Thought I Had My Finger On The Pulse Of Heart Month

Me celebrating Heart Month by shoveling out our driveway - something I haven't been able to do for the past year.

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February was Heart Month. For me, this year, that was a big deal. I had great plans to mark it throughout the month and compose some interesting posts for social media showing how well I’ve been doing and keeping the theme of Heart Month front and centre. It started almost as I had planned it and I was getting a lot of traction out of the first few posts. Then Heart Month sort of turned on me. The details are below, but before I get to those, here is a quick look at my meeting schedule from February 2021.

Half Of My Meetings Were Missed

Due to a health issue, I ended up missing half of the meetings I had on my schedule for the month. Out of ten meetings, one was canceled and four I could not attend. This is a complete list of those events.

February 1 - 7:30 PM - Regular Meeting of Town Council, Town Hall
February 16 - 7:30 PM - Regular Meeting of Town Council, Town Hall (Attended via video conference)
February 25 - 3:00 PM - Special Meeting of Town Council, Town Hall

February 9 - 12 Noon - South Okanagan Similkameen Primary Care Network Planning Meeting (Zoom).
February 16 - 3:00 PM - Princeton Health Care Steering Committee - CANCELLED
February 17 - 9:30 AM - Okanagan Regional Library - DID NOT ATTEND
February 17 - 5:30 PM - Princeton Arts Council - DID NOT ATTEND
February 18 - 10:00 AM - Interagency - DID NOT ATTEND
February 18 - 5:30 PM - Princeton Museum Society - DID NOT ATTEND
February 23 - 7:00 PM - PXA AGM, PXA Indoor Arena (ran the Election of Officers for 2021 Executive)

Some Details From The Town Council Meetings

The biggest item on the agenda from the February 1, 2021, Regular meeting of the Town Council was a grant application for funding to cover a portion of the costs of CCTV inspection of 8.9-kilometres of gravity sewer pipe. The results of which would then be evaluated and used to adjust asset management planning strategies and update current asset management documents and provide data to assist with the revision of goals. The Town also committed $12,500 from the Sewer System Maintenance Budget towards the cost of this initiative.

The majority of the February 16, 2021, Regular Meeting of Town Council was filled by two lengthy video conference reports. The first one was presented by Tracy Wall, Deputy Assessor for the Thompson Okanagan Region. She provided an overview of property assessment and the 2021 assessment roll. The second presentation was made by Jim Zaffino, Manager of Finance for the RDOS (Regional District of Okanagan Similkameen). His presentation covered the RDOS budget. I attended this meeting via video conference simply because I started feeling ill late in the morning and did not think it was wise to be at the meeting if I was sick. Town Staff quickly acted to provide me access so I could still be part of the meeting from the comfort of home and not put anyone else at risk.

The Special Meeting of Town Council on February 25, 2021, centred primarily on the 2021 Grant-In-Aid requests. A total of nine requests were received totaling $50,964.35. The budget for this year’s Grant-In-Aid program is $25,000. As you can imagine, it was not easy to either turn down or reduce some of the requests that were made as each of them represented worthy causes. Town Council, working with Town Staff, was able to whittle the asks down and come up with a list that met the needs of most of the requests.

Health Update

It was sort of a good news/bad news month for me. A phone appointment with my local doctor early in the morning f February 16 brought me a great deal of good news. The results of my ECG late last month in Penticton revealed that my heart function has moved up to 30%. It had been down to 10% almost a year ago and 15-20% six months ago. The doctor indicated that I have made significant progress over the past few months. Then later that morning I started to feel ill. I skipped going for my daily walk and lifting weights. At one point I had to lay down. Then I started vomiting.

I chose to pass on attending the Regular Meeting of Town Council scheduled for later than evening. Provisions were made for me to attend it electronically. By the evening, I felt a little better but during the meeting, I got sick again. Before the meeting had concluded, I was on my way to the Princeton Hospital ER. I ended up spending a night and the issue was my sodium level. As we have been keeping it low during my congestive heart failure recovery, we went too low. It took me a week to get back on track to where I was feeling better and missed some meetings as a result. Not exactly how I wanted to end Heart Month, but it was a good reminder to me about the delicate balance required to move forward. Thanks, everyone for your kind words and concern.