River Cam:
Hi everyone. This is Charlie, the owner of all the Chilliwack River Cam equipment out at Gills house. First of all, my sincere apologies for not explaining why I had to shut the river cam off for a while, I assumed others had explained why, apparently I assumed wrong. Just over 19 months ago, my son who was 39 at the time, was taken into a walk in clinic with what he thought was a bad case of strep throat. While there, an ambulance was called, rushed to Surrey Memorial, transferred to VGH. He was than diagnosed with leukemia, and at that time, given less than a few days to live. I am sure, many of you can understand that shock, and utter fear hearing such news. He had never been sick a day in his life, a soccer coach, baseball coach, and has held the same job for 16 years. That day he was diagnosed, his wife was 6 months pregnant with their second child. Our lives, that day, took an abrupt turn..
Even after hearing that, I did call Gill, explained as best as I could what was going on, and made it clear, that under the current circumstances my son’s life, and helping his pregnant wife and child at the time, was TOP PRIORTY. The kind of leukemia he had, left him with no white blood cells, any common cold, infection, anything, he would die. He literally lived in a bubble of sorts for over a year . As I became his primary –care provider through all of this, driving from Chilliwack to Vancouver daily, even I had to wear a mask, and not be around anyone who had the slightest cold etc. As his treatment went on to save his life, Bone marrow, meds of all sorts, you name it, they threw it at him, I did call Gill a number of times and ask him if he had the River Cam up, and he said, He and his son would get it back up. We knew our equipment would be safe, as it was at Gill’s house.
While I manned the Chilliwack River Cam, I paned and tilted that camera no less than 15 hours a day 365 days of the year, yes, even Christmas day. Myself and my family met such wonderful people, and many of you came forward to help us with funding. The Steelhead Society being one. The CEO of Invision, SHAW cable, and of course Gill Bouvier for allowing us to place all of that equipment on his property. During the time I was behind the moving of our camera I was paying for the computer teckies and internet connection out at Gills house, all and any new equipment was needed, and there was a lot, out of my pension check, for over 2 years. The amount of time, to pan and tilt the camera, check on water levels, zoom up to see if fish we’re running in the river, under the circumstances at the time, I clearly was not able to give that time. My priority, was helping my Son and his family. The money I spent every month to keep our camera up, now needed to be diverted to help my Son.
OK, on a brighter note. I recently ran into Gill while voting last week, and he informed me that he and his son did in fact get our Chilliwack River cam back up,and he has it up on Ustream. I saw it on Thursday, and yes, it needs some tweaking as far as colour and clarity goes, but it is back up.
In closing, I can now proudly say, my son has returned to work part time, and is doing GREAT. He still has leukemia, but beat all the odds so far. He is also the proud daddy of a brand new son, Logyn, and can now kiss and hug his two children without wearing a mask.
Lastly, my sincere apologies for shutting the Chilliwack River cam down during most of this.
Sincerely
Charlie Hilliard
http://chilliwackrivercam.blogspot.ca/http://wwwkidsinthenestcom.ning.com/
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Topic: Chilliwack River Cam, Kids in The Nest Educational Society (Read 5783 times)