Category: Opinion

Hey, You Want a Time Machine – A Chance to Return to High School, Yes or No

“If you could, would you go back to high school?”

Adults are often asked this around graduation season. As social media fills with photos of newly minted graduates, some of you become nostalgic about your own high school experiences.

The time when Hypercolor shirts, Fat Emma & Pie Face Chocolate bars, leggings, bell bottoms, paisley shirts, poodle skirts, mullets, O’Ryan’s Sour Cream and Onion chips, spiral perms, two-centimetres of makeup, and Moon Boots defined your generation. When we were as cool as Cool Ranch Chips and hot as Hot Tamales.

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Let’s be real. We’re still cool and hot, just older with more knowledge – and debt and a Netflix account.

But would you go back to high school?

Continue reading “Hey, You Want a Time Machine – A Chance to Return to High School, Yes or No”

When a Hysterectomy Closes the Baby Door, You Cope with Humour

On May 6th, 2021, all non-essential and elective surgeries in Manitoba were postponed for the month because of the rising number of COVID-19. This included hysterectomies.
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“So, are you sexually active?” asked my gynecologist.

I tilted my head, pressing my lips together. Stifling a giggle. “I’ve had sex … and I remember sex.” We both burst out laughing. I said “I’m basically a virgin.” 

Humour is my coping mechanism. I’ll laugh if I can’t find a street. If I almost lock myself out of the house. If I walk into a wall. I’m the one who couldn’t stop laughing because I was stuck in the Arborg Coop’s car wash. 

This was a little different though as I sat on an exam table naked from the waist down with a thin piece of paper over me. I felt humour would break the ice as I awaited my third pelvic ultrasound.

My ultrasounds have never been the “fun, happy, you’re having twins” kind. If they were, I’d have the cast of The Sound of Music and their backups. Instead it’s thyroid nodules and two unnamed uterine fibroids.

Continue reading “When a Hysterectomy Closes the Baby Door, You Cope with Humour”

It’s Time to Rename Fad Diets – You’re Not on the Real Keto Diet

Meet the keto diet.

However, in the epilepsy community, it’s known as the ketogenic diet and it can be traced back to the 1920s.

The modern day keto isn’t keto. Someone realized they lost weight on the keto diet and, toot, toot, all aboard the temporary weight loss train!

The ketogenic diet isn’t a diet. It’s a treatment for children and teens with uncontrolled (refractory) epilepsy. In 1994, it gained mainstream attention as a seizure control treatment when a young boy with refractory epilepsy was kept seizure free thanks to the ketogenic diet. I live with epilepsy, and I learned about the treatment as a teenager.

Continue reading “It’s Time to Rename Fad Diets – You’re Not on the Real Keto Diet”

Losing Grandparents Doesn’t Become Simpler with Age

My Gigi Karatchuk died on December 2, 1984 at 67 years old, and Baba died also at 67 years old on October 12, 1982. My older sister is the one wearing the striped shirt, and I’m the one sucking my thumb. Photo, 1980

“Grandparents are only with us part-time.”

That was the gist of a late-80s MTS commercial.

As young grandchildren, we’re fortunate to remember and make memories with our grandparents. When our grandparents are still with us in our teen years, or our 20s, 30s, or 40s – we believe they are invincible.

Continue reading “Losing Grandparents Doesn’t Become Simpler with Age”