Hello!

This post is sort of a branch off from another post that is soon to come…Anyway, here goes!

From swimming at Wreck Beach to having late-night discussions at the Rose Garden, I was having a total blast at Jump Start -*which you can read more about in my soon-to-come blog post*- …until…(dun dun dun) I broke my foot. Now, as much as I enjoy watching the excitement or confusion creep onto people’s faces when I tell them the pretext that I was attacked by a mountain lion, the lamer, truer story remains that I was jogging while it was dark out and tripped over a step that I hadn’t seen on the sidewalk. Immediately after I fell, I looked down to find that my ankle had swollen up to the size of a tennis ball! Thankfully, I was with friends at the time who called an ambulance. Five hours in the hospital with my amazing friend and BAM! Six weeks in an Aircast and on crutches until I’m healed.

All I can do is be grateful that my friends were there and that they called for help, that my parents are helping me take care of the medical stuff (MAKE SURE YOU HAVE HEALTH INSURANCE!) and that the Canadian Red Cross was awesome enough to lend me a wheel chair (take note: you can borrow them from there for free for up to three months!) to get around this massive campus until I can walk again.

While being handicapped for the first month and a half of school seems like it would totally suck, I’m doing my best to make it a positive experience. I can and have really learned from it so far, as it has definitely been perspective-changing (both literally as I see the world from my wheelchair and in thought as I experience life with a physical handicap). Also, I am now able to empathize (at least to an extent) with other individuals who are unable to walk. Since it’s always difficult to understand something unless you’ve experienced it yourself, at least I can take away some sense of newfound understanding from this experience of having broken my foot. It’s not THAT bad, afterall. (:

Love,

Nirel

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