– « L’art des listes » (2007), page 177, Dominique Loreau, Éditions Marabout
a photo by zaziepoo on Flickr.Well, it will never be completely over. I mean, when you have a titanium rod the whole length of your thigh, literally inside the bone, it changes things forever (not to mention making things kind of interesting at the airport). But I think, I hope, the worst is over.
This coming September 24th will mark the 2nd year anniversary of my breaking my hip. A second time. But the story really began on May 24th 2005 when I broke my hip the first time and embarked on a journey filled with pain, frustration, uncertainty, loss and personal and professional setbacks.
It was not all bad, though. Through all of it, I met a lot of cool people, had some great moments and even managed to hold my head above water and remain relevant in a highly competitive field.
But I am so glad it is over. And that not only am I finally healed but I actually came out of this physically more independent. I actually came out of this better. Better. Stronger. Faster (almost ;)
Certainly a few people contributed to that, namely my family and by best friend forever, Alain, not to mention Carole, my prosthetist.
But there is also one person who played a big role, who made it medically possible for me to walk again, drive a car, dance, run (albeit very slowly ;) and a whole bunch of other things I could hardly imagine 2 years ago. My orthopedist, Dr. Mario Giroux.
Dr. Giroux succeeded where two other orthopedists failed. And I suspect one of the biggest reasons for that success is because he actually gave a damn.
Thank you Dr. Giroux for making me better. Thank you for caring.
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For a trip back in time, check out my visual logs on flickr (via my From The Hip collection as well as the hip tag) or my writings about the whole thing here on this old blog.
I must admit, I am running this blog off an absurdly outdated version of WordPress (2.3.3). I know, I know but it is complicated. Anyway, the thing is I do not really care about updating if I do not have to; as long as it works, you know. But now, I would like to add photos and suddenly, it is even more complicated and, basically, does not work. I would appreciate a hack or something because apparently, updating now seems out of grasp. Please help* :)
*And yes, yes, I have used that line before but can you really blame me?
I have every intention of mastering parking. I mean, I learned parking during my driving lessons (approximately 20 hours of practical driving lessons, most of which I had late last summer and a few hours of refresher courses this last May, in the few weeks preceding the driving exam).
I am better at parking while backing up in a parking lot, and especially if there are cars parked on both sides. I am OK at parking forward in a parking lot, regardless of whether there are cars parked nearby. I get parallel parking about 50% of the time. All of which takes me FOREVER. Which may or may not say a lot about me ;)
But like I said, I have every intention of mastering parking. I will become the Master of Parallel Parking.
J’errais sans but sur le Net l’autre soir et je suis tombée vraiment par hasard sur un commentaire que j’avais laissé sur un blogue d’une personne de mon milieu professionnel mais que je ne connais qu’en ligne. Et encore, « connaître » dans ce cas est un bien grand mot car, quoique j’aie vaguement collaboré avec cette personne, du moins il me semble, je ne me rappelle pas avoir vraiment échangé avec elle. Et pouf, dans mes déambulations, je trouve ce commentaire banal, du genre « joyeux anniversaire », d’il y a plus de deux ans maintenant.
Of course, loin de moi l’idée de suggérer que des vœux d’anniversaire ne sont pas importants ou ressentis. Ceux et celles qui me connaissent savent que je dis ce que je pense et tout de moi, que ce soit en ligne ou en personne est authentique (certains diront peut-être même un peu trop et je les emmerde). Mais ça m’a quand-même étonnée de me retrouver dans ce commentaire.
Four years ago to the day, I wrote a blog post about Yao Defen. As I explained in the intro to that post, I first heard about her through a television show on TLC relating the story of the tallest woman in the world. I was very touched by this story. Actually I was troubled and angry that a human being could be neglected and used and abused and exploited all at once in the way she was.
To this day, I still have no idea what became of Yao Defen. I do not know if she survived, not only her projected 2007 surgery but just in general considering the life she had. And, judging from the number of people who land on my blog everyday searching for news of her fate, I am not alone. Many would like to know what happened to her. Many are hoping she made it and has actually had the chance for a better life.
And I find it utterly astounding that people end up on my blog to try to find out the fate of this poor woman because no real information seems to be available elsewhere. Sure, you can google her and find plenty of references to her, there is even a Facebook page for her though obviously, she did not set it up. And TLC (and its worldwide Discovery Channel affiliates) still airs the same gawd damn show on a regular basis without telling people what became of her. Frankly TLC, I know I should not expect too much of you but gee, could you be more crass? And of course, the Chinese government keeps silent.
So if anyone has any idea, any information about Miss Yao’s situation, please let us know. Either post a comment here or on the original post.
Miss Yao, wherever you are, a lot of people are thinking about you and hoping you made it.
I recently sat in on a meeting between a local non-profit organization for people with disabilities and a Montreal Web development firm. The non-profit, who shall remain nameless, had asked me to attend the meeting because they felt overwhelmed and worried about negotiating this kind of contract while having next to no knowledge about Web development.
Too often in the past I have been told by organizations in my milieu that they did not get what they paid for, i.e. at minimum, an accessible Web site and at most, this includes the necessary tools to be autonomous and to be able to produce accessible content. And considering the budget constraints a lot of these orgs have and the fact that not having an accessible Web site is not really an option, it is indeed a problem. So I am regularly called upon to support disability community organizations on Web accessibility matters, to advise them about accessibility and Web standards or to accompany them through the development cycle (and just in case you are wondering, I am usually not paid for these consultations but that is another story ;)
This meeting was fairly predictable. The non-profit wanted a nice looking Web site that was accessible to their members, who have a variety of accessibility needs. One of the representatives of the non-profit had done a bit of homework and was able to say they wanted a “W3C compliant Web site” and although she had no idea what that really meant, she was certain it meant accessible to people with disabilities. And, like many people who are in her situation, she was expecting the people at the Web development firm to know what that means and that is a reasonable expectation since the firm submitted to a disability organization notably with the affirmation that they were “W3C compliant”.
« C’est un jeudi, au commencement de février, un beau jeudi soir glacé, où le grand vent souffle. Il est trois heures et demie, quatre heures… Sur les haies, auprès des bourgs, les lessives sont étendues depuis midi et sèchent à la bourrasque. Dans chaque maison, le feu de la salle à manger fait luire tout un reposoir de joujoux vernis. Fatigué de jouer, l’enfant s’est assis auprès de sa mère et il lui fait raconter la journée de son mariage…
Pour celui qui ne veut pas être heureux, il n’a qu’à monter dans son grenier et il entendra, jusqu’au soir, siffler et gémir les naufrages; il n’a qu’à s’en aller dehors, sur la route, et le vent lui rabattra son foulard sur la bouche comme un chaud baiser soudain qui le fera pleurer. Mais pour celui qui aime le bonheur, il y a, au bord d’un chemin boueux, la maison des Sablonnières, où mon ami Meaulnes est rentré avec Yvonne de Galais, qui est sa femme depuis midi. »
– Le Grand Meaulnes, chapitre VII (Alain Fournier)
This post is my contribution to Blogging Against Disablism Day 2011 (BADD 2011).
I am probably going to get hell for writing about this but anyway, here it goes…
A few weeks ago, I attended a workshop on the sexual rights of people with disabilities. This workshop was part of the Disability and Citizenship Week (Semaine Citoyenneté et Handicap) at l’Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM), a major university in the province of Quebec. It was the first time in a long time that I had heard of an event that broached this subject in my part of the world. I had two conflicting thoughts when I heard about it:
L’affaire Barlagne fait beaucoup jaser ces jours-ci, cette famille française que le Canada veut expulser puisque la plus jeune de leurs filles, Rachel 8 ans, a une paralysie cérébrale importante et est donc considérée un fardeau excessif pour la société canadienne.
D’un côté, j’estime qu’il est bon qu’on parle enfin au Canada, ou au Québec du moins, de cette pratique discriminatoire vieille comme la terre de refuser l’asile ou l’entrée au pays de personnes handicapées sur la base de leur condition physique sous prétexte que ces personnes sont un trop grand risque de prise en charge, qu’elles finiront par nous coûter une beurrée puisqu’elles sont handicapées et, généralement, considérées non autonomes.
De plus, je souhaite bonne chance à la famille Barlagne. J’espère que cette famille obtiendra gain de cause quoi que j’en doute. Il est très difficile de changer ce type de décision, qui aurait pu aussi bien être prise par un robot car la loi est la loi et elle est supposée être appliquée de manière impartiale. Reste le politique mais puisque le pouvoir appartient actuellement aux conservateurs, je doute fortement que le gouvernement Harper intervienne en faveur des Barlagne. Les conservateurs ont prouvé maintes fois que l’opinion public a peu d’influence sur leurs actions et si on se fit à leurs agissements dans le cas Jodhan, même quand ils ont tort, le sort des personnes handicapées semble très peu les émouvoir. De toute façon, les autres partis ne feraient pas, et dans certains cas n’ont pas fait, mieux.
Continue reading nous sommes tous des immigrés, il n’y a que le lieu de naissance qui change