Richardson Microscopes

Cool Stuff

My dad dropped by for a nice visit yesterday evening on Jon’s eighth birthday. Since Jon had already had relatives (Grandma, Grandpa, Aunts Patti and Pam, Uncle David, Meghan, Austin and Jeff) in for a party, he was pretty wiped by the evening – though that still didn’t prevent him from getting out of bed and cackling to himself maniacally for quite some time….

During the conversation afterwards Dad enthused about an amazing new microscope that he now owns called the Richardson Real-Time Microscopy System (RTM): It’s a light microscope that, thanks to new technology, can magnify at levels previously only obtainable via a scanning electron microscope (SEM). The advantage in that is that microscopic specimens may now be seen live rather than frozen and coated with gold dust (to bounce the electrons off them).

See the difference between this typical SEM photo of a seemingly hard-shelled, tanklike dustmite and RTM video footage of live, moving, squishy dustmites. It changes perspective of the wee beasties mightily!

Apparently this microscope is causing great excitement and consternation among the scientific community, since the pictures of organisms don’t look remotely like what’s been previously accepted as reality. After one RTM demonstration, a scientist got up and stated that this instrument had just destroyed his life’s work. Ouch. On the other hand, this is opening up huge areas of study, as now people can observe and film microscopic organisms in situ, rather than by the microscopic equivalent of being stuffed and mounted.

The good kind of Sarcasm

Jon

Jon’s return to school this year has been great. He has the same teacher this year as last–Tami, the first teacher to really click with him and see his potential. So, there is no transition to speak of, and no burden of trying to communicate all the subtleties of Jon’s situation to a new person with his or her own plans for teaching. Jon hit the ground running, back to all of the computer work and reading exercises that he left in June (in fact, we worked on reading and typing in the summer). So he’s very happy.

On Thursday, his bus arrived and I got on the bus to greet him and assist the driver as she unstrapped his wheelchair. Jon greeted me with a long list of what he did at school today–a paragraph where he’d never given me more than a sentence before. Wow. He was really communicative. Clearly, he was on top of his game.

So we got him inside and we got him a snack. We discovered that we still had some Doritos (pretty much his favourite junk food) from last week’s party and gave him a small bowl.

Since he was so on the ball, I tried something I do from time to time: weasel in a little extra reading time. The TV was on, Jon had a mouthful of chips and I suddenly produced the large-type booklet I print up of his school reading program. The title page reads “I find a baby monster“. Jon, mouth full of chips, studied it with full concentration, scanning it carefully. Then, he read to me: “I…am…eating…nachos!”

I fell over laughing. Jon went back to relaxing. Message received, loud and clear.

Walker

Jon

We borrowed a walker from Jon’s school for the summer, but due to an unfortunate incident early in the summer (Jon hit his legs on the adjustable bolts jutting from the frame) and the overwhelmingly popular cycling, we didn’t get to use it as much as he does at school. Still, he and I have been out the past two days (note the foam pads over the bolts).

Today, the Snowbirds passed overhead (part of the Canadian International Air Show) as we walked today and Jon froze and made a small noise. I expected terror, but as the deafening roar passed over, I heard a stream of awe-filled, testosterone-fueled chortles.

Maybe next year we’ll find a spot to try to watch them. It will require a lot of concentration for Jon: they move so fast, and out-of-sync from their sound. So maybe the enjoyment just comes from moments like this…

Cake and Ice Cream

Family Life


The Roman Forum, in its heyday
Had a few folks over for a cake and ice cream open house on Saturday. Laura made five different cakes and two pies, all wonderful.


The Forum, post-450 A.D. A young Barbarian feasts in the decayed ruins.

Wheelchair Clinic

Jon

We finally started the process for getting Jon a new wheelchair on August 19. No, let’s back up a bit: We started the process for getting Jon a new wheelchair sometime last year, but the stars (and government agencies) didn’t align properly until now.

Jon’s been using the wheelchair frame he was prescribed four years ago, which, in a word, is crap. (For those not in the know, wheelchairs start with the basic metal frame, on which you can add all the not-quite-optional extras, like footrests, wheels, backrests and seats.) It’s a Category 2 frame, which means it is not very adjustable – only a limited number of options for wheel/footrest/armrest size, angle or position. He had the chair totally reoutfitted two years ago, and instead of junking it and starting with a better chair (like a Category 3, which is wholly adjustable), for some reason the same crap frame was expanded on and added to instead – which ended up costing about the same amount as the original chair.

Aside: I remember mentioning the cost of Jon’s current chair seat (a bare-bones thing made of hard foam and fabric) to my brother-in-law, who yelled “What! $600! For that price it should be a custom gel seat!” Bit of a difference of size of market for bikes vs. chairs! But I digress.

So, in July 2003 we went to the wheelchair clinic at Bloorview-MacMillan to start the process of getting a new chair. The physiotherapist asked us to put it off until Jon grew a bit, to give the government a nice, easy reason for requesting a new one (seemed reasonable, since they’ll be paying for half of it). Also, we were told to apply for a particular government grant for disabled children so that the full cost of the chair would be covered (sounds good to me!). I’ll leave it to your imagination, the hoops we had to jump through to apply for the grant. Suffice to say I don’t like government forms – especially 20-page ones!

Fast-forward to 2004. We got approved for the grant in April; get a clinic appointment in August. It takes five people to get Jon all measured up for the new chair: the physiotherapist, the seating specialist, the wheelchair vendor and the two parents who have to tell the other three “no, it has to be able to fit in a station wagon” or “no chest strap, because Jon would hang himself on one of those”. Now we sit tight and wait another couple of months until the government approves payment, and then – maybe, maybe – Jon’ll get his new wheelchair by November or so…

Ah well, too bad we couldn’t get one of these babies for Jon’s chair. He’d love the speed!

Olympic Junkies

Family Life

For the past two weeks, we have been corpulent couch potatoes from early in the morning, hooked on the Olympics, and watching Canada take fourth in everything including rock-paper-scissors.

Jon is patient, but isn’t entirely hooked. Until…diving. Diving is his opiate. Synchro or individual, tower to 3 metre. It even trumps the Weather Network. I had assumed–given the visual issues–that beyond the general concept of the water and the movement of the athletes, the sound of the splash was the big attraction. But he’s taken to muting the TV and (ok, at first at my suggestion) hollering “SPLASH!”, so it’s not a necessity.

Beyond that, unlike his mom and dad, it inspires him to go out into the world and DO. We’ve gone to Grandma and Grandpa’s pool the past couple of days and Jon has done a lot of diving. It’s tricky to set him up, but he loves it, even the belly flops! Wow.