These are some of the things I enjoyed seeing at the Market last week.

From Granville Loop Park, we saw many tourist buses on our outing. it was a gorgeous summer day.

You can see me in the background going along south Granville. It was a warm day with a cool breeze. I enjoy shopping with my care workers. 

Those with ALS redefine what it means to be alive

(CNN) -- With the tap of a toe or the blink of an eye, those with ALS are redefining what it means to be alive.

I have to admit it took some time to come up with that line and believe it---to have that kind of positive outlook on this nasty deadly disease and the future.

Just a year and a half ago, my mother, Myrna Malveaux, 69, was healthy. Our family's matriarch, she was the one who was the life of the party, the trusted confidante but town crier of all family secrets, the glue that held my father, me, and my three siblings together.

When I was told she had ALS I honestly didn't know what it was. But then my sister described it to me over the phone and I had to pull over the car. It's a fatal, fast-moving neuromuscular disease that would paralyze my mother limb by limb. First robbing her of her ability to swallow, then speak, move and breathe.

When that reality set in, I spent many nights in my home, crying on the floor. What enabled me to get up was that my mother accepted her fate with a strength and grace I'd never seen before. In anyone.

When she began choking on her food, losing her ability to swallow, she got a feeding tube.

When she lost her ability to walk, she got a motorized wheelchair.

When she could no longer speak, she picked up a word board and started spelling out her conversations, still telling my father what to do.

And finally when she lost her ability to breathe, she got a tracheotomy and ventilator to stay alive.

Which is why the notion of what it means to be alive, for me, has completely changed.

I've met people like former NFL New Orleans Saints player Steve Gleason, who now, at age 36, with ALS, is completely paralyzed. He uses eye-tracking technology to open doors, send e-mails, and tweet by blinking his eyes.

I've also met Augie Nieto, the founder of Life Fitness gym equipment. The 53-year-old Californian is running a corporation, communicating and raising millions of dollars for ALS research, by tapping with his toes.

So you can see where I might get my inspiration in telling their stories.

Don't get me wrong, I know it's a devastating path to travel. Someone described it to me as "imagining yourself, sitting in a chair, and being completely duct-taped head to toe, with only your eyes left open. That's what it's like to have ALS."

It robs you of your physical abilities but it leaves your mind and spirit strong.

Being alive looks different. It becomes all about your emotional connections to those you love.

My mother smiles when she sees her grandchildren, her eyes light up when you walk in the door, she relaxes when the sun shines on her face. These days our family is just about hanging out.

Very little is known about how people get ALS. In 90% of cases it just happens out of the blue. It's considered a rare disease, in part, because patients don't live long enough to be counted. Right now there is no cure.

I hope by sharing my own experience, as well as that of others, we can learn more together.

Happy Canada Day!

Trying out the new door.

Soaking up some sun rays with my new scarf .

These are photos from my friend's garden and on my travels.

On the ALS Van going to UBC for a trache change .

Cherry Blossoms

Going to VGH on Monday for trach. I'll be in for 4 weeks.

My Mother around 1930.

I'M STILL WAITING FOR A BED

I'm alive and somewhat well. A hospital bed will come available soon and then I'll be admitted for a tracheostomy. I'll be in hospital[VGH] 3-4 weeks.

This is my Mother and her Father. They went to New Glasgow, Nova Scotia to visit my Great Aunt Lizzie. Mum and I went to visit many years later when I was about the same age she was in the photo.

This is a photo of my twin cousins, my sister Cheryle, and me. What can I say? There weren't enough dress-up dresses to go around and I was the youngest.

I'm still here but exhausted with changes to my body and therefore changes in daily routine. It's difficult to type so I've been going to G.F. Strong to practise Eyegaze. I now have supplemental feedings through my feeding tube,etc., etc. It's all challenging but I'm managing. I thank all the many people that keep me sane and tend to my changing needs.

at the market last week.

Emily says, "Good Morning."

Just wanted you to know I'm still here but having several issues to deal with so very busy.

Most of the shadows of this life are caused by our standing in our own sunshine. Ralph Waldo Emerson

1963--winning high point trophy at Pacific National Exhibition. Sugarfoot, my horse, was a great friend and very clever. She would often open the gates and lead the other horses to greener pastures. Needless to say, she wasn't a favorite of our neighbours.

This is my brother Ken. Cheryle and I once babysat him and now he babysits me. LOL.

This was my sister's 13th birthday party. She is 3rd from the left. I'm at the front on the far right(the one with braids--or pig tails). I would be 10. Photo 1956.

The tragedy of life is not death, but what we let die inside us while we live

Spring Poppies--photo by Libby

Thank You Gloria--it's about time.

NewsEventsWeatherProgramsVideoAudioContact Us Assisted-suicide ban struck down by B.C. court Judge rules law discriminates against the disabled CBC News Posted: Jun 15, 2012 11:35 AM PT Last Updated: Jun 15, 2012 6:22 PM PT Read 390 comments390 Assisted suicide2:19 Facebook 222 Twitter 90 Share 312 Email Related Stories The fight for the right to die Should Canadians have the legal right to assisted suicide? Quebec panel backs MD-assisted suicide in 'exceptional' cases External Links Supreme Court of B.C. judgement: Carter v. Canada (Note:CBC does not endorse and is not responsible for the content of external links.) RAW Euthanasia6:13RAW Civil liberties4:06 A British Columbia Supreme Court judge has declared Canada's laws against physician-assisted suicide unconstitutional because they discriminate against the physically disabled. In a 395-page ruling released Friday, Justice Lynn Smith addressed the situation faced by Gloria Taylor, a B.C. woman who was one of five plaintiffs in the case seeking the legal right to doctor-assisted suicide. Taylor has ALS, or Lou Gehrig's disease, a fatal neurodegenerative disease, and she sought the ruling to allow her doctor to help her end her life before she becomes incapacitated. The case was fast-tracked in August because of her illness. In her ruling, Smith noted suicide itself is not illegal, and therefore the law against assisted suicide contravenes Section 15 of the charter, which guarantees equality, because it denies physically disabled people like Taylor the same rights as able-bodied people who can take their own lives, she ruled. "The impact of that distinction is felt particularly acutely by persons such as Ms. Taylor, who are grievously and irremediably ill, physically disabled or soon to become so, mentally competent and who wish to have some control over their circumstances at the end of their lives," Smith writes. "The distinction is discriminatory … because it perpetuates disadvantage." Smith also says the law deprives both people like Taylor and those who try to help them of the right to life and liberty guaranteed under Section 7 of the charter. Your Community Should Canadians have the legal right to assisted suicide? She argued the legislation could force a person to take their life sooner than they want to in order to kill themselves while still physically capable. And Smith says the risk of incarceration denies the right of freedom to relatives who assist by taking their loved ones to jurisdictions where physician-assisted suicide is legal. The effect of the ruling will not be immediate, because Smith suspended it for one year in order to give Parliament time to take whatever steps it sees fit to draft and consider new legislation. But in the meantime, Smith granted Taylor a constitutional exception to seek physician-assisted suicide if she chooses to end her life. Gloria Taylor, of West Kelowna, B.C., asked the province's Supreme Court for the right to take her own life with a doctor's help as her health fades because of ALS. (CBC) The ruling will, if it stands up to an appeal, put Canada in the company of the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg and Switzerland, countries which permit physician-assisted suicide. Three states in the U.S. also allow the practice. Smith's ruling also addresses the risks raised by defendants in the case. "The evidence shows that risks exist," she wrote. "But that they can be very largely avoided through carefully designed, well-monitored safeguards." At the end of the decision, Smith also stipulates that her ruling only apply to "competent, fully informed, non-ambivalent adult persons who personally (not through a substituted decision-maker) request physician-assisted death, are free from coercion and undue influence and are not clinically depressed."

Were you around in these days?

I'm trying to get all my ducks in a row in order to give my respiratory doctor the go-ahead for booking me into VGH for a tracheostomy. There is a lot of preparation. I will be calling on friends to do some tasks in order to lighten the load for my Care Aides.

Some photos from my ALS walk on Saturday