She’s a clean machine As a devoted caregiver for my wife Anne, I find myself constantly hovering, attentive to her every need – sometimes to an excessive degree. Her battle with terminal brain cancer has left her quite wobbly on her feet, requiring me to be vigilant at all times. Whether it’s guiding her through..
Lights out in 1979 “This level of exhaustion deserves its own genre of music.” Looking back on my 46-year relationship with my wife Anne, I can’t help but express certain profound regrets and proffer belated apologies. I’m so sorry that my nocturnal proclivities cost Anne so much sleep back in 1979… a situation..
Anne’s Celebration of Life The nature of Anne’s cancer and the stage that it has reached is such that she could pass away at any moment. Anne has fourth-stage brain cancer, glioblastoma, and we have entered the palliative phase. Yet in the last three or four weeks, since we have waived the white flag and..
Checking Out? Leaving? A Tale of Hospital Discharge and the Hotel California “You can check out any time you like, but you can never leave”—at least, that’s how it feels on discharge day at the hospital. Getting Anne released proved to require a labyrinthine dance worthy of the Eagles’ greatest hit. Various staff..
Relapses and Awakenings: Anne returns to the hospital unable to walk, talk, or eat Yesterday morning, Anne was unable to get out of bed. She could not walk, talk, or eat. She was also radically incontinent. After about 30 minutes of my lugging and cajoling, we finally reached the bathroom of our tiny..
Mellow Yellow Anne: Brain Cancer and Strangely Chilling Out My wife Anne is currently undergoing three weeks of intensive radiation and chemotherapy treatments. The treatments are leaving her extremely nauseous and totally exhausted. But for lengthy periods, she is preternaturally mellow, chilled out, totally detached from the trials and tribulations of everyday..
A Hotline To Treatment: Getting Through and Feeling Blue In the summer of 1964, when I was 12 years old, our family move to London, Ontario, coinciding in my case with the sudden onslaught of puberty, a ferocious hormonal maelstrom that transformed me into an obsessive pop music listener. My favourite DJ in those days..
My mom, door-to-door salespeople, and the clarinet: tooting in the 1950s and 1960s My 1950s and 1960s Georgetown childhood was characterized by cacophony, including rumpus and din on our little subdivision street where a knife sharpener man would ring his bell; where the breadman would dart from home to home distributing succulent baked goods with..
A hair-raising elegy: Growing up in Georgetown at Wright Smith’s Barbershop, 1960-1964, and beyond I don’t remember my first haircuts as a child growing up in small town Ontario. My memories of hair- raising adventures date back to about 1960, when I was around eight years old. A new barber arrived in town, Mr. Wright..
ET C’EST L’HIVER F. Hamelin – Marie-Claire Séguin Une belle chanson poétique pour l’hiver *English translation below the French Nous marchons si près de la terre Sous le vent de minuit Sous la blancheur du givre Et comme au temps du très vieux temps Le long d’un grand pays de neige Les arbres se..