Looking Back Four Years Today

 Today, July 1st, is Canada Day. Not much to celebrate as the Country begins to come to grips with what the colonists and settlers did to our Indigenous people with the residential schools. They knew about it and told us but we wouldn't listen. The "discovery" of hundreds of unmarked graves on the sites of former residential schools has forced us to listen. It is one thing to weep for the innocent lives lost but another, more important, is to understand the lives of survivors that were destroyed and for which they and their children and children's children are still suffering. 

Tanya and I both have our second Pfizer shots as of this week. We could have waited longer than the minimum days between but best to grab it when the vaccine is available. We get our official certificate next week. When we drove into town, I could count on one hand the number of people on the street wearing masks. In the supermarket more people wore masks but again, I could count on one hand the number wearing them correctly over nose and mouth. Made me think of the guy who survived Chernobyl. He watch the movie and counted nine errors on one hand.

Saturday, July 1st, 2017, my world changed. As Churchy LaFemme would say, Friday the 13th come on a Saturday this month. At 1:30 in the morning, a diverticula on my large intestine burst. Apparently I had Diverticulosis and never knew it. Most people with that condition will never know unless something goes wrong. I never had a baby or a kidney stone but my pain had to be right up there. At 5:00 am I went into hospital in Zhovti Vody and they had no idea what was wrong. That afternoon, I went by ambulance to Dnipro on a morphine drip to survive. Andrey had to speak to the mayor so the city would use the good ambulance instead of the Spanish Civil War left over. 

Mechnikov Hospital is the main hospital in Dnipro and was full of wounded soldiers from the front of the war against Russia. The doctors there had no idea what was wrong with me either and poked and prodded my swollen belly for three days before they decided they better operate. They cleaned me out, slapped an ostomy bag on me, filled my with IV antibiotics and sent me to a room to die. They told Tanya I would probably not make the weekend. As I was lying there too weak to lift a finger, I figured that as long as nothing went south, I would make it. Morphine was my friend.

My girls got there Friday 7th. Tanya found a flat for the four of them about 30 minutes by bus from the hospital. They were busy. Hospitals have no staff and not much else either. Too much money disappears between budget allotment and where it is needed. Nurses administer meds. Period. Family has to do everything else. Including buying meds. The nurse would give a list to Tanya in the morning and sometimes it would take two people half a day going to different drug stores to find everything. 

I was there a month, then back to Zhovti Vody hospital and eventually to the house. Once I could walk we flew to Regina. Two years and three surgeries later we flew home to Ukraine. 

I am so thankful for Tanya who was the best nurse ever, Dr Vishul in Regina (who trained at Mechnikov Hospital, my family who looked after me so well and friends and all who contributed to Go-Fund-Me which paid for all my costs in Ukraine and flights home. I am glad to be alive. 

Growing old is not for the faint of heart. Now I have caught the NILE virus.

The NILE Virus, type C
We are still battling the COVID-19 and the next thing is here already.  Virologists have identified a new Nile virus - type C.  It appears to target those who were born between 1930 & 1970.
Symptoms: Causes you
1.       To send the same message twice.
2.       To send a blank message.
3.       To send a message to the wrong person.
4.       To send it back to the person who sent it to you.
5.       To forget to attach the attachment.
6.       To hit SEND before you've finished.
7.       To hit DELETE instead of SEND.
8.       To SEND when you should DELETE.
It is called the C-NILE virus!
And if you cannot admit to doing the above, you have obviously caught the mutated strain — the D-NILE virus.