A full House!

What a great hangout day.

After a fairly miserable day at work and a rushed drive to Delta and back it was nice to slide into the house and sit down for dinner amongst a bunch of familiar and some new faces.

One of the first things I heard was, "here comes trouble". Little did she know that I was called Trouble when I was 3 or 4.

At the table there were the Brothers J, Single J, AJ, and StepJ. Volunteers Santos, Amanda, and Joan, all onsite for the night.

Let it be known that I ate too many servings of potatoes and chicken and fish.

As usual we tend to meet up in the schoolroom to hang and to figure out what we can do for the night. This works for AJ because she gets to listen to and watch Shania Twain on the comp! We always end up having cool discussions finding out how things have been with everyone since the last time they were here for respite, or getting to know those who we haven't met before.

After a while we split up: me, Joan, and the Brothers J move outside. Last August the Brothers J were in the house. Read about it: http://canuckplaceadventurechallenge.blogspot.com/2009/08/week-after.html

We played some bball, we played some hockey. We played for a long time!

After a while we went back upstairs. Walk into the classroom and I get a great surprise! There is a teenage girl (KJ) at the house who I have known for 5 years. She doesn't talk, but she sure knows how to smile...especially with her eyes. Every time I see KJ I break out into "I'm walking on Sushine" by Katrina and the waves, take her hand and do a little dance. It is worth it to see the smiles on her face!

A little bit of Wii with the Brothers J, a little bit of hangout and the night is done.

Some of the most rejuvenating 4 hours I get to spend anywhere.

Messages from the house

On occasion we (volunteers) receive an email notice about our kids passing. More often than not the notice contains the words "in his parents arms", or "surrounded by family". I am always saddened by these emails. Most often they are about the kids that I don't know and the news will always makes me sad. I am not sure how I will react when it is someone I have come to know better than others.

For the first time in 5 years I replied to the email from our volunteer coordinator. I just replied without much thought. In it I expressed how proud I am to be a part of Canuck Place

In fact I am proud of every doctor, nurse, volunteer, parent, sibling, and Canuck Place Kid I have been fortunate enough to meet there. Even Santos.

When you are sick...just stay clear,

One of the things I notice when I look at the blog is how much stuff gets missed. I was sick on Friday and had to call in to the house to cancel for the night. Miss a shift and all of a sudden my time there is reduced to once in the month. I HATE calling in sick. I realise that it is my time at the house that creates awesome moments with awesome people for me to write about!

Even if you are just 'a little' sick your bug could be devastating to the kids in the house. So we steer clear.

The start to another 6 months of fundraising is underway as I officially signed up for the 5th Annual Canuck Place Adventure Challenge! www.adventurechallenge.ca

Take a visit to the site. Take your time to go to the house as well: www.canuckplace.org

Men's Pairs Roller Chair Dance - 2010 Olympics

Whoa! A new event is on the horizon at the Canuck Place Olympic Classroom Plaza. Men's Pairs Roller Chair Dance. Santos and I are still trying to sort out Compulsary Elements for the event.
I believe we are destined for Gold as we are the only men's pair in the house.

Amanda and Joan are not men and therefore unable to compete.

A second event: Olympic Face taping. Pictures to follow? Not sure!

A third event: Pokemon Counterfitting by Aldo.

It is nice to be back at the house after a long while (one shift forgotten...one shift sick).

Running report tonight maybe......!

News Flash - Abbotsford to create its own Canuck Place

November 24, 2009
Abbotsford to create its own Canuck Place
Council in the Fraser Valley city approves lease of land for buildings to house seriously ill patients
By Tiffany Crawford, Vancouver Sun

Abbotsford council approved a plan Monday night for a Canuck Place children's hospice in Abbotsford that would eliminate the long trip to Vancouver's facility for hundreds of sick children and their families.

The city agreed to lease .6 hectares (1.5 acres) of land on Marshall Road to Canuck Place, Matthew's House and the Abbotsford Hospice Society, all of which will offer support services for patients with terminal or life-threatening illnesses.

One of the reasons for the new Canuck Place is that more than 40 per cent of the children staying at the Vancouver location, a heritage house in the tony Shaughnessy area, are from the Fraser Valley, said Filomena Nalewajek, CEO of Canuck Place Children's Hospice....(click here to read more...)

What I Learned...

Hey everyone,

heehee. So neither Malcolm nor I have posted for over a month, but it's justified! Malcolm is very busy with school, and so am I with Pharmacy.

However, even during this crunch time before my final exams, I feel the need to post even a very short entry on this blog to document what I learned last shift on Friday, November 20th.

When I walked into the hospice that afternoon, I immediately noticed that the green lamp was sitting on the receptionist's desk, and turned off. Making a note to myself to be more sensitive to my surroundings, I went into the volunteer room and met up with Tony, Jen, and Amanda, the other volunteers during my shift.

We checked in upstairs with the nurses and realized that there were literally no kids who needed volunteer attention. We decided to stick around for dinner, and then figure out if we were still needed.

Half-way through our lonely volunteer-only dinner, an elderly asian lady sat down to join us. I noticed that her eyes were red and puffy. Tony, being the kind soul that he is, tried to engage her into conversation. We soon realized that she could not speak English very well, but she told us that she was from Hong Kong, so I offered that I could speak Cantonese, and Tony that he could speak Toi-San dialect. Turns out that she knows a bit of Toi-San, but speaks primarily Cantonese.

After a few more bites of dinner, she started to talk to us. The nurses told us later that she had not talked to anyone outside of the family all day because of the language barrier, so knowing that Tony and I could understand her, she opened up to us and spoke the feelings she had harboured in her heart from an event that occurred earlier in the day : the passing of her granddaughter.

We listened to her talk, and we did our best to speak comforting words in the hopes of making her feel even the teensiest bit better.
I hope that through her sharing of the story with us, a bit of the burden was taken off her shoulders.

From that night, I learned yet another important role of the Canuck Place volunteer. Shift after shift, each filled with kids and games and relaxation, I often forget why I am really there. But on a night like last shift, I recalled a phrase that I once read in the family volunteer description : we are there to be that "missing friend". Even when the kids don't need us, the families need us.

I'm so glad we decided to stay for dinner.

The return of Dave

SilentFury said...

sorry malcolm/joan, I never got around to finishing he blog entry.

18 October 2009 05:40

Malcolm said...

sphen.....what now?
don't worry buddy. we'll get to it!
tell you what...if the spirit moves you...do it on the comment thingy!
malcolm

19 October 2009 09:59

SilentFury said...

all right, here goes,

" ’DAAAAAAAAAVVVVE’ is back! As soon as Malcolm and Joan showed up, the first thing Kenny said was, ‘Nooooooooo maaaaaaaan, iiiiiiiiii’m Daaaaaaaaaaave!’ It took a while, but Malcolm managed to find a video of ‘Daaaaaaaaaaavvvvve’ on Youtube. I (Sphen) went down stairs for a bath, and thought the ‘Daaaaaaaaaaaavvvvve’ thing would pass, but sure enough when I got back Kenny and his brother Kam, were still shouting ‘Nooooooooooo maaaaaaaaan, iiiiiiii’m Daaaaaaavvvve!’ and we still were laughing hysterically! For the rest of the night Kenny, Kam, Pavel, Joan, Malcolm and I were trying to come up with a new saying, or catchphrase, or whatever it was. Malcolm and Pavel were doing a bit off of Ferris Bueler’s Day Off. Malcolm would do the ‘BAH BAH…’ and Pavel would carry it on with the ‘ChikaChika.’ That was funny too." You guys can add whatever you want

Nehal

NormieNehal is a charmer. It is an absolute joy to be around him and I look forward to watching him grow up. If ever there was a twinkle to be put into your eye it can be done by Nehal.

Chubby Girl Babies + Normie

Hey everyone, it's Joan!
Tonight's shift was very quiet, enjoyable, and low key.
Volunteers on shift were : me, Martin (subbing for Malcolm and Steve), Chris and Janelle (both subbing for Amanda).

After dinner of huge, delicious ravioli and turkey meat loaf (aka bird loaf), Jeffrey went back into bed. He is still recovering from his surgery from the summer, but he is doing much better!
Chris, Janelle, Martin, and I all went to the school room with Collin and Kay. Chris watched videos with Collin, Martin started chatting it up with Collin's dad, and Janelle and I sang songs to Kay. Kay has trouble hearing and has an implant in his ear to help him, but his earpiece keeps falling off! Still, when we sang songs that were familiar to him such as "Happy Birthday," he would all of a sudden give a huge grin in recognition and get excited! Tonight, however, he was not having his best day so the nurses put him to bed early.

Afterwards, I went downstairs to see if the nurses needed any help, and I got to hold and cuddle baby Kary. She is so cute!! She has smooth black hair, soft cheeks, tiny hands and feet...and she's so adorably chubby! I kept having to sit her up more because she has laboured breathing, and she fell asleep in my arms a couple of times. She loved the attention! Around me were 3 other baby girls : Jenna, whose parents were there for a bit, Maggie, and Josie.

The thing that will make me remember this shift most, however, is my discovery of an article taped onto the white board at the nurse's station. And who was this article about? Little Normie, real name : Nehal! (Since his real name is in the article, I suppose it won't do any harm to mention it here.) He's the little 4-year-old boy we've talked about many times who absolutely loves rockband. Nehal has a heart condition for which he has had 3 successful surgeries in the past, but because of the complexity of his condition, he is going to Stanford in November to receive another surgery. His mum, Shalini, is such a wonderful person, and Nehal is such a lovable little boy; I really hope they will find what they are looking for in California.
If you would like to read this article, please click HERE.

It appears I was a happy camper

Or maybe I just like to have my picture taken. I promise you that where you see me running, and smiling on the out side...my insides are crying. Can't wait for next year! Adventure Cam to come soon...and a race report.

Last Friday - night of extremes

Hey everyone!

Joan is back! I've been a bit MIA with posting here - my excuse is that I've been busy with back to school and now, school. I am starting my first year in UBC Pharmacy, and it is a bit overwhelming now, but it is all very interesting and I'm sure I will adapt to it all very soon. Tonight I finally have a bit of down time, and seeing that Malcolm hasn't posted about last shift, I will do the honours!

On volunteer shift that night were me, Malcolm, Santos, and new peer volunteer, Amanda! Jen, the receptionist-family hybrid volunteer was also back at reception after a long break to take care of her dog and summer holidays. Welcome back, Jen! Kids in the house included Nina, Nina's brother Doug (I forgot what name he wanted!), Isaac, Elvis, Patrick, and Christina.

The entire night can be effectively described by one word : extreme.

After dinner, we all gravitated towards the Sun room. We turned on Barney to keep Nina happy, plugged Elvis into his celtic and campfire songs on his CD player, and the rest of us sat on our bums and just talked. With Barney's and the singing children's soothing voices, as well as the room's dim lighting, all of us started getting sleepy. We seriously could have just lay our heads down on the sofa and taken a nap - but no! That's not what good volunteers do!

After awhile, a burst of energy came by and Santos, Malcolm, and Doug started having an intense matches of air hockey. And I mean INTENSE. Play was accompanied by frequent yells of joy and frustration, so loud that we had to turn Barney on to almost full volume to keep Nina satisfied. Anyways, the boys finished their matches all tired and sweaty, and I believe Santos was the ultimate winner. =)

And of course...I had my friday-nightly toast and half-a-toasted-bagel with nothing on it.

psych!

I woke up to a $9000 donation today! my mind raced!
long story short: do you own donations online...and make sure you check what you have submitted!!!
$9000 has been refunded. $900 coming our way!

$220 000

thats a big number. that is what 120 of us adventurers have collected for saturday's race. wow!
congratulations everyone. good luck on saturday!

www.adventurechallenge.ca

Training

Here are a couple of training videos I put a lot of thought into in preparation for the big race on Saturday:
The first:


And the Second:

to be here soon!


I will leave you to decide which is best. I can tell you how I felt after the pancakes.

Looking forward to the race next weekend. As out of conditioning as I feel it will still be a fantastic day. Have you seen the totals for funds raised? I am over $2600 (thanks to Justin) and the Challenge is at $201 000! Hot Dawg! Thank you everyone!

Short term vs long term planning...

well....the race with the trailrider may be on hold as a result of this short term, getting too excited planning philosophy i ascribe to, but that is ok! I understand the limitations that short term planning has to offer and what this leads to is planned, organised, all areas covered, long term planning....which is good.....right?

Some of our ideas might come to fruition this year. I believe that ALL of our ideas (and more) will make it for next years race.

Sweet news in the DONATIONS box this week. Remember my student Justin? He emailed me with some news on a donation that was to be made by his family with thanks to his Aunt. Unfortunately his Aunt is ill. She made available some money to be donated in Justin's sisters name (Tamryn) to a charity. Justin's family has been a part of the Canuck Place family for a number of years. Tamryn passed away at the house after living her short life with Tay-Sachs.

Thank you to the Fishman family for the $900 donation.

trailrider

ok...check this out. it could really happen.
Nicole (another house family volunteer) and I (and mike) have suggested and hope to run the 10km trail run of the Canuck Place Adventure Challenge with Luke. Why the challenge? Luke is young kid who spends his time in a pretty skookum wheelchair. The wheelchair, although pretty hefty and solid, is not built for the rocks, boulders, creeks and bridges that the trail offers.
go here: www.bcmos.org
and check out the trailrider. A chair that was the brainchild of former Vancouver Mayor Sam Sullivan and friends.

Now we just need to make it happen!

something is brewing for the race....

..so Leanne says, "Malcolm can you PLEASE help us on Friday for the Trailrider session at Jericho?!?!"

little did she know what thoughts might run through my brain (and similar thoughts through Nicole's brain) as we wheelbarrowed around jericho park and along the beach (past topless woman I might add) that day.

I look to Nicole at the end of our little walk about and say, "are you thinking what I'm thinking?"

fast forward 3 weeks later and Nicole goes for a run on the course and reports that it is (with some help) something that we can do....with somebody light!

I have been toying with the idea of somebody doing the kayak with me...but nothing ever came to fruition.

"hello Mrs Galvani. My name is Malcolm Chrystal. I am a volunteer at Canuck Place. We met at the Adventure Challenge last year....."

Ladies and gentlemen, it appears we have an epic sherpa event happening on the run in this year's adventure challenge!

Gill...are you able to help Nicole, Luke and I set up a visit with BCMOS sometime before the race so we can see how the chair and luke fit together?

I am away (selling seashells to hawaiians) until the 7th.

Yea!

Go team go!

malcolm

$20 to Canuck Place from Lip Balm Sales

ok....it is not $1000's, but I am proud to donate $20 to Canuck Place for some sales of our Organic Island Shell Lip Balm. Five dollars from peer volunteer extaordinaire Joan and $15 from the Jericho Oceanman event a couple of weeks ago.

A week after...

I am still recovering a little from friday night! Actually I am recovering from a week of camping...the last night complete with 18 hours of full on RAIN. Packing up early in the morning in full rain storm at 0700.

Back to Friday. Great night all 'round. Dinner was awesome. Right off the bat after dinner I was targeted by a couple of brothers who were looking for a bit of rough action. I was their man!

Martin was in for Santos and he brought his wife in so she could help sign with one of the girls in the house. She has a vocabulary of over a 1000 words and it is awesome that Liz was in to hang out with her. Joan and Holl-y (or is that Holl-y?) were in and we were all ready for the night.

The brothers: a couple of rambunctious boys (one in Grage 8 and the other in Grade 12) that I will call J1 and J2, wanted to wrestle. Problem was wrestling in their minds is the WWF variety. All good and fun to watch on TV...but not the best for everyday folk. I set my mind to teach them how to wrestle the good old fashion amateur/collegiate style! We had tons of fun and J1 the elder was the eventual winner for the night! I think I broke my nose. It still hurts. J2, in some stupendous escape rolled up over my chest and face...smashing the cartilage. OW!

We wrestled for about 75 minutes! Inside for a break. After a little bit Holl-y (or -i) came down with the rest of the crew who wanted to go outside again. Out we go and just hung for a while until we started a game of hide and seek.

J2 eventually had the accident I was warning of him all night.

J2 laughs. Like K-Don laughs...full belly laughs that are exhausting and hard on your bladder. I kept warning him, "you are going to pee your pants if you keep laughing like that!".
J2 and I were hiding in the garden in a little cement nook. He is under the table...laughing (not good hiding strategy as that was how we were found in the bushes by his brother. All of a sudden somebody (not me) lets one rip and it reverberates against the concrete. Guess what? THAT IS FUNNY! J2 laughs even more....and then he squeals, "I peed my pants!!!!", which causes us to lose it completely! (it wasn't a gamestopper...just a little bit!)

Words of wisdom for the night:
When possible everybody should laugh so hard that you pee your pants. SOmetimes there is a good reason for everything!

http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/video/video.php?v=1190187032567&ref=mf

Public service announcement from global TV. Little Normie is in this video!