Stroke puts author on challenging new path

Winnipeg chamber chair seeks to get creative

Could Royal Manitoba Theatre Centre tickets be the next company-wide perk?

It’s a question Bob Somers is posing. He’s slated to take the reins as Winnipeg Chamber of Commerce board chair on Oct. 1.

“There’s just such a barrier to engagement with the creative sector,” said Somers, a principal landscape architect at Scatliff + Miller + Murray.

He’s attended chamber events over the past 20 years. Many videos shown at luncheons come without local music or a credit to the filmmaker, Somers said.

Teenage e-scooter driver in critical condition after crash

A teenager riding an e-scooter suffered life-threatening injuries when he was struck by an SUV in southwest Winnipeg on Monday night.

Witnesses provided first aid to the injured rider, who police said is under 18, after the collision happened at Waverley Street and Arbour Meadow Gate/Lake Crest Road at about 9:30 p.m.

“It feels like it happened in slow motion,” said driver Audrey Vanderspek, who was waiting at a red light when she witnessed the incident. “Maybe it’s because you’re helpless, that it just feels like everything slows down in the moment.”

Police said the electric scooter rider was crossing Waverley and was hit by a southbound 2010 Honda CR-V. The posted speed limit on that stretch of Waverley is 70 kilometres per hour.

Stroke puts author on challenging new path

Strokes happen when a blood clot or bleeding in a blood vessel results in a blockage of blood flow in or to a part of the brain. The consequences of a stroke can take many damaging forms. Paralysis or restricted use of the right or left side of the body are the most familiar results. The inability to move at all, to speak, to read, or to remember can be more devastating. Full recovery is not guaranteed.

As she explains in the short but lucid introduction of When My Ghost Sings: A Memoir of Stroke, Recovery & Transformation, in November 2014 (at age 32) Tara Sidhoo Fraser suffered a stroke as the result of a “rare mutation called an arteriovenous malformation (AVM)” near her brain stem. She awoke from an hours-long embolization procedure (whereby some blood vessels in her brain were glued shut) with total memory loss and weakness on her right side. Her new book is a chronicle of the steps in her recovery.

The ghost of the title is that tenaciously active remnant of her pre-stroke self that remains trapped inside her body. It makes itself known in various ways. “There is a thinly veiled memory of Meredith that Ghost has carved into my right thumbnail,” Sidhoo Fraser writes. It’s somewhat similar to what’s often called “muscle memory” or what springs to mind when a scar or old bruise is bumped.

Ghost is also an imp that insists on hammering, punching, pinching, kicking and clawing her from inside, as well as wailing and singing to remind Sidhoo Fraser of her previous life: “Ghost would grow bored and begin clawing at my esophagus and pushing her legs against my rib cage.” Ghost is a beguiling metaphor, but not always a tidy or entirely successful one.

City to use survey to determine transportation needs

The city wants to know how Winnipeggers get around.

It plans to hire a consultant to conduct a household travel survey next year to provide data deemed critical to planning roads and active transportation routes.

“This (will) help … when it comes to prioritizing road renewal investments because our city is growing, travel patterns are changing. A lot has happened in our city in 20 years. And, especially when we’re a city without freeways, I know there’s some major intersections and major corridors that need refinement,” said Coun. Janice Lukes (Waverley West), council’s public works chairwoman.

The survey will delve into everything from the number of vehicles owned by residents to where they go and how they get there, providing the city’s first such fine-tuned poll since 2007. It will involve a representative sample of households in Winnipeg and surrounding communities.

Manitoba abandoning spring, fall clock changes

Time’s up for the time change in Manitoba.

Manitobans won’t be setting their clocks back an hour in November. The province has decided to permanently stay on daylight time after surveying residents on the twice annual clock adjustment.

“We heard from Manitobans loud and clear — no more changing the clocks in Manitoba,” Premier Wab Kinew said in a news release Thursday.

Most of the 72,000 votes submitted in an online EngageMB survey — 92 per cent — said they would like to see the practice end. The survey asked if they preferred earlier sunrises in winter with standard time or the later sunsets in summer with daylight time. More than half of survey participants (58 per cent) indicated a preference to stay on permanent daylight time; 34 per cent voted to eliminate the time change but stay on standard time.

Suspension on the horizon for Hellebuyck as pre-season set to start

In this high stakes game of chicken, Kevin Cheveldayoff, Connor Hellebuyck or any of the potential suitors for the Winnipeg Jets franchise netminder appear ready to blink.