As usual, I am late in posting this story.
It is starting to feel like it happened a while ago now - those multiple deaths along Yonge Street in Toronto on April 23rd. For the families involved, it must still seem like a nightmare. When something like that happens, it is easy to become fearful and suspicious of others. While it is important to be vigilant, I would like to write about the goodness of Toronto, by recounting an incident that happened to me there, while visiting my daughter, just days earlier.
On Thursday April 19th I found myself at the corner of Danforth and Greenwood. My right leg was giving me trouble. Norah dropped me off at the Danforth Greenwood Walk In Clinic. All I had to do was walk across the street and then walk about ten steps into the clinic. However, that simple task was suddenly impossible.
Partway across the street something happened to my right knee. Whenever I tried to put any weight on that leg, a searing pain went up the back of my knee. Somehow I managed to inch across to the other side of the street and was so grateful to have the clinic wall to lean on. I had no idea about how I was going to manage the remaining distance. To passersby I was not an impressive sight – a grey-haired grandma, tilting to one side, while leaning on a wall, at 9 am.
Fortunately a kind-hearted man stopped and offered to help. I asked if he could see if there were any crutches at the walk -in clinic. He went into the clinic and came out with the pharmacist and an office chair. "Better than crutches!" he declared. The two men helped me onto the chair and rolled me into the clinic. Everyone in the clinic: the pharmacist, the receptionist, the kind x ray technician who supported me as I transferred from chair to x ray bed – they were all so very kind.
Partway across the street something happened to my right knee. Whenever I tried to put any weight on that leg, a searing pain went up the back of my knee. Somehow I managed to inch across to the other side of the street and was so grateful to have the clinic wall to lean on. I had no idea about how I was going to manage the remaining distance. To passersby I was not an impressive sight – a grey-haired grandma, tilting to one side, while leaning on a wall, at 9 am.
Fortunately a kind-hearted man stopped and offered to help. I asked if he could see if there were any crutches at the walk -in clinic. He went into the clinic and came out with the pharmacist and an office chair. "Better than crutches!" he declared. The two men helped me onto the chair and rolled me into the clinic. Everyone in the clinic: the pharmacist, the receptionist, the kind x ray technician who supported me as I transferred from chair to x ray bed – they were all so very kind.
It was a long day. Norah re-arranged her day, then stopped and bought me a pair of crutches before she came to rescue me. She took me to have an ultrasound and later in the day, delivered me to a waiting wheelchair at Union Station. I was clearly no help to her at that point, so she shipped me home!
In the end, this is not a serious injury. I was walking again, after a few days. I've had lots of tests done and this week I hope to get a more definite answer as to why I still have so much fluid around my knee.
In those minutes on Danforth though, my physical status changed abruptly from able-bodied to disabled. I'm so grateful to the many people who helped me out. I felt very well cared for, by folks I’d never met. I like to think that's what Toronto is really about.
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