June 2023 - Facing challenges, unexpected growth, and our plans for the summer...

Hello Lewy Warriors!

Happy (belated) Canada Day from all of us here at CLBDI. We hope you've been having a wonderful weekend. It's been a whirlwind of a month for us at CLBDI so we have some updates to share. First and foremost, we wanted to address the premature end of "The P.E.I. Project" and say a sincere thank everyone who donated and showed their support before, during, and after the event. As you may or may not know, we had to end the walk early due to Carol suffering an injury on the trail. Safety is our utmost priority so we decided to call it early. We're glad we did and, although we hoped we could make it the whole month, her health is far more important. Carol explained the situation in a letter earlier this month...

"To my friends and supporters,

I would like to take a moment to thank everyone who helped me after I injured myself on the trail.
First to thank is Jean McCardle, my bed and breakfast host, who lives in the charming Victoria-by-the Sea. I spent many days with her. She is a wonderful woman. During my stay, she kept an eye on me, shared her wonderful company, found a massage therapist for me, and took me to some very interesting venues.

Also, a major thanks to Mr. Kendrick of Island Experiences and drivers Ann and Bill Jamieson who were most helpful.
Here in Waterloo, I would like to thank my health team who saw me this past Monday and Tuesday. Thank you to my excellent MT Steve Foley, my chiropractor Dr. K. Moeller, and Dr. M. Torreiter who did acupuncture on me and set me up with Eric Bauman for the afternoon. He is my physiotherapist. I will continue to see them in the next few weeks until I am healed.

I also want to thank the 3 sets of folks, two in PEl and one here, who gave me cash donations for the fundraiser after I had injured myself. I am so, so grateful for your kindness. Merci Mille Fois.

Thanks to Dr. S. Pasternak, as well, for emailing me to lend his support regarding my injury.

Upon arriving home, I was diagnosed with Gluteal Tendinopathy in my hip. I will have to take the utmost care to adhere to the program Eric set out for me so that I can heal. He said it can take anywhere from a month to three months for complete healing. My movement is limited but I can still do short, light swims and two short walks daily at a “moseying” pace.

I will continue to work on healing this ol' left hip of mine so that I can hopefully walk some in our local area as an alternative in the future.

I also want to thank my amazing LBD partner, Joe Daniel, for his constant support as well as members of my family and all my wonderful friends.
​
As ever,
Carol"

So, where does that leave us? Carol is recovering well but due to some unforeseen medical circumstances in my own life... we are still waiting to hear from the professionals and figure it all out. With that being said, we do plan to have the interview with Dr. Pasternak up in the next few weeks on our YouTube page and are looking at doing some sort of CLBDI event later in the summer. It's a hard thing to reckon with but some things are just beyond our control so we are taking it one day at a time.

Ashley, our liaison at UWO, will be getting in touch with us next week with an updated donation total for June. We know that money from the Robert Edward Schmidt Trust and some other memorial donations that have come in this past month. We also have a donation to make in the next few weeks that includes the money raised with the CLBDI cards from earlier this year and cash donations from anyone who donated to Carol directly. Ashley will be updating us one more time at the end of the month and we expect to be close to $60,000 in total donations by the fall. Simply amazing.

So, for now, keep your eyes on the CLBDI Facebook page for updates and hopefully we will have more to share at the end of July.

Best,
Joe