It was two years ago on his birthday, on May 20, 2009 that Tesfaye finally arrived in Vancouver to start a new chapter in his life. Finally, his difficult 12 year quest for life-changing corrective spine surgery and my own year long "roller coaster" ride in trying to get it done for him here in Vancouver had become a reality, and a new exciting and emotional shared journey for Tesfaye and my family was about to begin. Reflecting back, following is a link to the beginning entries of my blog recounting what happened the first couple of days after his arrival: .http://tesfayesjourney.blogspot.com/2009/06/life-withtesfaye-during-his-first-23.html . I did not fulfill my ambition of covering all of the first 23 days of activities before the day of surgery - maybe some day for my own edification I will fill it in. In summary, it was filled with tens of hours of pre-op hospital testing and education, Vancouver sight seeing, meeting local Ethiopians, and many good meals trying to fatten Tesfaye up for his upcoming surgery. I was able to reach Tesfaye in Addis and wish him a Happy Birthday. As usual, he was upbeat, positive and thankful. He is finishing his Grade 7 school year in a month and then is taking a summer course. His older brother Semenye came down from the village last week and stayed with him for a few days. Semenye came to escort one of his wife's brothers Wendim who is quite ill and was told by the doctors in the nearest cities to his village to make the trip to the capital Addis to seek medical help. It appears that he has a chronic kidney illness and at this time is getting some help at the Mother Theresa Mission. Tesfaye tells me that Wendim is in Grade 10 and a very good student, ranking first of second out of around 60 students, but he is very sick. As Tesfaye said in an email, " I wish to him, may God give a treatment".
