Friends With FOP

Posted by Karen Sometimes I blog about challenges we have with finding activities, especially sports, which my daughter Miranda can do.  Yes, Fibrodysplasia Ossificans Progressiva has its difficulties, but for lots of things there's little or no FOP complication. This past week, for instance, Miranda and her class participated in a Chinese New Year celebration at her school.  The kindergarten and grade 1 kids had practiced various songs and presentations for some time, and they got to show of their hard work at an assembly.  Miranda was clearly excited about it - she must have asked me about 20 times if I ...

Posted by Karen It seems we spent a lot of time this week talking and thinking about sports.  More specifically, my daughter Miranda's participation in same. In Canada, sports are encouraged for everybody, able-bodied and those with disabilities alike.  Miranda, at age 7, can't help but absorb that.  But...  Miranda's  Fibrodysplasia Ossificans Progressiva is a disorder which makes many sports challenging or impossible. The discussion in our house started with one of Miranda's birthday presents from last weekend.  The gift was a cute figure skating outfit, complete with authentic looking skates, for her doll.  Miranda LOVED this present, and spent much time dressing ...

Posted by Karen Today Miranda is 7 years old.  7.  SEVEN.  I can't believe it!  Where did the time go, and how did my girl get so big? This whole weekend has been, as it should be, all about Miranda.  We kicked off the festivities on Friday evening by letting Miss M pick where we go for supper.  She went back and forth on the decision all day, and in the end, finally picked Boston Pizza.  That turned out to be a pretty good choice, because the waitress did her up a nice little brownie with whipped cream and gummy worms and the ...

Posted by Karen A week or so ago, a friend of mine posted on Facebook that she was doing that exercise where you think of a single word which best describes what you hope for/want to achieve this year.  I thought about that, and had an immediate response.  The word I thought of?  Confidence. I pondered this a bit, and realized that I can think of lots of ways in which confidence will assist in my professional and personal life, and it also fits very well in the context of dealing with my daughter Miranda's Fibrodysplasia Ossificans Progressiva.  In fact, the word "confidence" ...

Posted by Karen Ah, it's New Year's Day...  A day for looking ahead, and hoping for a great year to come.  On the downside, seasonal holidays are only 1 day longer - d'oh!  Our family has had a really fun break, and while we'll be refreshed and ready to get back to the regular routine, I'll be sad to see it end. One good bit, for example, was that from December 26 through 29, we had our son Owen, age 9, signed up for his first ever set of snowboard lessons at Cypress Mountain.  He went 4 days straight, from 8:30 AM to 3:30 ...