I received an email last night letting me know that Hope Airlines – a WestJet Cares for Kids partner charity is celebrating 10 years of flying Canadians to their medical appointments. I believe I read somewhere that they have donated over 65,000 flights over the past 10 years.  That’s a lot of free salty snacks!  🙂  So today’s post is inspired by them.

As I was typing up a thank you post to Hope Air, I couldn’t help but notice how many “good guys” there are out there that I had no idea really existed until we found ourselves in need of them.  In a world where it is easy to marinate your mind in the evils and hardships of the world, it has been uplifting to separate myself from that during this journey and be able to see the amazing things people do every day that I’ve never really thought much about before.

Charities that have affected my life positively in the last two weeks:

• Al Shamal Shriners of Edmonton
• Shriners Hospital Canada – janitors, nurses, cooks, doctors, social workers…
• Shriners International – seeing a pattern yet?
• Hope Air / WestJet
• Ronald McDonald House
• Starlight Foundation
• Daughters of the Nile (women affiliated with the Shriners) – donate handmade goods to us – blankets, pillows.  The photo on the  blog post is the blanket I received this week.  I noticed a tag on the blanket today, so I looked them up – and these ladies donate more than 2 million a year to Shriners Hospitals…pretty impressive!

…and these are just the few I know…I can see corporate sponsorship signs everywhere, so there is a tonne of work/donations going on behind the scenes that I am not even aware of yet.  Oh….I can’t forget to mention all the volunteers too…high school students that come in to play with Ben, adults to drive us everywhere, popcorn passers during movie time (yes, that’s a job )…  Anyways, I’m sure I am missing a tonne of people that make our lives easier here – not to mention all the folks back home who are such a tremendous support in so many ways.

Ben’s doctor came by today.  It was nice to just chat and not be rushed.  Ben should be at maximum traction weight by about Wednesday, and we will likely stay there until surgery. I just love the way Ben’s surgeon examines him.  Most surgeons tend to only look at films (CT’s, MRI’s, Xrays), but Ben’s doctor really LOOKS at Ben.  He touches his neck and muscles, watches him play, looks at his back….I just love it.  I am glad that we have time to know him better before the surgery.  It will give him more time to see how awesome this kid is!