Hospital Holidays and Back on My Feet...

The term "Holiday" has generally referred to a time away from the normal daily routine set apart for the purpose of taking a break, exploring something new or different, spending quality time with family and friends and resting from work. However, throughout my life, I have accumulated a repertoire of holiday happenings that make National Lampoon look like a sun-basking genius.

This year has been no exception.

July: After six months of full-time teaching, organising and hosting placements in the Dominican, and some pop-travel (renewal of licence, passport, health card, birth of Mattea the new niece) -- I took a holiday in Florida with my family. We were going to take the girls to Disney, spend some fun time together away from everything. Mum and Dad needed the break after all they’d been through over the year with the fiasco over Dad’s right eye. Thomas and Krystal needed a break in having the other three adults there to entertain, feed, clothe and change diapers. We were doing well (though the weather was terribly uncooperative for beach time) until the afternoon that a random palm branch fell from the tree in front of my Granny’s house (it may or may not have been provoked by a set of very large clippers) and stabbed Dad in his left eye. The good one. The one he had been using to see out of and drive with and - oh, just everything else - while the right eye healed and gained vision slowly with its stubborn but reattaching retina.

So, the holiday was “reworked” and I spent some time in the hospital with Dad that day, he had a bit of surgery the next day and was flown back to Canada the following day to have a specialist look at the injury.

On Thursday (13th October), he will see the specialist again for another assessment. He had a series of operations in similar style to what his right eye endured and we have hopes that soon (a relative term, just ask any of the twelve) he will be able to see again. If you pray, that is something I would appreciate prayer for -- and if you don’t pray, go on, take a chance, see how it works…

September: My Granny’s birthday is in September and last year, the family travelled “back home” to Northern Ireland to celebrate her 80 years with her. I would have gone then, but I was very committed to teaching at the time and September is an awkward month for High School teachers to take holidays. So, we (she and I) postponed our wee trip to this year. I had already planned to resume full-time with Monsoon leading cross-cultural educational experiences for young people in a number of geographical situations rather than be committed to a 9-5 job anywhere in particular.

After chaperoning the Grad trip in July, I returned to Brampton to finish an M.Ed. course and speak at the church summer youth camp. I left with Granny and Annie (my Aunt) for the UK on the 12th of September. We spent time in Birmingham and Belfast with family, and we were to head to Paris for her birthday where I had scheduled three light days of sightseeing.

However, she wasn’t looking so good by the time we arrived in Belfast. I put it down to being over-active in Birmingham, her leaky heart valve (that we were told would make her over-tired and breathless) and the up-and-down of the planes. But by Wednesday of that week, Annie and I decided that she needed to see a doctor. On Thursday, she went to the doctor and the good ole doc hospitalised her. She had a violent pneumonia and they started testing for TB.

Eventually, it was decided that Annie would go home to her family and I would stay on until Granny was well enough to travel. The doctors assured me that her full recovery would take six weeks, and that we should be patient to see how quickly she would start to recover before making any return travel plans.

I postponed the Fall Term for Monsoon and was grateful that the participants (Melissa and Meagan) were both very understanding. During my extended trip, I spent time with my Great Aunt and Uncle in the mornings, updating The Ten (Granny’s ten children) in Canada via descriptive daily emails, and between six and seven hours in the hospital with Granny in the afternoon-evenings. She felt bad we had to miss Paris, but we all just wanted her to heal.

She began that healing process quickly, and we arrived back to Toronto on Friday the 7th of October, just in time for Thanksgiving. And we are all giving great thanks to God that she is home and on the road to recovery.

I will be taking her to our doctor later on today to give him a full report of the fiasco in the UK, and I hope that she can continue to recover to her previous energetic state of good health. She is a strong woman despite her age and has the will to live for many more years.

Ride for Refuge: Many of you may have heard about BBC participation on the 1st of October. I had every intention of making it back to ride, but it wasn’t to be. So instead, I talked about it to many people and raised awareness for the cause while I was in the UK. Believe it or not, I was able to raise £60.00 to support my own not-to-be ride!! So, I cycled (stationary bike) a total of approximately 110km (about 12-15k/day) during the two weeks I had access. And that became my ride… thanks for your support Stella Harrison and Uncle Tommy & Auntie Eleanor Meekin!

As for taking holidays - well, it turns out I need a break from those and so I am diving back into full-time work with a new passion…

Thanks for all your prayers and emails.

Love,

Shannon

Monsoon Fall Term: We have only postponed for an extra week and hope to be in the Dominican Republic by the 18th of October if we can reach a good support target before that date (we are currently at 51%). For a complete look at our schedule and finances, please send a request to monsoongde@gmail.com and I would be happy to give you more details about both.