Entertainment or Way Beyond: A Child's Death Twittered

Twitter has been in the news, for better or worse, for the past year or so. Some people use Twitter for the odd updates, others are addicted to it or like to use it for shock value. One famous case occurred just a couple of months ago when Penelope Trunk twittered about her miscarriage during a meeting.

Some people were disgusted with her cavalier attitude, while others applauded her for her open communication. Others just shrugged their shoulders in a "what can you do? fashion.

But now, Twitter and its reach is under fire again, for a much more tragic reason. Shellie Ross, a 38-year-old mother, twittered that her son was drowning - her two-year-old son. He had fallen into the family swimming pool and emergency services were trying to rescue him.

Many people are harshly critical of Ross and her twittering. There were reports that she twitters extensively and this gave people license to blame her twittering for lack of parenting. Of course, this can't be a conclusion to be drawn - we don't know the woman at all. But it's out there. But, is that really that issue that is drawing such ire? Or is it the fact that someone has the presence of mind to twitter as people are trying to resuscitate her child?

I'm sure that the last thing on her mind was to draw such attention to herself and her family tragedy. The loss of a two-year-old is a major, major tragedy. But she has, unwittingly, brought this to the attention of millions of people.

Is twittering for entertainment only? Or, as Ross meant it to be, for support and prayer at a time of extreme need? What do you think?

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Dislocated shoulders, concussions and a move: still very grateful

It's been a busy few months. We sold our house after having it on the market for about 8 months, bought a new place in the city (we were in a suburb) and moved. It all ended up happening quite quickly once we sold our house.

Stress takes a toll on your body, whether it's a good stress or a bad one. It's known that changing jobs - even a good change, moving, marrying, divorcing, having a baby, and so on, are all stressful times in our lives. It's important to stay healthy during those times because once you do start getting run down, it's hard to get back up to full form.

Luckily for us, we stayed pretty healthy for the most part, although I think that stress did get to us from time to time.

This past Friday, the 11th, was moving day. The big day. So, as the movers were taking the furniture from our home, I went to my car and, before I knew it, I was on the ground - in agony. I have no memory of falling at all, just lying on the ground with a shoulder that hurt more than anything I'd ever experienced in my life. Worse than childbirth, without a doubt.

It turns out that I separated my left shoulder, so off to the hospital for some major drugs to knock me out so they could reset the shoulder. In the meantime, the move was going on. Thank God for capable children who are now adults. They had no idea what to do, but they managed and they did a fantastic job.

After five hours (about) in the hospital, my husband and I headed for our new home. Of course, now I can't do anything, so all my plans are out the window. After a quick supper, the youngest (18) goes off to coach floor hockey as he does every Friday night. Problem was, while he was there, he whacked his head good and hard on a wall overhang as he ran down some stairs. The result? A mild concussion and sutures in his scalp. Oops. That's got to hurt.

Ok, so now the new place is a mess and two of the three people living here are out of commission. but you know what? That's ok. That's very ok.

The place is perfect to me. The bathroom that I had redone, is perfect, amazing, gorgeous. It fits the style of this 1930 building perfectly. The rooms are actually big enough for the furniture I kept; I thought it was going to be crowded.

Despite being just below a busy street, it is so quite and peaceful here, very similar to what we left. Very, very quiet, even at night. It's likely noisier in the summer when the people in the apartment building next door have windows open, but that's city living, right?

I love the place.

Some people thought we were nuts moving into a second floor flat/condo but I think it was exactly the right thing to do.

Oh, did I mention that I absolutely love the place? I never felt this way about any of our previous homes. *This* is the one that was meant to be. :-)

Sore shoulder? Yeah, but that will go away. This feeling of being home? That, my friends, is here to stay.

Dec. 6, 1989, Violence against women

December 6, 1989. It was a day like many others. I was at home with my then 2-year-old son and my 10-month-old daughter. Nothing of the day would have stood out except for a horrible event that began in the late afternoon.

As we watched the evening news, the drama - the unimaginable - was happening. One gunman, Marc Lapine, had entered Ecole Polytechnique, the engineering school of the University of Montreal. He told the male students to leave. He began shooting the women. By the end of it all, 14 young, bright, promising women had been murdered by a man who resented that they were in the school and not he. Ten women and 4 men were physically injured. And many, many other people, both men and women, were left with the pain of losing their daughter, sister, lover, cousin, aunt, or friend.

The images of the ambulances outside the building, the snow falling in big wet flakes, will always stay with me as I held my own daughter. That same daughter who, 17 years later, was in the building at Dawson College when a gunman opened fire, killing one student. Although she wasn't near the cafeteria where the tragedy occurred, she was in the building and had to be evacuated like thousands of other students. Seventeen years after the Polytechnique massacre, we were again faced with guns and violence in a school, a place where we like to feel our children are safe.

At the time of the Polytechnique, I didn't know if my daughter would grow up to become a lawyer, a business woman, a chef, a teacher - or an engineer. I grew up around engineers. My father taught in the mechanical engineering department at McGill. I know what kind of people, very bright, intense people, study in this field. I know that women were sorely under represented, but it was a man's world back then. And so it was to Lepine too, as he wiped out the lives of 14 young women and forever changed how many Montrealers see the world.

Gun violence in Canada is something that we're often proud doesn't happen here very often. But someone who is going to do horrible things is going to find a way to do it, no matter what. And, Lepine also had a hunting knife - which he also used on at least one woman after she was shot, say news reports.

There have been vigils and there will continue to be vigils in honour of the 14 women who died. But we also can't forget those who survived the trauma, those who lived through seeing their peers killed. We can't forget the families who lost their loved ones. December 6 is a day of remembrance in Canada for all women who suffer from violence. Let's hope that one day, women don't have to be afraid of some men. Wouldn't that be a wonderful thing?

• Geneviève Bergeron (born 1968), civil engineering student
• Hélène Colgan (born 1966), mechanical engineering student
• Nathalie Croteau (born 1966), mechanical engineering student
• Barbara Daigneault (born 1967), mechanical engineering student
• Anne-Marie Edward (born 1968), chemical engineering student
• Maud Haviernick (born 1960), materials engineering student
• Maryse Laganière (born 1964), budget clerk in the École Polytechnique's finance department
• Maryse Leclair (born 1966), materials engineering student
• Anne-Marie Lemay (born 1967), mechanical engineering student
• Sonia Pelletier (born 1961), mechanical engineering student
• Michèle Richard (born 1968), materials engineering student
• Annie St-Arneault (born 1966), mechanical engineering student
• Annie Turcotte (born 1969), materials engineering student
• Barbara Klucznik-Widajewicz (born 1958), nursing student

Needle Picks and Nurse Fears

I've been a nurse for over 25 years. While I've picked myself occasionally with clean needles, ones that I was preparing to use (and then tossed), up until now I could say I'd never had a serious needle stick. Unfortunately, I can't make that claim any longer.

After taking blood from a patient this morning, I was trying to retract the butterfly needle into the plastic protective cover, only to have it jam. When that happened, my hand came off the plastic and then kind of rebounded back, embedding the needle into my thumb. Ouch. Blood. Ouch.

So, of course, off for blood tests, paperwork and more. I'm fine; I know I'm fine. The patient is in a low-risk category (probably as low-risk as they come), so I'm confident. But only to a point. You never really know someone and you never know what could show up. So, I wait.

No prophylactic (preventative) medication for me. If the patient had been high-risk, I would have taken the medications. Those things can have nasty side effects though.

But you know what's the worst part about stuff like this? Believe it or not, patient rights. I was lucky. The patient's family was very understanding and gave me permission to get blood samples for HIV and hepatitis. But, they also had the legal right to refuse this.

Years ago, when I worked at an acute care hospital, one of the nurses on my floor had a needle stick from someone who was very high risk. The doctor went in to ask the patient for permission to draw blood for HIV testing and he refused. He refused the next day and the day after that. He never ended up agreeing to it, despite being told why it was being requested.

As a result, my colleague had to take the antiretrovirals for a set period of time, to prevent the possibility of contracting HIV. The law was on the patient's side. But when a the health of a healthcare worker is at risk, shouldn't that trump the rights of the hospitalized patient?