Tuesday, June 14, 2011
What I've been doing
I can't believe that almost a month has gone by since the last time I wrote. So far my summer has been filled with activity. Most of that activity is spent either in meetings discussing plans for InclusionFest, talking about local issues with the Mayor's Advisory Council on Disability, planning fund development and marketing opportunities for accessABILITY, or following up with communication related to all three. (I say "sadly" not because I don't enjoy these things, I do, but because it's just not that exciting to write about.)
About the biggest thing that's happened lately is that I had the pleasure of speaking at the Grand Opening ceremony for the Center for Tissue Innovation and Research in Dayton Ohio. The Center is run by Community Tissue Services, which is the organization that provided the donor skin for my tissue grafts. It has been, and continues to be, a tremendous honor to speak for the organization that helped save my life. The new Center is beautiful, with amazing features like windows that look into clean rooms so you can watch skin, tendon, and bone being processed into grafts. The most impressive part of the facility is that the walls of the central hall are covered with images of people (like me) who have been saved by tissue donation, and images of those who donated their tissue to save us. One tissue donor can save and enhance over fifty lives.
My weekends have been busy with activities of one sort or another with family and/or close friends. This past Saturday the Amputee Support Group met in the morning and for the second month in a row there were less than five of us present and we spent the time talking about how we could get attendance up. That said, as I sit here on my deck enjoying the beautiful weather while I type this, I find myself thinking about how busy my life is, and the fact that I don't really need much peer support (in regards to being an amputee) anymore. Is it possible that the reason our support group is dwindling is because those who have been coming for the past four years are now more accepting of the "new" normal? I still have difficult days, but I take heart in the fact that life has become "normal" again, even if it is so normal that I can't find anything fun to write about.
(Good news though, the monotony will come to an end soon. Teaser for next month...New York.)
About the biggest thing that's happened lately is that I had the pleasure of speaking at the Grand Opening ceremony for the Center for Tissue Innovation and Research in Dayton Ohio. The Center is run by Community Tissue Services, which is the organization that provided the donor skin for my tissue grafts. It has been, and continues to be, a tremendous honor to speak for the organization that helped save my life. The new Center is beautiful, with amazing features like windows that look into clean rooms so you can watch skin, tendon, and bone being processed into grafts. The most impressive part of the facility is that the walls of the central hall are covered with images of people (like me) who have been saved by tissue donation, and images of those who donated their tissue to save us. One tissue donor can save and enhance over fifty lives.
My weekends have been busy with activities of one sort or another with family and/or close friends. This past Saturday the Amputee Support Group met in the morning and for the second month in a row there were less than five of us present and we spent the time talking about how we could get attendance up. That said, as I sit here on my deck enjoying the beautiful weather while I type this, I find myself thinking about how busy my life is, and the fact that I don't really need much peer support (in regards to being an amputee) anymore. Is it possible that the reason our support group is dwindling is because those who have been coming for the past four years are now more accepting of the "new" normal? I still have difficult days, but I take heart in the fact that life has become "normal" again, even if it is so normal that I can't find anything fun to write about.
(Good news though, the monotony will come to an end soon. Teaser for next month...New York.)
