Jason Homyshin

Profile - May 01, 2011

Right after completing high school, I moved out from home into the McQueen group home where I lived for 3 ½ years. I then moved into the Artspace Co-op apartment building (downtown, just off 95th Street & Jasper Avenue) when it opened in November 1990. It is still my home. Click here for a map, and here for the Artspace web site.

In 1993 I was employed under contract with Transport Canada for nine months, doing computer programming. I have not been employed since that contract ended. 

Presently my income is $1,188/month, combined from CPP Disability and AISH.  In addition, Homecare provides my funding so that I can hire a Caregiver or Personal Care Attendant (PCA).  

I’ve been doing volunteer computer work (at home) for various agencies over the years, like Tools for Peace (they no longer exist), the Red Cross, Edmonton Police Service, and the Sexual Assault Centre, to name a few.

I use my computer daily for volunteer work and for communicating with family and friends. I use it to dial my phone, and with the ECO speech box and my speakerphone I make my own DATS bookings and also to communicate with family and friends with text messages.  I also write lyrics to songs.

I’m a big music fan, especially Elvis and Bruce Springsteen. I also like to attend the concerts that come to town, sometimes alone, or with my parents, or with another companion. 

I’m also a sports fan, particularly football. I’ve been going to Eskimo football games since I was 4 years old, knew all the players in the glory days (1978-1982), went to their practices occasionally, and still keep in touch with Tom Wilkinson and Dave Cutler.  I like the Oilers, the Blue Jays, the Dodgers, and the L.A. Lakers, and watch most of their games when they’re on TV.

In June 1999, when on an outing to the Waterpark at West Edmonton Mall with my Personal Care Attendant, I fell out of my power wheelchair because she had forgotten to do up my seatbelt. I hit my head on the concrete floor, which caused some damage to my neck. Since then, I’ve had constant pain in my right buttock, thigh, leg, and foot, and other symptoms related to the fall.

Over the past 10 years, I’ve been through numerous diagnostics and various treatments to help relieve the constant pain, but nothing has worked. For almost four years I had not lived at Artspace, but with my parents as we went from doctor to doctor. 

With various medications and by using a heating pad on my thigh, I’ve learned to manage the pain somewhat, and have moved back to my apartment at Artspace in July 2003.

I wear a Medic-Alert neck chain because I am allergic to foods with nuts. If I eat some accidentally, then I have trouble breathing, and I need to take an antihistamine to get through it.  I also have an EpiPen in case of an emergency.

To transfer me, use the standing pivot transfer method. I can bear full weight on my legs, but I cannot control my balance.  We've installed a ceiling track lift in my living room and bedroom to help transfer me if you cannot do the standing pivot transfer.

I am fully continent and neither use a catheter nor a diaper.

I have a van adapted for a wheelchair, and the PCA would need a valid drivers license and know the city to drive me around.  I generally go to either Northtown or Kingsway mall, and to St Joseph's Basilica.

I need a PCA for personal care, G-J feeding, administering the medications from a dosette, housekeeping, laundry, and to be a companion throughout the day and evening.  My current Homecare funding allows me to pay $16/hour.