Good friends, good health, good times

This weekend my best friend of 20 years came for a visit before we head to Grenada. Trish and I met in my second year of university, her third year, where we shared a house with a bunch of random people (Allison, Lynne, Michelle, and Brian) who each rented a room. Our bedrooms were beside each other and even though we are quite different we became fast friends and now so many years later best friends.

The year I moved in with Trish she began experiencing some really weird health issues. At first we thought it was stress. She was in an incredibly demanding science program at a rather demanding university. Eventually she was diagnosed with a brain tumour, but even that wouldn't slow her down, she graduated Queen's and went on to U of T. In reality that would be the first in a long line of diagnoses that would last over the next 15 years.

Now we know that she had contracted Lyme disease, a horrible illness that moves through your body attacking all kinds of systems, making diagnosis incredibly difficult and leaving the patient debilitated and often feeling helpless and hopeless. There had been periods where the disease would abate and it would seem she would get better only to have it come back attacking another system. This visit is probably the most healthy I have seen her since she was 20 years old.

Health is something we often take for granted. It is one of the areas that Cuso works in and my visit with Trish and my son's weekend visit to the ER, got me thinking about what a critical building block health is to learning. As Trish was going through her health crisis I would send her journals to capture what was happening because I believed that by documenting how she felt she could learn from it and hopefully others could learn from her.

It is hard though to learn when you are not mentally or physically well. You must take care of the body in order for the mind to be open to new things. This is perhaps why doctors and nurses need to take time to educate their patients- as when we are ill we are not open to exploring possibilities instead we want concrete answers.

I have been lucky enough to be very healthy (with the exception of the birth of my son) so this weekend helped to remind me about barriers to learning that are often hidden.

It also reminded me of the value of friends who will go through all of life's ups and downs with you. And the perseverance of the human spirit that after 15 years of illness you can come out the other side even more beautiful, stronger and more determined. Or that you can have your hand cut as badly as Aiden and still be smiling and positive.

People are awesome.