One year later

It was one year ago today that I moved into this apartment after my April 2005 spinal fusion surgery. It's worked out pretty well and I think I was pretty lucky to find a place like this. It was the first and only place I went to see so I made my own luck and took advantage of the opportunity. The other co-op members are decent and some of them have become good friends. Some of them comment about my being out & about regularly. I'm not staying indoors all the time. The management here is great too.




Things are OK financially at this point. Just waiting for Canada Pension Plan Disability benefits drove me crazy. But that got straightened out and I'm getting monthly benefits. Somebody was dicking around but a friend's wife works for CPP so she got things going. The Ontario Disability Support Program is worthless. I get my meds from them but that's it. The legislation doesn't allow for common sense and the people who work at ODSP don't care. The complaint is always that it's Mike Harris' fault and that's true but Dalton McGinty isn't doing himself any favours by not making necessary changes. The ODSP needs to be more inclusive and though ombudsman Andre Marin is on their case, if the Liberals don't make necessary changes by election time, they will be in deep trouble. Voters remember broken promises. Right now the disabled are treated like sub humans by the Ontario government. That needs to change.




The one negative about this area is there's no supermarket nearby. It would be very difficult to do a decent shopping. I would have to take Wheeltrans and it's not like I can carry very much anyway. It's just not practical. Besides, I'm not a gourmet cook. But I'm diabetic so I need good nutritious meals regularly. I was on Meals On Wheels. It was convenient but I wasn't crazy about the meals. Greg Quill of The Toronto Star wrote about Healthy Heart Meals a few months ago. It's supposed to be a meal plan for dieters but I called them and Jon Burnside said he would call me when he was going to start an a la carte program. So I switched about a month ago and I'm very happy with the results. The meals are gourmet quality. They're not frozen. He has a machine that keeps the meals fresh in the fridge. Nuke them for two minutes. That's it. They're a little more expensive than Meals On Wheels but it's a better product and my blood sugar is down. Dr. Matthews was impressed. I don't mind paying a little more. See for yourself at Jon's website http://www.hhmeals.com/




So I'm going out to a movie or shopping or whatever I want to do. It's doubtful I'll ever work again. It's not worth it. Someone would have to pay me a whole lot of monry to do a whole lot of nothing because I have to rest during the day. I don't have the stamina anymore. I have something else planned but it may not happen until the beginning of 2007. My power chair works great. I exercise at home but this is a long term thing. I'm not going to obsess about it. I'm just going to go on with my life and be comfortable with that. I want to thank all the folks at Lyndhurst, especially the social workers. They helped me get here. And thanks to everyone who reads this blog and puts up with my rants. TTYL.