adventures / advocacy / life

re-energized: Fall, California, #MedX, and the possibility of “how might we”

• by kerri

It is the first day of Fall, the people of the internet (aka my friends on Facebook) are telling me. It’s kind of hard to believe given I got back from beautiful California less than a week ago where it feels like summer and is generally pretty. Alas, my favourite season—Fall—is upon us, and I engaged in an (iced) pumpkin spice chai at Vancouver airport at probably ten-something PM on Monday night.  (Pumpkin spice chai is amazing. I was getting ehhh about normal pumpkin spice lattes, honestly, and I am thrilled by pumpkin spice chai lattes.)

And is obligatory on the first day of Fall, listening to Come Winter by Daphne Loves Derby (on repeat), as has been my general habit since about 2014, if not earlier.

If you’ve got Apple Music, here’s a link to a slightly different EP version that I’m enjoying.

Fall is my favourite season not just because of pumpkin spice. I enjoy the cooler weather, the jeans-and-hoodies combo, the foray into toque-season (without the brutal cold associated with toque season), the fact that Goalball starts soon (and archery!), the fact that my lungs generally like Fall, and the fact that I get back to a bit more solid of a routine—for the lack of routine I generally have, even in the non-Summer months. Despite some of the worst moments of my life happening in the beginning portion of Fall (looking at you, 2013 and 2014, and even 2016), these have all come with resolution attached—“part of a change for better” (I Swear This Place is Haunted, A Skylit Drive)—or at least a piece of resolution that produced a change I can, at least now, feel positively about.

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This year, again, fresh off a return from Stanford Medicine X, and subsequent #MedXHangover and ongoing recovery, I feel that sense of renewal, that sense of recharged passion and purpose for creating change, both in myself and in the world. It doesn’t hurt that I’ve got some other advocacy-related travel opportunities in the works (travel may exhaust people but it energizes me), or that I met so many amazing people last weekend at MedX. It doesn’t hurt that the people I met and the experience I had at IDEO for the Medicine X – IDEO Design Challenge re-inspired me to think differently, creatively, in terms of “How Might We”s and innovation and possibility and better. No, spending a glorious two days with one of my favourite people on earth, Stephen, in Santa Cruz to relax and recharge even prior to embarking on the Medicine X whirlwind of inspiration, that didn’t hurt either. Meeting a dozen Canadians at MedX reminded me that things are possible, change is possible, even in our slow-moving, lack-of-progress medical system (although I maintain Toronto is more receptive to change than Winnipeg/Manitoba/our ridiculous healthcare-killing Conservative Government is). I am ready to do more. Batteries recharged.

I am re-energized. Re-inspired. Thanks both to California, to the MedX Family, to friends, and to the crispness of Fall.

Well, I’m sure another pumpkin spice chai latte wouldn’t hurt, either.

asthma / health + fitness / stuff bloggers do

slingshot saturday: ten links from around the web.

• by kerri
In one way or another, I’ll be using Saturdays to look back—whether it’s on goals I’ve made and progress towards them, recapturing the past month, on music that I’ve been digging, anything goes.
 
Today’s Slingshot Saturday will take us back to some links from the past week. [It was the week we all started having to write 2015 on stuff, so good links were both easy AND difficult to find].
  • The Massive Fitness Trend That’s Not Actually Healthy At All. Thanks to the real-talk of Greatist for this gem on “the militarization of fitness” and why it’s not a good thing. (That’s right… Let’s ALL embrace not puking at the gym… Lactic acid craziness does not go hand in hand with a good workout, resolutionists.)
  • Real-world doctors fact check Dr. Oz, and the results aren’t pretty. Yes, those of us immersed into this scene could have told you this years ago about the fairytale land Oz is living in (and The Doctors)—I just hope this information is adequately getting to the general public.
    You know how you’re not supposed to believe everything you read on the internet? That goes for TV, too—even more-so, maybe.
     
  • About that mom who’s not bragging about her kid. As a young adult with learning and attention issues, parts of this article definitely resonated with me: while I struggle sometimes with not being as proficient with a variety of things as I’d like—both now and in the past—this article really hit home for me about maybe what my mom was thinking in certain conversations with people at times, especially when I was in university. That’s right, if anything, this can intensify after high-school graduation.
     
  • A Step Forward. A blog post by my friend Mike at My Diabetic Heart that is definitely worth reading if you have or care for someone with chronic disease: it’s hard to be perfect, and sometimes it’s the outward-seeming smallest steps that can get us back to focusing on better.
  • Jeremy Kyle: Who Stole my iPhone. Much like Maury Povich is to America, Jeremy Kyle is really just a far more amusing [to me] version, except from England. My friend Simi and I watch Jeremy Kyle via YouTube late-ish at night (for me) and early in the morning (for her in England, thus her knowledge on Jeremy Kyle). Related: “Which of my children stole my bingo winnings?”

Enjoy the rest of the weekend!