This Face

Happily, the spaghetti sauce completely covers the black, blue, purple and yellow chin courtesy of a face-plant into the sideboard.  It does not cover his swollen left eye, which was a reaction to a mosquito bite we got from our sojourn to Mud Lake in search of ducklings (check), turtles (check) and catfish (? check).

This also does not show the...lice.  Yes, we came down with lice that happily settled into Malcolm, Colin and Evelyn's hair.  I think we managed to get on top of the situation in the nick of time, and by luck, we already had a bottle of the special treatment shampoo on hand.  We're hoping we're at the tail end of it now, as Colin was the last to be infested and that was a week ago today.  We have done tons of laundry in hot washes, spent literally hours combing through hair, and have sent bags of stuffies "on vacation" in our hot car.

Ah yes, life does move on; ready or not.

We look forward to seeing many of you on Saturday morning!

Goodbye, Opa.

Thanks everyone, for all your best wishes and support over the past month.  As I've said to many of you, this is a very difficult road to walk.  But you have to walk it; you can't take a shortcut, or delegate your steps.

That being said, I've been incredibly fortunate to have so many wonderful people guide and support me along the way.  Edward, who has been my absolute rock; Martin and Andrea, Ryan and Cristina who freely gave their evenings so that Edward and I could go to the hospital to visit my father; Jane and Gillian who provided a sympathetic ear, hugs and entertainment for a bevy of children; Myriam, who valiantly kept the house and children in one piece through the turmoil and uncertainty; everyone who visited my father, sent e-mails, phone calls and  thoughts and prayers our way.  It is a sad and exhausting road, but your compassion and care made me feel that we were not alone.

Most of all, I owe deep gratitude to my mother and sister, for having the courage and love to let my father go.  I am very proud that we kept his best interests at the heart of our decision to pursue palliative care for him; we knew that my father could not be a passive bystander in his life.  He was a passionate and engaged participant.  His seizure and cognitively debilitating second stroke made it clear to us that any future he might have would not have met the quality he deserved.   Nevertheless, it took tremendous fortitude to see him through to the end.   He died yesterday morning, exactly one month after his first stroke.  My mother, sister and I are grateful that his decline and demise represent only a tiny fraction of an almost eighty year life very well lived and very well loved.

We will be having a Celebration of my father's Life on Saturday, July 25 from 11-2pm at the beautiful Capital Funeral Home located at 3700 Prince of Wales Drive.  Please feel welcome to attend.

At the moment, it's very hard for me to eulogize my father.  So I think it is most fitting to leave that to his grandchildren, who were, after all, the greatest joy in his life.  The video linked below was taken on Friday, as my kids worked on a "Hug Blanket" for Opa.  We hung it on the wall of his hospital room, and yesterday morning, right after he died, his wonderful nurse draped it over him.  We all know he would have wanted that last hug more than anything else.

What We Love About Opa

We love you, and will miss you, Dad.  Heaven is a place in a loved one's heart, Dad, and you'll live on in ours forever.

Update

We've been very busy gearing up for the last few days of school, and now summer has finally, officially arrived!  The kids have a long list of fun things they want to do, including a making a lemonade stand (I think we have a few business-minded offspring....), traveling on a double-decker city bus, and spending the afternoon at the wading pool with a picnic.  It all sounds wonderful, and I can hardly wait to get outside!

Unfortunately, my father has had a setback on his stellar road to recovery.   On Wednesday, he had an excellent day, and even managed to get to the physio gym under his own steam, with a walker.  But that night, he had a seizure; followed by another possible seizure Thursday morning and now he is in the Intensive Care Unit.   While his vitals look great, and the tests came back very positively (no changes in his brain, no ongoing seizures), he has yet to regain consciousness.  We are very much in a wait and see situation, as his neurologist cannot explain why my father isn't rebounding now that he is stable.

At present, he is inaccessible to anyone but immediate family, but should that change, I will update accordingly.

Malcolm and the fire truck

Myriam and Malcolm discovering a fire engine at the mall earlier this week.

Better Times

Thanks everyone for your well wishes, and offers of help and support; these have meant so much to us over the past six days.  We are nowhere near establishing a "new normal", but we are inching in that direction, one hour at a time.

My father is recovering really well.  In fact, he is out of the Neurology Acute Care Unit (NACU), and up on the neurology ward.  He was moved there last night, and I had the privilege of helping him settle into his new digs.   

He is still having a hard time with thin liquids and heavily textured food, which, to those who know him, is likely one of the hardest knocks, given that my father defined the term "foodie" seventy five years before it was cool.  If he focusses mightily on his left hand, he can get it to move a fraction.  His left arm and leg have some range of motion, although the left side of his face is still resolutely unmovable.   His speech is fairly good, and very happily, his cognitive abilities seem unimpaired.   He was getting rather feisty the first few days after his stroke, because he desperately wanted to put his feet on the floor.  And although his constant, single-minded demands served to underline just how helpless we all were - him to move, and us to accommodate him safely - I was relieved to see that he could still muster a healthy dose of impetuousness.   Apathy isn't what you want to see in these situations.  The doctors think that he is an excellent candidate for rehabilitation, and I know my father is looking forward to doing something productive with the days he finds so long.  

When I compare where my father is now with how he was at approximately 8:05pm last Saturday night, I am amazed.  But when I compare him now to the person he was at 8:04pm, well... that's the sad part.  But we are extremely fortunate to be where we are, and we are deeply grateful these comparisons can be made at all.

In the meantime, we've had a few lovely distractions here at home.  Of course, there is this guy:

The Ducklings have been a little sad, scared and confused about Opa's medical situation.  Edward and I have worked hard to comfort them, and to generate feelings of optimism and acceptance, but this is hard even for adults.   Malcolm, on the other hand, is his usual happy go lucky self.  He is greatly looking forward to having cake this weekend for his birthday - cake being his most favourite thing ever - and we've been swimming this week, playing in puddles, rescuing worms, reading books, cuddling, grocery shopping, and all of those things that re-establish a bit of equilibrium and forward momentum in times like this.  As I've said before, kids are great at moving life along.

You will likely have to "bigify" this picture to see our other sweet distractions: four baby bunnies!   Above, there's one eating the clover in the grass, and two more are on the far left, nibbling on the daylily leaves.   At one point, three of them were gathered around the daylily, sitting on their wee haunches and having a snack.  They are supremely hard to photograph; Sprocket has done his due diligence schooling them in their "flight" reactions, so they are a little jumpy.   Pun intended.

Edward and I have decided that we won't be having the open house tomorrow morning.  Our apologies to all.  However, we hope to see many of you over the course of the summer.

A Difficult Time

Hello all,

My father, beloved Opa, had a serious stroke last night.  He survived, but despite the surgeon's best efforts, they were unable to remove the large clot.  We are presently unsure of the extent of his brain injury.

Luckily, my mother reacted extremely quickly when she realized he was having a stroke, and in doing so, saved his life.  He is receiving top-notch care at the Civic Hospital, and we are all very grateful that that facility is close to both my parents' house, and ours.

I visited him this morning, and he is conscious.  However, the left side of his body is paralyzed.  The nurse believes we will see additional improvement over the next 48 hours.  He is having a CAT scan this evening.

We were very fortunate that my sister, who will be relocating from Petawawa to Colorado Springs in early August, was flying home from Colorado via Ottawa last night and was able to come to the hospital.

We had a lovely dinner at my parents' house last night before the stroke, and I am savouring the memory of rambunctious kids, Opa's ever generous dessert helpings and lots of laughter and happy mayhem.  That memory is keeping me afloat in this difficult time.

At present, I'm not sure if we will have the open house birthday party for Malcolm on the 13th as planned.  It will depend on how the week unfolds.   I will update accordingly.

Yikes! Malcolm is Turning Two?!

No one is quite sure when this milestone snuck up on us, but yes, indeed, Malcolm (aka Mr. Man, Boobear) is turning TWO!!

Let's try that again....

TWO!!

This guy:

Rewind two years:

Rewind one year:

And... follow me with the logic here... that is why he has yet to have a (much needed, depending on who you ask) haircut.  I'm in denial.  Total, complete denial that my Baby Z is possibly old enough to need a haircut.

In any case, we're having one of our infamous open-house style your-presence-is-present-enough birthday party extravaganzas to celebrate:

When:  Saturday,  June 13th from 10-12pm

Where:  Our house, rain or shine!

We'd love to see you there!!