Julie McCann

Walk 90 km in September

My Activity Tracking

129
kms

My target 90 kms

🌟 I need your support! 🌟

This September I'm walking and fundraising for Heart & Stroke, and I can’t do it alone. Every donation, big or small, brings me one step closer to my fundraising target.

Will you join me in making a difference? 🙌

Together, we can make every beat count! 💪

My Achievements

First Donation Received

50% Reached Target

Received 5 Donations

Reached Fundraising Target

Uploaded Profile Picture

Reached Fitness Target

My Updates

Day 15

Tuesday 15th Sep
Day 15 update for Heart and Stroke Walk 90 kms in September ..

Lucky to have Devin Marton to drive me to my appt in Hamilton today at the Firestone Clinic. Appt was at 9:45 am for some initial tests & then follow up with my Immunologist Dr. Paul Keith. In spite of me having continued anaphylactic reactions, he wants me to stay the course with all my meds & is hopeful that I will start to feel better if I up my compliance. Devin found a great restaurant close by so we went for lunch & it was so good. Food left for dinner! Highly recommend. I wish I had taken a photo of the bizarre scene we saw on our walk back to the car .. a squirrel perched on top of a bush eating something surrounded by at least 10 pigeons. We couldn't stop laughing. It would've made a great album cover. Lol. 

He drove us back to Guelph & I slept solidly for over 2 hrs. I was so tired that I never went for a real walk today but I still managed to get 3.7 kms just from life itself. Tomorrow will hopefully be better. David Lum sent me his watch pic & his daily count. See my FB page for images. 

https://give.heartandstroke.ca/fundraisers/juliemccann 

https://give.heartandstroke.ca/fundraisers/walkingforwellnesswithjulie

Day 14 ..

Monday 14th Sep
Day 14 update for Heart and Stroke Walk 90 kms in September .. a long post. 

Well today was another long day filled with emotions. Got up early to spend some last quiet time with Laura Stephens to say thnx for their hospitality (her & Frank Barbaro were my AirBnb on Gibbon Dr) 😂 They & Stella their dog were amazing hosts! Then off to Melrose Ave to say goodbye for now to my Aunt Lynne Sanders , my Uncle John & my cousin, Raven. I can't express how incredibly lucky I feel that they were able to come, connect & see us all, especially my mom. We spent some time searching for the beautiful earrings I was gifted from Raven from Panama where she lives. We couldn't find them anywhere. Hugs were shared, love you's were spoken & my Aunt whispered in my ear "it was bittersweet". I held back tears as I knew what she meant. 

Part of the reason I am walking is due to this bittersweet reality. My mom's mom, nicknamed Denny by all who loved her, passed from complications of strokes. My mom's current condition is a result of multiple strokes. I had a stroke of sorts when I was 30. Is this my inevitable ending? Am I going to be headed toward the queue for this slow loss of self & being? Why are women more likely to be afflicted? Should we accept this inevitable or fight to raise more money for research, women's based research? Is it hormonal? Why do women carry their weight around their internal organs & could we do something to eradicate our risk? Where is the outcry for more .. more money, more research, more compassion. A long day, a long post. 

I drove home thinking over all of the things that happened over the weekend. Beautiful things. Beautiful memories. Hard things but inevitable. I'm tired but resolute. What choice do we have? You just take one day, one step- stay hopeful. Hopeful for change. Hopeful for progress. Hopeful for beautiful moments that you can hold in your heart. 

I got home to my cats who were very happy to see me. I completely unpacked & went through each piece of clothing. And found my earrings. 

Because that's how you carry on in spite of everything. You show up, you bring empathy, practicality, patience, humour, humility & lots of love. And laughter. And you keep putting one foot in front of the other. And you breathe. And you have gratitude for friends, family & finding grace in the chaos. ❤️ 

Totals for today for the two of us (my teammate, David Lum )

Steps: 13,877
Kms: 9.8 kms

https://give.heartandstroke.ca/fundraisers/juliemccann 

https://give.heartandstroke.ca/fundraisers/walkingforwellnesswithjulie

Day 13

Monday 14th Sep
Day 13 update Heart and Stroke Walk 90 kms in September ..

Another full day in Barrie with the whole fam jam & more. Went to see Kimberley Archer and Sheri Perricone for lunch & a catch up. What a spread! So great to see these ladies. Then came back for my walk with Raven where we saw this incredible vintage car & ironically found out Devin Marton was coming with Praneda for dinner at almost the same time (he loves vintage cars). Such a great night before they leave tomorrow. I'm so glad I came for the weekend even though I am exhausted. Heard from David Lum and we had another great day. I'll be so tired by the time I get back to Guelph tomorrow.

https://give.heartandstroke.ca/fundraisers/juliemccann 

https://give.heartandstroke.ca/fundraisers/walkingforwellnesswithjulie

Day 12

Monday 14th Sep
Day 12 Update for Heart and Stroke Walk 90 kms in September ..

Slept in at my AirBnb on Gibbon Dr, had a slow lazy morning catching up with Laura Stephens and Frank Barbaro with Stella then made my way over to my folks place. Busy day at the house with both of my brothers there to see our relatives from Oregon and I took my dad and Aunt Lynne on a tour of Amica. What a beautiful facility. Came back to the house to see my brothers off then went to see Sheri Perricone and her mom, Brenda at her mom's house. So good to see her mom after our raucous teenage years at their homes. Lol. Came back afterwards and finally got some steps in with my cousin & my Aunt. We sat down at the top of the 100 steps before heading back for dinner. David Lum sent me his pics from today & gently reminded me that I hadn't updated our fundraising page since the 8th (oops! Fixed that). Thnx to everyone who has donated so far .. ❤️❤️❤️ btw our collective kms are 101 so only 79 kms to go 😂

https://give.heartandstroke.ca/fundraisers/juliemccann 

https://give.heartandstroke.ca/fundraisers/walkingforwellnesswithjulie

Day 11 update ..

Saturday 12th Sep
Day 11 Heart and Stroke Walk 90 kms in September update:

Woke up today for an appt with an ENT specialist about my voice. I've been having difficulty with singing, breath control & got diagnosed with asthma 2 yrs ago. He put a tiny camera down my nose into my vocal chords & made me talk & sing. He diagnosed me with muscle tension dysphonia & sent off a referral to a speech pathologist. The only thing that's unfortunate is the wait time. But yay, no nodes on my vocal chords! So no surgery. 

So then after I drove to Barrie to see my folks & my Aunt Lynne, Uncle John & my cousin, Raven from Oregon. I haven't seen my cousin for over 25 yrs so it was so so good to see her ❤️ These are photos of her AirBnb on Napier St. So cute! We also went for a good walk so the team showed up today! I'm staying at my own AirBnb on Gibbon Dr. 😉 David Lum sent his video for today & we did good! Lol

Today's totals:
Steps - 16,918
Kms - 11.77 
And now I'm exhausted 😴

https://give.heartandstroke.ca/fundraisers/juliemccann

https://give.heartandstroke.ca/fundraisers/walkingforwellnesswithjulie

Day 10 Update ...

Saturday 12th Sep
Day 10 Heart and Stroke Walk 90 kms in September update ..

Today was a great but long day. Had an appt at noon then had to go to the pain clinic in Waterloo for an appt. Ran into Cecile Gough & had planned a meet up with David Lum for lunch & a walkabout for posting. David & I went to lunch at an incredible Turkish restaurant (see menu in pics). I picked up some treats for Jennifer Duggan & dropped them off. Came home pretty tired but it was so nice out, I went for a wee walk. Sunset was stunning 😍

Today's totals: 
Steps - 15,591
Kms - 10.62

https://give.heartandstroke.ca/fundraisers/juliemccann

https://give.heartandstroke.ca/fundraisers/walkingforwellnesswithjulie

Day 9 update for Heart and Stroke Walk 90 kms in September

Saturday 12th Sep
Day 9 update for Heart and Stroke Walk 90 kms in September ..

Oddly enough, David Lum & I flipped our days with yesterday. I woke up feeling a bit of a regression with my angry eyeball so had low energy. Had my physio & massage at Shift Concussion Clinic & walking up the 2 flights of stairs seemed foreboding. I ended up back at the after hours clinic & I am on another week of both antibiotics to make sure it's completely cleared up. So one step at a time, one day at a time. Still sitting at $425 of my goal of $750 and as a team, we're at $1305 of our goal of $1500. Which isn't really mathing but I am way too tired to solve that! Lol

https://give.heartandstroke.ca/fundraisers/juliemccann

https://give.heartandstroke.ca/fundraisers/walkingforwellnesswithjulie

Day 8

Tuesday 8th Sep
Day 8 Heart and Stroke walk 90 kms in September ..

Only 2 days left of my meds so waiting until tomorrow to see if I need to go back to my doctor for one more check up. It's better but not gone. Will decide tomorrow morning. But for today, another busy but sunny day. Appts at Shift for my concussion & post accident help. Met a lady today who has had vision problems post concussion for almost 5 yrs so she was giving me contacts & advice. Really happy to have met her. After the appt went for a walk around my neighbourhood. Another fave garden. Another feather outside the library. Went to sing happy birthday to my brother & had a piece of bday cake. 
Totals for today: 
Steps: 10,092
Kms: 6.8 
Totals to date: 68 kms

Walking at Royal City Park

Monday 7th Sep

Day 7 ..

Monday 7th Sep
Day 7 update for Heart and Stroke 90 kms in September ..

Eye is definitely improving but still sore so still not up to stuff. But bored with staying home & not doing much. Funny that. Anyway, Nolan wanted to drive up to the uni to grab some textbooks so he drove us up there & I was the passenger. It's an odd thing but he's coming along! It was such a nice day out that after I went & walked the loop around Royal City Park along the river off of Wellington St. Such a gorgeous day! It was way warmer than I was expecting. Wanted to stop at the Boathouse for a treat but was diligent & kept walking. Today was probably the longest so far this month, I think. Which might explain my low body battery. I know I'm supposed to pace myself but it's not easy! 

Got my nightly check in from David Lum & we did well today! 
Totals were: 11.1 kms and 16,871 steps! Not too shabby for only day 7. Which puts our totals at 60 kms out of 180 if we're both doing 90 kms.

Day 5 update (sorry! Realized this was missed yesterday)

Sunday 6th Sep
So I woke up this morning feeling a slight "information sharing" hangover from all the info I shared with yesterday's post .. but then I thought "oh well!". Lol. I also woke looking less awful, I think & have since improved more with each dose of the antibiotics. Still far from looking like my normal 2 eyed person but less Cyclops like. 

Still not exactly up for much so went for an early afternoon walk & then went to see Coyote vs Acme tonight with Cecile Gough as she'd already seen my new look 👁️ super silly & a fun movie. The laughs from all the kids in the theatre was also highly entertaining! 

David Lum sent me a msg with a pic of his fitbit today. Together we walked 6.52 kms & got 9,407 steps. 

Below is a picture from my walk of one of my favourite gardens on my walks & David's fitbit. Thnx to everyone who has donated! And fyi, we're only $75 away from hitting half of our goal of $1000. You're all the best! We've also walked 41 kms by day 5 .. and our collextive goal is 180 kms so 139 kms to go. 

https://give.heartandstroke.ca/fundraisers/juliemccann

https://give.heartandstroke.ca/walkingforwellnesswithjulie

Day 6 update

Sunday 6th Sep
I woke up this morning & my eye had made some improvement. Yay! But it's still sore & swollen so slow & steady. A bunch of friends offered their services to help me out & I took one friend up her offer. Thnx, Julia Catoli ❤️ 

Went for a mid day walk about & the sky was beautiful out. Came home, did some errands & then went to a $5 movie at Cineplex with a friend to at least feel like something happened this long weekend. Something fun. Got home for dinner & got a text from David Lum about his walk today. See pics below! 

Today we got: 8.34 kms & 11,924 steps bringing us to 49 kms & a lot of steps 😂 we're sitting at $425 so just $75 away from half of our team goal of $1000. It's day 6 so 24 days to go! If you'd like to help us on the journey, hit either link below. Ty to everyone who's contributed so far ❤️

https://give.heartandstroke.ca/fundraisers/juliemccann

https://give.heartandstroke.ca/fundraisers/walkingforwellnesswithjulie

Day 4 update (it's long!)

Friday 4th Sep
So after yesterday's big reveal of me having this serious eye infection & given that I got my antibiotics & antibiotic eye drops, I was hoping for some improvement possibly this morning. But nope. Woke up & it was worse. Much worse. So I of course googled the condition my GP had said that I had & it was no bueno. He had indicated that I had cellulitis in my eye, which when you read it, it's pretty serious & potentially very bad. Like loss of vision, brain complications & lovely stuff like that. So Cecile Gough had already asked me to check in with her when I woke up so I took some comparison pics & sure enough, she wasn't having any of it. She came & picked me up & dropped me at the ER at GGH. They took me pretty quickly, assessed the situation, I got back to see the ER GP who did an examination then ordered me some pain meds & an eye CT. They wanted to give me CT dye but I put a stop to that. Went for the CT, results came back & they had been looking to see if there was an infection behind my eye. Luckily there was NOT an infection behind, just one in front of my eye which had infected the muscles & tissues around the eye. He only told me after that if there had been an infection behind the eye, I would've been in emergency surgery right away. So sent home, told to take my meds as told (4 x a day for both meds) plus Tylenol & Advil 4 x daily and in 24-48 if things aren't improving or are worse, to come back. So Devin & Praneda picked me up, brought me home & I hung out with them getting caught up on that trial of Lindsay Clancy (I was clueless) & then I went for a wee walk to get my steps in. No rest! Lol. So needless to say, I think I'll sleep well tonight ruling out some fairly heinous possibilities. Phew! I'm on meds for 7 days so fingers & toes crossed for improvement. David Lum will probably do his own update later tonight. Thnx to everyone who has contributed so far! You're all awesome. If you'd like to help out, links below. 

https://give.heartandstroke.ca/fundraisers/juliemccann

https://give.heartandstroke.ca/fundraisers/walkingforwellnesswithjulie

Day 3 for both of us

Thursday 3rd Sep
Today was officially a crazy day! It started out with me getting up & getting ready for my appt at the pain clinic in Waterloo & I hate driving on Hwy 7 so I take the back roads through Maryhill. I had left them a msg last night making sure I could go cause both myself & my pharmacist thought I had a sty in my eye & he had given me drops (this is relevant .. just wait). Anyway, I got to the appt, everything was fine but the pain doctor said watch that eye, it doesn't look great & they can be caused by stress. So on my way back to Guelph, I stopped at the Maryhill market for bfast/lunch (they bbq smash burgers). Photos are on my FB page. Such a cute place. But by the time I got back, it was humid again so I laid down. When I got up, my eye was hurting a lot more but I wanted to walk so I did. Got home & looked in the mirror & my eye was a lot more swollen & hurt a lot more. Called a friend who said you better get that checked so I went to the after hours clinic & had to wait for 3 hrs to be seen. But it was important cause I have a serious eye infection that needs oral antibiotics & eye drop antibiotics. It could be very bad & cause a lot of problems if it doesn't clear up soon. Sooooo .. there you have it. Luckily David walked a lot!! See pics & video on my FB page update. Stay healthy, everyone!! You can't make this stuff up. My life is chaos at all times. Oh well! Walk on.

https://give.heartandstroke.ca/fundraisers/juliemccann
https://give.heartandstroke.ca/fundraisers/walkingforwellnesswithjulie

Tornado warning!

Wednesday 2nd Sep
David Lum had planned on walking but .. the skies had other plans. Lol. Go to my FB page to see his video 😂🧹

Weather alerts for a tornado so ..

Wednesday 2nd Sep
Day 2 update: So my usual life duties luckily got me my 3 kms before the heavens opened here for torrential rain! It was teeming as can be seen in the video from my teammate, David Lum 😂stay safe, everyone! I put away my red slippers & was thinking about getting out my broom 🧹 https://give.heartandstroke.ca/fundraisers/juliemccann Or https://give.heartandstroke.ca/fundraisers/walkingforwellnesswithjulie

Two short walks cause it's 102 outside 🫠

Tuesday 1st Sep
I'm planning on finishing the day's walk when it's cooler outside .. it's just gross out!

Next photo for day 1 so far ..

Tuesday 1st Sep
Body battery isn't too great at this point

Day 1 so far

Tuesday 1st Sep
Today isn't over but it's been a lot! I had a 6 min walk test at my long Covid study appt then came home, ate lunch & tried to go out. I had no idea how hot out it was 🥵 so I came for a nap instead cause my body battery had taken a hit from the drive & everything getting to & from Brampton. Their drivers are coco loco!

New teammate!!

Monday 31st Aug
I'm excited to have David Lum join me on my team! (He did it one day early so our pages merged. Lol. Oops!) So I raised our fundraising goal by $500 cause David was already participating for the month of August & his friends/family had been very generous in supporting him. You can read David's own story on his page. Deeply impacted personally but very lucky that he had his heart attack where they could intervene & save his life. Everyone who cares about him feels very fortunate for that ❤️ So welcome to David! Tomorrow will be my first day officially walking & will give you updates as each day transpires. Thnx for following our team. 

Too many people I ❤️, including myself

Friday 14th Aug
Hi, everyone .. I personally had a SAH or subarachnoid hemorrhage when I was 30 yrs old in 2000 with 4 subsequent brain surgeries following it over the course of one year. It was thought to be a congenital aneurysm. Following this, my mom had a stroke in February, 2025 and has since been struggling with the aftermath. I feel like nobody knows what's around the corner so more research for these matters and specifically more research into women's risk factors and health issues would possibly save many families. 

I will do my best to walk every day in order to achieve my personal goal but I do have long Covid & a concussion from a car accident last September.  Any funds you would like to contribute would be so wonderful. I hope you're never faced with the challenges that arise from these health issues. Thnx so much for reading! If you are also walking, join my team! We're stronger together ❤️

Thank you to my Donors

$100

Barbara And Mike Mccann

$100

Peter Hill-field

$100

Kat Renner

$100

Emmanuelle Drewitt

so impressive!! you go this!

$75

Thomas Minet

$50

Dawn Rivard

$50

Marie Zimmerman

$50

Connie Murch

$50

Joanne Ingrassia

Proud of all your able to do considering your own challenges! Happy to support you and Heart and Stroke.

$50

Donna Vandermeulen

$40

Anne Moore

$25

David Lum

$25

Kim Archer

Julie McCann

$25

Julie Mccann

$20

Anonymous

Go Julie. You got this!!

$15

Kim Logue

$15

Kim Fry

$5

Raven Bennett