Whole Lotta Updates

Well, Five for Five took way longer than I thought it would. But, it's been a pretty eventful month.

The month started with a seriously long eye appointment. Four hours! It was my first in over a year, so it was already going to a while, but yeah. Dilation, freezing, and plenty of photos and other tests. What made it longer was that there were some small discrepancies with one of the vision tests. Long story short, they had me see a retinal specialist who diagnosed me with coloboma.

Coloboma is a hole in one of the structures of the eye, the retina in my case, caused by a genetic defect where certain nerves never formed when I was being born. The doctors call it a freckle behind my retina, with just a tiny bit of fluid around it. Nothing to worry about. It just means that my left eye is a little bit weaker than my right. On a more interesting (maybe) note, I found out that Paris Hilton has Duane's syndrome (effects eye movement) like I do. So that's a thing, I guess.

Then a fairly nasty cold starts making it's way through my family, so of course I get that for a while. But, I got better just as the weather started to improve and was able to get downtown again for an afternoon! I went for lunch, did some writing at one of my favourite coffee shops, and bought a couple comic books, which were much easier to carry around, thanks to a new bag I got for Christmas.

Bigger than the old one, but much more convenient.

Shortly after that, I got some good information about an advocacy event happening in May, which I registered for, and a job mentorship program for people with disabilities, which I also registered for.

The program is run by an Ottawa-area community health centre which focuses on the social aspects of healthcare. The program runs for three months and would place me with a mentor in a position with their organization, ideally something writing or advocacy-related but I'd settle for data entry or office admin if they can't find anything else.

I had an interview scheduled but before I could do that, I finally decided to bite the bullet and get new shoes.

A while ago, I wrote about needing new shoes to fit a pair of inserts. Some friends, whose kids also have Joubert, recommended New Balance so that's where we looked first. The people working there were really helpful and knew a lot about inserts and AFO's. I got a pair that fit and got elastic laces which are really easy to use.

Then came the interview. Everything went very well. Nice place, nice people, program sounds good. They think I'll be a good fit and are currently trying to find a suitable placement for me!

And finally, the month was capped off (yesterday) with more good weather and another trip downtown.

Cheers!