Would I be Willing to do a Live Radio Interview?

Perhaps, if it's for a good cause.

(My apologies about the links in this post, which for whatever reason are hardly noticeable. And I don't know how to fix that. Look closely for the words which that are just a touch different than the rest of the text.)

I've learned over the years that one never knows down which roads your musings will travel, and what will bounce back at you.

When I started working on the post 'There are None so Blind', I didn't have any lofty plans for it; just this blog post. However, while I was writing, I needed answers to certain questions. For example, why are the wait lists for corneal transplants so long. The best person to answer that would be my ophthalmologist, Dr. Rocha, who also happens to be the President of the Canadian Ophthalmological Society (COS).

I found out there was no short answer for this question, so my article ended up being longer than I first anticipated. I was also fascinated with the information from Dr. Rocha, and read various articles on this topic online. Information I thought would be interesting for other people as well. When I finished writing, I asked Dr. Rocha if he'd have time to edit it, as I wanted my article to be accurate. He kindly obliged and asked if he can share it with the COS. I had no problem with that, because by that time I'd learned so much about tissue donations and the lack of awareness so felt that it's a message that needs to be widely spread.

Shortly after, Courtny Vaz, COS Coordinator, Communications and Public Affairs contacted me asking for permission to post my article on their website, See the Possibilities. She also wanted to know, with World Sight Day on October the 12th, if I'd be OK if she'd share my article with the media, should anybody be interested. I chuckled , thinking nothing will happen, but gave my consent. 

Then I got an email from Fontane Choi, who's with a PR agency working with the Canadian Ophthalmological Society. She wanted to know if I would be willing to do a live interview with Mike Ross and Joeita Gupta at Accessible Media Inc. in Toronto. Live? I've never done a live interview before. I guess my nothing-will-happen chuckle was short-lived. To say I wasn't nervous about a live interview would be an outright lie. I never like to be on the air, live or taped. Period. So my first instinct was to decline. However, I thought about this for a few minutes and decided I wanted to help spread the message about organ and tissue donation, which is the whole point to my article, and agreed to the interview. This is worth venturing out of my comfort zone for. Plus, it's going to be just a short ten minute interview. Hopefully I won't have to bumble my way through it. 

October 12, World Sight Day, I was going to be on air together with Dr. Phil Hooper, an ophthalmologist in London, Ontario. I liked that part, that way I won't have to talk so much. You can listen to it here: Live From Studio 5. Click on 'Receiving a Corneal Transplant'. If you don't have iTunes on your device, you'll have to first download it; the link to the free download is right there at the top of the Live from Studio 5 page. (UPDATE: Apparently the podcasts don't stay up very long, so you can't listen to it anymore. So sorry.)

That same morning Fontane Choi emailed and asked if I'd be willing to do another interview that day, this time with Global News. Oh. My. Word. What did I get myself into? Okay, so twice in one day I crawled out of my comfort zone, in the name of spreading an important message. But this time it was a taped interview - somewhat easier. You can read this one here. Both interviews went well, though.

My sincere thanks to Dr. Rocha, Courtny Vaz and Fontane Choi for sharing my article. It was a pleasure working with you! I appreciate all your help!

You too, can help spread this important message by sharing the above mentioned article, There are None so Blind via Email, Twitter, Facebook, WhatsApp, or any other way you'd like. Some of these are made fairly easy at the bottom of this blog post. Who knows, perhaps because of your sharing it, some future organ or tissue recipient will be grateful.