A New Year

It’s January the second, and we are all still full of rosy resolutions and lofty ambition for the new year.

2014! Exactly how did that happen? And how do we still not have household robots and flying cars? Admittedly, I am tapping out this post on a device that would have been completely Star Trek in the year of my birth, but I still feel that we have a ways to go to meet the future.

So here are my requests, should any scientists or inventors be listening. Flying cars would be awesome, but I’d love to get a handle on what we are doing to Planet Earth. We need to seriously, drastically change the way we live. Yes, us. Less plastic, more green. More companies like this: www.terracycle.ca

I’d love for all of us to just be a little kinder to and more accepting of our fellow humans. Why can’t we just sort out clean water and food for all? If we stopped pouring funds into weapons, and instead supported companies like this one, we just might be able to figure it out. www.buylifestraw.com

While we’re at it, better treatments for cancer would be awesome. I’m not even asking for a cure, just something better. I mean, chemo really, really, sucks.

And, can someone please invent a machine that safely and quickly scans my son’s brain and tells me what’s going on in there? Shouldn’t there be an app for that by this point?

These are the thoughts rambling through my head as I kill the empty hours at Gavin’s side in the ER. Yes, we’ve kicked the year off with an episode of cyclic vomiting syndrome, an awesome, uncureable condition that my only child has. As though a brain tumour wasn’t enough.

I’m listening to the IV pump click away as he rehydrates, and I know that once those precious fluids are in, he will leap up from his pale lethargy, shiny and new, until the next time this happens, and we enter the whole 3-ring circus again. The explanations, arguments with staff about IVs, debates with neurosurge about imaging.

So forget all my own petty resolutions about drinking less wine and improving myself through rigorous exercise. Yay, me, that’s all completely wonderful and everything.

My only resolution now is to find an answer to this horrendous condition. So far, research and experimentation haven’t helped much BUT, I have a few more tricks up my sleeve and I plan to use them.

2014 is going to be a great year, world. A year of wonderful health for me and my family. A year of wonderful health for YOU and your family.

Let’s all make some changes. Be creative, be good. Eat some kale. Give blood. Donate some money to a new cause. Donate some time to a new cause. Support science, and possibilianism. Crush bigotry and hatred wherever you find them. Allow yourself to believe it’s all going to be alright.

And of course, invent a robot, or a flying car.