I wish to say many thanks to Cowichan Regional Hospital and more specifically to the personnel who are doing a great job under trying conditions of overcrowding and understaffing. I spent less than 36 hours from Ambulatory Care to discharge in the hospital but the care that I received from the medical staff left me reassured that good and competent people acting with humanity can and do make a huge difference. Thank you Doctors Nielsen, Avenot and Philippson, and their Assistants, thank you nurses in Ambulatory Care and especially Nurses Natascha, and Chris on the third floor.

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I have been discharged from my 36 hour stay in Cowichan Regional Hospital. Somewhat shaky from 36 hours without sleep and shaken from surgery I dress myself with a little help from my wife. I walk unsure of myself, conscious of the bag strapped onto my leg with the contents of my bladder being drained through a catheter. I enter the elevator accompanied by my wife. There are five people already in the elevator, all women. I recognize one of the women as a Nurse’s Assistant. She breaks the silence.
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*Johnson and Johnson ad.
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The good-looking Young Man was a couple of hours into his 12 hour night shift when my roommate returned from diagnostic tests in Victoria to occupy the bed next to mine. The Young Man, head shaven, lean and athletic, was the antithesis of the expected stereotype of the nurse. In the very brief moments of our meeting I learned that he had, in fact, been an athlete and for all I know may still be. A second baseman, Chris had played at a fairly high level in the Southern Prairies and in one of the Dakotas, if my sleep deprived memory still serves me accurately.
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My Grandson Dunie and I are shameless foodies. We are joined at the stomach and at the soul: carefully sewn, stitched, stuck, grafted, glued, sutured, melded and welded at the soul. Both cooking enthusiasts, we communicate daily by phone on things of weighty import in our lives: things like what’s for lunch and what’s for supper. Sometimes though, we go a little out of our depth and discuss more difficult matters like the intrinsic nature of Bionicles* and Bakugans*, which in those two groups has been more touched by original sin and is therefore more prone to error and violence, and most importantly what Transformers* could become when they grow up, if they grow up in well adjusted, non-dysfunctional, stable households of intact nuclear families.
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