At the residence

The aftercare residence, Asclépiade, looks out onto a park with a waterway beyond - quite posh - and has a manicured garden behind high hedges. It is named both for Asclepius, the ancient Greek god of medicine and healing, and for milkweed. It has the feel of a bed and breakfast in which scrubs-clad nurses come and go with a purposeful squeaking of floorboards. Among themselves the nurses speak French, but all switch to English immediately if a patient needs it. The ones I have met so far are all very kind - patient, attentive, warm. Last night when Marielle brought me a little blue pill to help me sleep, she took my hands in hers and said tenderly, “You are going to be all right. Everything is going to be OK.” It was so sweet, I had to have a little cry when she left.

Other nurses I have met: Melanie, who helps you remember names by fitting them into a song...Darlene, who comes from Haiti and whose first language is Creole; Alexi with the warm humorous eyes and the garbly Québécois accent; Manon, detached and business-like.

At the communal dining table the patients who have been through the surgery variously sit on or lean against their chairs. They seem tired and inward-turned. There are parallel conversations in French and English, on desultory chatting-with-strangers topics. It was reassuring last night to hear a few bits of surgery-narrative: you won’t remember a thing...it’s not the pain, they have meds for that, it’s the discomfort...taking the catheter out is not fun. Mostly though, it was reassuring just to see these people who have done what I am about to do. Clearly they have been through a trial, but they seem fine, and speak of it in dispassionate matter-of-fact tones. However big this has seemed leading up to it, here it is just the routine business of the place.
 
Between meals the communal area is empty. I thought I would have to hover and wait for my chance at this computer, but I’ve never seen anyone else at it. But then, I’m pre-op. Maybe I too will just want to stay in bed for a week, though I plan to be up if I possibly can. And of course I’ll be busy with dilation and hygiene...

Sus came and fetched me after breakfast this morning and we drove into downtown Montréal for a stroll through the Old Port, which is a mix of art galleries and restaurants lining cobbled streets a block from the waterfront, a lot like Portland’s Old Port. We explored a historic site called “the governor’s garden”, and had a nice lunch at a crêpe restaurant with the windows open to the street.

Now Sus has gone back to the apartment she is renting, and I am back at the residence to stay. I have just shaved from knees to bellybutton, a ticklish process which has left me feeling both oddly bald and rather scratchy. I have also done the first of two enemas, and presently, after dinner and the second enema, I must shower with The Red Soap. I feel like I’m preparing for a sacred ritual. Tomorrow morning before dawn they will bathe me in asses’ milk while the shaman sings the sacred songs, and then I will be led, blindfolded and garlanded with flowers, to The Altar...