Sometimes The Best Way To Deal With Loss is Just to Smile

August 30, 2011 By

Every year at the end of August my family gets together and heads down to the Canadian National Exhibition, or The Ex. For those who don’t know it, it’s exactly what you’d expect to be; a huge exhibition with vendors, rides, games, shows, and food… TONS of it. Some of my best memories are trying out foods from the famous food building on site.

My family and I have made the Ex an annual tradition since I can remember. We’ve been going, I’d say, for at least 10 years. We’ve been going for so long that there were some years where I had to be wheeled in a wheelchair because I was dealing with my Crohn’s disease. It was a mission for me, but I wasn’t going to let a stupid disease ruin our family tradition. My dad always made sure I would never miss it.

That’s why I didn’t miss it today. Today is the 2nd anniversary of my dad’s passing from complications due to a bone marrow transplant. For those who don’t know the story, I wont get into detail because of those who do, but you can go to this link to read the story.

Though it’s the 2nd year I’ve lived without him in my life, today’s adventure was still lacking without him. Actually, a lot of things in my life have been lacking without him.

It was weird being president of my sorority without him cracking bad jokes about the position.

It was strange graduating from UWO this May without him there to clap as I walked across the stage.

It’s odd knowing I’m moving to NYC and getting my Masters at NYU without him telling me he’s proud of me.

It still upsets me knowing that I can’t sit down and talk with him about everything that’s going on in my life.

It’s been two years but I’m still not used to it.

Instead of sitting around and being sad, mopey, and depressing, I thought there was no better way to remember him than to go to our favourite event. We had fun, we laughed, we ate ridiculous food, and we spent time together as a family.

That’s all he would have wanted.

Miss you daddy <3

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A Year Ago Today…

August 30, 2010 By

My dad passed away.

Still can’t believe it’s been a year. Well I still can’t believed it even happened.

I don’t really feel like writing a whole thing today. I just wanted to give him the honor of being mentioned. I know he would be proud of me for this blog, so this is the least I can do.

For those who are new to the blog and don’t know the story of what happened to my dad, you can read the blog I kept up for him during his journey here

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Uncover Ostomy; Making Changes All Over The World- Hello Scotland

May 28, 2010 By

Well I had an interesting experience tonight…

I mean, it was a normal night. Got on my computer, logged onto Facebook, checked Uncover Ostomy, and then noticed I had a new friend request. I always notice. I just. Um. I leave them.

The thing is, I get a lot of people adding me to Facebook because of the campaign. I think it’s awesome that they want to add me. Especially with some of the messages I get along with them. They’re all so sweet. The problem is, I have a lot of personal information on Facebook that I don’t feel comfortable sharing with people I’ve never met and don’t know. So instead… I kind of leave the friend requests until I can message each person back individually and apologize.

Anyways, today I got a little popup saying I had a new friend request. I noticed the name and said, ok I’ll message him later, I’m in the middle of something.

A little while later I get a popup on my msn messenger saying someone wants to add me to their list. The email looks just like the guy who friend requested me. So I accepted msn and started to talk to him. I asked him if I knew him and he said no but he had found me on Facebook and thought my campaign was inspirational.

Ok,  I guess I can talk to him.

Anyways, we continue to talk and I find out he’s a 17 year old who got his ostomy when he was 13 and has been struggling. He hasn’t told anyone he has one . He told me his doctor told him to check out a website to find some answers and help him out. I asked him why he couldn’t talk about his ostomy and he said he couldn’t even say the word ostomy because it bothered him.

“You can’t even say it?! Say IT!”

I told him to get a microphone and record him saying it so I knew he did.

Well, to that, he said the microphone was downstairs and it was 1am.

1am? It was 7pm here.

“Where are you from?”

“Scotland”

Apparently his doctor had given this guy information on IDEAS and through it he found Uncover Ostomy. All the way from Scotland.

Wow.

Anyways, he began telling me that he was trying to get rid of his ostomy.

He wanted to get rid of it so badly that he was willing to be part of an experiment they were doing in Scotland. Apparently, he was going to get a new immune system.

Sound familiar?

He was going to get chemotherapy to kill his immune system and then he was going to have a bone marrow transplant.

I then automatically said, “oh wow, my dad had one”

And then I thought, oh crap I’m going to scare this poor kid.

“Oh but never mind.”

He said he really wanted to know about it all and asked about how my dad’s recovery was.

Well, we all know my dad’s story didn’t end well. But I told him. He considered it.

After that we talked a bit more and I asked him why he didn’t like talking about his ostomy. He said he didn’t like it. We eventually figured out he resented it because it stopped him from following his dream of being an army surgeon. Instead, he had to do it in a hospital. I told him if he hadn’t gotten the ostomy he wouldn’t even get to work in a hospital.

He considered this too. Then began to ask me some personal questions. He asked me about how I started the campaign and how I was able to open up. He also asked me about relationships and I explained the ostomy wasn’t an issue.

By the end of our conversation he told me he was surprised to know there was someone with an ostomy living with a normal life. The people he knew with them, he said, were social outcasts. He was surprised I was real.

By the end of the conversation he said,

“I think I’m going to try a new angle”

“What angle is that?”

“I think I’m going to try to live with my ostomy.”

There we go.

:]

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Like We Needed To Do It Again…

May 17, 2010 By

Today was sunny and warm for the first time in a long time in Toronto.

I’d like to think today was that way because my dad made sure of it.

We needed the sun.

Today was my dad’s unveiling.

An unveiling is, in the Jewish tradition, pretty much like a second funeral. We stand around the grave, say some words, a few prayers, then have a reception with lots of food. What’s a Jewish get together without food?

It was nice to have the sun shine down on us today.

For those who don’t know, my dad passed away last August and today we “unveiled” his tombstone.

My mom said the stone looked nice.

I’m sure it did. I didn’t look at it.

I’m sure I will soon.

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Hi Mom!

October 6, 2009 By

So I wanted to dedicate this blog post to my mom.

She’s an avid reader of all my blogging.

She sent me an email today saying she really liked yesterday’s blog and kept checking the site till the new one was up.

Before this website, I used to blog for something else. For my dad.

I guess now’s a good a time as any to talk a little bit about my family, and everything that’s gone on over the past little while before this campaign came out. It’ll just give you a little background to my life.

If we start way, way back when I was sick at age 8, we see little Jess Grossman, lying on the couch, in pain, head on her dad’s stomach as he stroked her back while she held a hot water bottle to her stomach that her mom had made for her. Those were my parents; always there for me when I was sick from the day the pain started, to staying overnight with me in the hospital, through surgery, and up until I was able to handle my ostomy on my own. They were there for everything.

I’m sure more will come out here and there about my story.

But I don’t want to talk about my story; I want to talk about my dad’s.

In February 2009 my father was diagnosed with a rare blood disorder called Myelofibrosis. It was a blood disease where his bone marrow was producing scar tissue instead of red blood cells. In order to live, my father needed a bone marrow transplant. In order to get this transplant, my dad needed to find a match. As soon as we knew this was the answer my mother did all she could to organize a bone marrow drive. I started a Facebook group to encourage people to join the hunt and get themselves tested to see if they matched my dad or anyone else who needed bone marrow.

Within weeks, newspapers, radio stations, magazines, and tv stations were contacting my family and I for interviews to talk about the search and to find my dad a match.

In April, my mom, and tons of volunteers and helpers ran a bone marrow drive which brought in over 1400 new bone marrow samples for the worldwide bone marrow registry.

By July, we had found a match.

In order for my dad to have the transplant, he had to have extensive chemo to kill his body and start from scratch with his new marrow. For this, he had to move into the hospital to get himself ready. I was the one to bring him to the hospital on his move in day. It weirded me out, to say the least. I was bringing him to the hospital. It used to be the other way around.

Unfortunately, I had missed the actual transplant at the end of July because I was in Vancouver doing work for this campaign. My dad didn’t mind, though, because he knew what I was doing and was so proud of me. Thanks to technology, I was able to watch the transplant on Skype.

Because of all the support and the people who cared about my family, they all wanted to know what was going to happen with my dad. To save my mom, I decided I should start a blog to update everyone. This way, they could know what was going on with the transplant, and after, without everyone calling mom incessantly.

Even though my she knew what was going on, she read my posts every day.

Including this one:

Just before 1pm….

Dad passed just before 1pm today.

Finally, he’s at peace.

Funeral and shiva information shortly.

Posted by JG at 12:56 PM 16 comments

Yeah. My father passed away on August 30th 2009.

I guess I just wanted to write this blog post to give you a little more information on me and my history. It gives a little context to my posts and to why I am who I am, and why I do what I do. I expect to reference my dad a lot because he played such a huge role during my sickness.

Well that’s it for tonight. I really need to get back to my homework .

 

[Psst: if you want to see my old blog and learn more about what happened you can go here]

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