Stella Reddy's Story

I appreciate your patience over the past few days as I dealt with a Fibromyalgia flare-up. I wasn’t able to focus on writing anything. It was the first one in many months so as you can imagine, it was terrible. I could barely move the past few days too. I hate the foggy head I get when that happens…

I am feeling more like myself this morning, thank goodness! Fibro flares are not easy to deal with, even my clothing started to hurt my skin, and I couldn’t stand to be touched. I have a feeling I know what set it off…

I got a bit of a shock last week. I reached out to Ontario Health Services for copies of my medical records, as I needed something I didn’t have already, and upon reading the MRI results from March 2015 on Wednesday for the cervical stenosis diagnoses I received back then, I was surprised to see info there I wasn’t told.

You see, I was under the impression that my cervical stenosis was only in the C3-C5 area but the report went on to say the most damage was in the C5-C6 and C6-C7 area, as noted in the picture below. This was almost 10 years ago and it is scary for me to think how far it has progressed since then, but I got through those thoughts and put them away…

🌞I have come to see that it doesn’t change anything, it just allows me to make more sense of what I am experiencing symptom-wise, so I have come to terms with it. 🌞

There are various financial benefits offered here in Canada for people with disabilities and one of them is the Disability Tax Credit (DTC). I tried over time to get my family doctor to help me with this form, but they wouldn’t do it. It took 8 months for my CPP application they helped me with and they just refused to do the DTC. I was surprised that they could refuse, but there it is.

My doctor here is doing it for me, they don’t even ask for payment for doing it either, and I needed this info I didn’t have. So I have about 10 years of benefits coming, as they backdate it. It will be interesting…

Anyway, that little shock may have set off the Fibro flare I had but I am okay now. It doesn’t take me long anymore to process and move on from things like that!

So, here I am today, feeling much better and looking forward to the next few weeks!

As I mentioned I have a trip coming up and yes, I am booked with Air Canada, whose Pilots are looking to go on strike starting next week, as mentioned in the news in recent days. I share a link to the CBC article on the possible strike below.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/air-canada-strike-plans-1.7317320

I woke up this morning to an email from them, informing me I could change my flights and providing a link for me to do so, as my travel dates are within that time frame.

Upon reflection though, I am going to keep it the way it is. I have faith that the strike won’t happen, as I cannot see the Union allowing the mess that would follow, to happen. It would cause too many disruptions and we have had too many already!

So I have faith that my trip will proceed as planned and I will have an amazing time on my Adventures across Canada! I am doing a multi-city trip, making stops along the way to my final destination where I will spend most of my time, and coming home straight from there. I am not worried about this at the moment.

If it changes and my flights do get cancelled, I’ll get a refund and try somewhere else as I am determined to go on this trip.

Will anyone else be affected by the possible Air Canada Pilot strike? If so, how are you dealing with it?