{"id":23670,"date":"2019-04-26T15:02:37","date_gmt":"2019-04-26T19:02:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=23670"},"modified":"2019-04-26T15:02:46","modified_gmt":"2019-04-26T19:02:46","slug":"brocks-banter-a-few-simple-words","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/brocks-banter-a-few-simple-words\/","title":{"rendered":"BROCK’S BANTER: A few simple words"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By Brock Weir<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

We live in an age of economics \u2013 well, as\nfar as our words are concerned.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The days where we were encouraged to wax\nlyrical on any number of subjects, the flowerier the better, are long gone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Those days have been replaced with an age\nof expediency where it is both desirable and encouraged to cram complex\nthoughts into just a few hundred characters, bite-sized, slightly pre-digested,\nfor mass consumption on social media.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Don\u2019t get me wrong, it is something of an\nart, and it always has been; after all, everyone from Blaise Pascal to Winston\nChurchill has been quoted as saying something along the lines of, \u201cExcuse this\nlong letter, I didn\u2019t have time to write a short one.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Whoever actually said it, and whoever\nactually started this trend, it seems as much as we focus on boiling down our\nthoughts into a wafer-like appetizer we are getting further and further away\nfrom truly considering the impact that just a few words can have.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A weekend ago, I was stuck by the elation\na friend and his circle felt hearing just two simple words come out of the\nmouth of Federal Health Minister Ginette Petipas Taylor. Those words had, in\ntheir view, been a long time coming. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI am enthusiastic, creative, love beauty\nin all its forms and eccentricities equally,\u201d writes my friend, Jeffery Smith\nfor the Wall of Missing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Wall of Missing is a collection of\nphotos, vignettes and biographies of people across Canada who have been struck\ndown with Myalgic Encephalomyelitis, better known as ME, and previously known\nby the misnomer Chronic Fatigue Syndrome.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI devour history, and style, and classic\nfilms. I hope I am kind, equitable and I fight for equality for all. I am\ngrateful and know I am blessed. I am the creator of magazines, art, and\noccasionally writing. I am sarcastic and love black humour, but I am an\noptimist who believes that we, like Martin Luther King, can make the world a\nkinder place if we try and care. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI have been ill with ME since September\n1996. That was my D-Day; the day my world, life and productivity practically\nstopped. I hope I am still all of those things, though I have access to little\nof it anymore. Most days I am a faint shell of that person, like someone with\nadvanced Alzheimer\u2019s. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI grew up gay in a small hockey town in\nthe 1970s and learned about injustice and inequality early. Even though I could\nstay hidden, people of colour and other races could not and I developed a deep\nempathy for those being unfairly prejudiced against. In my 20s, I developed a\nrich and full life with my loving partner Dave, wonderful friends and the\nongoing love of my parents. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIn September 1996, I got a flu that never\nwent away. I went from 100 per cent capacity to about 20 per cent and am now\nless than that. I am always dizzy, have cognitive breakdown and tremors\nthroughout my body when standing for more than a minute. I am unable to achieve\nanything but the most basic self-care on most days.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt would take me years to find out that\nmy Epstein Barr was constantly reactivating, leaving me ill daily as someone in\nthe last stages of AIDS or cancer \u2013 but frozen in that state. I changed jobs\nsix times, moving down to less responsibility due to the cognitive disfunction\nbefore becoming too ill to work at all and ending up on long-term disability.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI had three GPs over the years in Canada.\nOne said it could be Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS), but that may not exist.\nThe other said CFS was imaginary and the third said I probably had ME, but\nthere was no diagnoses or treatment here, only anti-anxiety meds and\nantidepressants.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jeff went to the Chronic Fatigue Syndrome\nin Stanford, California about five years ago, where he received a battery of\nblood tests, undertook a number of interviews and examinations that, after 18\nyears, were still not available in Canada while millions like Jeff continued to\nget sicker and sicker.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Those trips for treatment to California\ncost him thousands of dollars out of pocket, but he said it was worth the\nhardship.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI needed hope, support, diagnosis and\ntreatment, and none of this was available here,\u201d he said. \u201cAlthough my illness\ncontinues to progress, I have met the bravest, most fierce and loving souls in\nthe ME community that inspire me to not give up when I don\u2019t have it in me to\nface the future so deeply impaired.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What Jeff often doesn\u2019t realise is that, through\nhim, I too have met one of the bravest, most fierce and loving souls, so I was\nbuoyed when it seemed the quest for hope and support received a shot in the\narm.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That shot in the arm came from a direction\nsome people might not understand: the simple fact that the Minister of Health\nvoiced the word \u201cM.E.\u201d for the very first time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It might seem small, but for the\ndozen-or-so weary advocates taking a stand at a health forum in Toronto over\nthe weekend hosted by MP Rob Oliphant, it was almost the dawn of a new day;\nafter all, previous Health Ministers have, apparently, fallen short of that\nmark.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They came with a mission: to advocate\nOntario Health Minister Christine Elliott and her Federal counterpart to create\na centre of excellence in ME\/CFS care, education and research in Ontario, as\nwell as to establish a transitional implementation committee to provide\nleadership in the initial phases of putting this plan into action.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI hear you,\u201d said\nthe Minister Petipas Taylor. \u201cI know that there are challenges and I know when\nit comes to the levels of investments, they haven\u2019t been huge, but as a\ngovernment I am committed that I certainly want to pay closer attention to this\nand if there is any way that we would be able to meet in Ottawa to discuss this\nmatter even further I would be more than happy to meet with you and get a\nbetter sense of your requests, and also to get a better sense of the\nsituation.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We can only hope this meeting transpires and\nleads to concrete action from the top down.<\/p>\n\r\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Brock Weir We live in an age of economics \u2013 well, as far as our words are concerned. The days where we were encouraged to wax lyrical on any number of subjects, the flowerier the better, are long gone. Those days have been replaced with an age of expediency where it is both desirable […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[29,28],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23670","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-columns","category-opinion"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-69M","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-15 09:29:00","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23670","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23670"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23670\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23670"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23670"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23670"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}