If 2023 was a bit back to normal, then 2024 was the complete opposite.

The tagline would be ‘Thank goodness for universal health care’ as the year was dominated by it.

(Buckle up – this is a doozy)

Alicia had a fall in late March resulting in the skin above her kneecap being ripped away. A hospital stay was needed for that followed by skin graft surgery and another hospital stay in July. Post-surgery she was still having balance issues with “micro blackouts” causing her to fall. This resulted in several more ER visits. We suspected some sort of drug imbalance with her various meds.

In late October she had another fall and they decided to admit her to try and get to the bottom of the issues. Several days later she started experiencing severe pain in her stomach area. She was rushed into emergency surgery where they found a perforated bowel.

She was sent to the ICU for several days and then was sent up to the general medicine floor. 2 days later she experienced trouble breathing and was sent back down to the ICU for a week. They moved her back upstairs and the same thing happened with her breathing and she was developing a fever – a sign of infection)

She spent 5 weeks in ICU slowly recovering. The third week of December she was well enough to move upstairs and she has been there since then. She is very weak physically and is currently doing physio to strengthen her muscles. There are still some underlying health issues her team is trying to solve.

Longer term we think (hope) she will end up in the physio program at Parkwood to help her to become mobile again but that is still up in the air. I’m at home with 3 cats who miss her greatly and try to help me with the household chores.

My own health has been better this year and I continue to loose some weight. (I’m sure some of it is stress related!) I find I don’t have as much energy as I used to pre heart attack.  In my role at the LHSC Help Desk I am fortunate enough to be able to work from home so I can take care of the cats for lunch during the day. At night I make the journey up to UH to spend a few hours with Alicia.

We don’t know what 2025 will bring but we are hopeful that it will be better than 2024.