stairs (although there is just no way they will ever be able to simulate the broken-down stairs I have here), etc. The objective is to get me, at the very least, to the same point I was in terms of mobility and autonomy before I broke my hip. We are also working on adjustments to the prosthesis because, by inserting that titanium rod in my femur, the doctor straightened my thigh. This has resulted in my leg being over a half inch longer as well as having a very different alignment.

Finally, I am happy to report I am still smoke-free. It has been 37 days since my last cigarette and I must admit that I am very pleased with myself. Although, to be honest, it was actually very easy. Of course, I have been tempted a few times but the urge was fleeting. I think the radical change in context is what has helped the most.

Anyway, for those who are curious, I have been taking a few photos of my experience (although never with as much zeal as the first time around).

Happy Hallowe’en everyone!

I am very tired. To the point that I have had trouble keeping my eyes open these last few days and would I listen to myself, I would just nap all day long. Most evenings, all I feel like doing is calling it a night at 7 PM. People who know me understand that this is completely out of character for me.

I think part of it is obviously the fact that I am still healing, my body is still working on things and it indeed has a lot of stuff to take care of. And of course, I am also dealing with a lot of stress. Not to mention low blood pressure which is something new. The other part of it is, I think, that I have not smoked a cigarette since the accident (which is hardly surprising, what with being unable to move much for the first week or so, let alone get out of bed and go outside to have a smoke). Every time I have tried to quit smoking, it has had a similar effect on me, i.e. being tired and practically stoned, although never quite so intense.

So I have decided to try to stick with it. I do not know if I will succeed because although the physical withdrawal is pretty much over, it really is the psychological withdrawal that is the hardest and the longest to deal with. But I am going to try because I have been hoping to quit smoking for a good while and, ironically, this seems like the perfect opportunity.

Continue reading… déjà vu and yet not so much

You know, I am not even going to bother trying to find a clever title for this post. There is nothing clever about my situation and besides, I am too pissed off.

So yeah, I broke my hip September 24th, as evidenced here. As y’all can imagine, breaking one’s hip is not fun. It is actually quite traumatic not to mention very, very painful. And going through this a second time does not really make it any easier. Well, except maybe for being able to deal more adequately with the amazing amount of bureaucracy one has to contend with despite being in a rather bad way.

Of course, on a personal level, this whole thing has me stressed out because it has, once again, put my life on hold. Besides the inescapable fact that I have a lot of work to do, the truth is things were finally starting to make sense for me. I felt like, four years after breaking my hip the first time, things had finally, for the most part, gotten back on track (because it may not be obvious but breaking a hip is a very disruptive thing). And then BANG!, I break my hip. Again.

Continue reading… I broke my hip again

Gawd!, it has been so long since I have written anything of note here, it is hard to know where to start. As y’all have probably noticed, I am not much of a blogger and I most likely never will be. I like having it for an occasional rant or to point out something that I have been thinking about and stuff. And obviously, there have been periods when I had more time. But I am always amazed by the people I know (or know of) who blog regularly, tweet literally non-stop, have a full time job and then some, a bunch of other work-related activities, not to mention hobbies and such, a family, a dog, etc., etc. When do they sleep?! Anyway, just a brief update to let people know I am still alive.

Continue reading… random update #11

It is funny (not in a ha ha sense but in an ironic sense) that after I got home tonight, this article from Wired.com was waiting for me in my RSS feeds. Originally titled “Why We Freak Out at Freaks” (and, after several complaints in the comments section to the post, changed to “Why We Stare, Even When We Don’t Want To”), the article explains why staring when one sees someone who looks different “actually makes sense, at least in an evolutionary sense”.

I found it funny because while I was out walking around looking for a decent restaurant with a nice atmosphere to have supper in my neighbourhood that would actually be open on a Monday night (I eventually gave up and ordered in Chinese, which ended up being pretty good), I was stopped by a young man on a street corner who asked me what was wrong with me. Needless to say I was thoroughly annoyed but I will get to that in a minute.

Continue reading… de-evolution

I broke one of my [do not even bother attempting to comprehend] rules. In a fit of BSG madness, I broadcast on twitter that I had missed the last three minutes of the series finale wherein, oh the horror!, I used a contraction (as evidenced here).

Yes. I actually used a freaking contraction in the written English language for the first time, to the best of my knowledge, in more than four years.

So y’all are probably thinking, euh, wtf?! And yeah, I know, I know, wtf!

But whatever. This is an important and disconcerting, euh, quelque chose.

PS. “y’all” does not count.

Ça y’est, c’est officiel, le printemps est là et je dois avouer que c’est un soulagement.

Je ne sais pas trop pourquoi ; l’hiver cette année n’a pas été particulièrement difficile, du moins en ce qui concerne la température. Mais, pour une raison qui m’échappe en ce moment, l’arrivée du printemps m’a fait sourire, comme ce souvenir éternel de ressentir le souffle chaud du soleil sur ma peau, d’entendre les bruits nocturnes de Montréal filtrer au travers la fenêtre ouverte de ma chambre, de sentir le parfum floral des parterres et balcons dans la fraîcheur d’une fin de soirée de mai, de laisser cette première gorgée d’un mojito absolument glacé couler doucement le long de mon œsophage et atterrir, avec un léger fracas, dans mon estomac.

Évidemment, vers la fin de juillet, je vais commencer à me plaindre [discrètement] qu’il fait trop chaud, qu’il y a trop de guêpes à Montréal et vivement l’automne ! Et rendu à la fin d’août, j’imagine que vous ne pourrez sans doute plus me blairer.

Mais d’ici-là, comme on dit en anglais, there is no time like the present.

Comme d’habitude, je suis en retard pour le party puisque je n’ai appris la nouvelle qu’hier : la Régie de l’assurance maladie du Québec (RAMQ) oblige, depuis juillet 2008, les fabricants de fauteuils roulants motorisés à limiter la vitesse des « véhicules » à 10 km/h. Sans doute le fait que je n’utilise plus de fauteuil roulant motorisé depuis quelques années maintenant, sans compter que mon ignorance des actualités locales est légendaire, y est pour quelque chose. Mais bon, maintenant que je le sais, je dois dénoncer haut et fort cette mesure scandaleuse.

Déjà qu’on qualifie un fauteuil roulant de « véhicule » pose problème. Un moyen de locomotion, certes, mais pas du tout dans la même veine que des autos, motos, vélos, etc. Certains compareront un fauteuil roulant à des jambes ce qui se rapproche un peu plus de la réalité mais encore là, je trouve que l’analogie est pauvre. Simplement, cela représente un moyen pour certaines personnes handicapées de se déplacer, de bénéficier de plus d’autonomie et il n’y a vraiment rien qui puisse s’y comparer.

Certains groupes de personnes handicapées ont dénoncé cette mesure; il paraît qu’il y en a qui seraient même prêts à interpeller la Commission des droits de la personne s’il le faut et je leur souhaite merde. Mais la réalité est que la communauté est partagée. Sans doute le fait que la plupart des gens qui travaille dans le milieu et qui représente les intérêts des personnes handicapées n’est pas handicapé y est pour quelque chose…

Je ne me lancerai pas dans des longs argumentaires parce que, de toute manière, les chialeurs à l’origine de cette mesure discriminatoire s’en foutent et j’ai d’autre chose à faire que de perdre mon temps à essayer de convaincre des gens qui ne pigent pas. Mais je me permettrai de dire « tassez-vous calice au lieu de rester plantés là à nous dévisager ou à vous imaginer que vous êtes tout seul sur la planète ». Déjà ça, ça règlerait bien des problèmes.

Mais bon, si on se permet de limiter la vitesse à laquelle on peut se déplacer en fauteuil roulant, eh bien moi j’exige qu’on oblige les fabricants de vélos, skates, patin à roulettes et compagnie de limiter leur vitesse à 10 km/h. Car après tout, tout compte fait, ces « véhicules » sont beaucoup plus nuisibles à la santé de tous ces pauvres bipèdes.

Comme on dit en anglais, « fair is fair ».

PS. traduction googlienne de « tassez-vous calice »  : « pack your chalice ». Trop mourant.

PS2. Un article sur la question sur le blogue de Parole Citoyenne signé par Pierrot Péladeau qui explique infiniment mieux que moi la sournoise gravité de ce geste.

As I noted recently, these last few weeks, when I have the time, I have been trying to get rid of stuff I have been lugging around for the last, euh, 25 years or so. So I have been looking through a mind-boggling amount of junk that I have never bothered to throw out but also some sentimental stuff such as photos, old letters, mementos as well as the occasional and somewhat important-looking document that I can never decide whether I should keep or not.

I have boxes and boxes that I have to go through and I have not really looked in them in a very, very long time. I usually just store everything in a spare closet from move to move, thinking that I will get around to it… eventually… and then totally forget about it until the next move. But because this apartment has NO STORAGE SPACE, I have no choice now. I have some serious “decluttering” to do.

Continue reading… nostalgie