Short Answer: In bed. Mostly.
Long Answer: In bed. On my side. Crying sometimes.
Leaving Las Ve L'Asclépiade
At the last minute, we changed our return-home plans.
Where we were originally going to take the 4:30 pm train home to Ottawa, on Sunday morning, I asked Kathleen whether or not she would be comfortable renting a car and driving home instead. She agreed to the new plan, and I cashed in our train tickets, allowing us to defray the cost of the rental.
The reasoning was that I could neither sit nor stand for long periods. My discharge from L'Asclépiade was 8:30 am (there were new patients to welcome), hotel checkout was noon, and the train was at 4:30. A few challenges I hadn't identified when booking things presented themselves:
- VIA Rail's business lounge is accessible to ticketed travellers a maximum of of two hours before travel. This meant we'd need to find two-and-a-half hours to stick me somewhere safe and reasonably comfortable before travel. For someone who could neither sit nor stand for long, we were at a bit of a loss identifying where that might be.
- Even if we were able to get late checkout from the hotel, I have a cleaning regimen that I need to respect to ensure good healing: in addition to a morning shower, for the first two months, I take twice-daily sitz baths: one after lunch and one after dinner. The hotel only had a standing shower and since I have a bathtub at home, we do not have a sitz apparatus that fits to a toilet. While GRS Montréal would have furnished me with one...
- ...Kathleen was quickly becoming overwhelmed with the prospect of managing our already considerable luggage. I can only lift 10lbs or less for the first month and would have been quite useless in helping here. Adding both a sitting donut cushion and sitz apparatus to the mix was a whole lot. Too much, really.
Although we didn't know it at the time, there would be a fourth reason why the original plan wasn't going to work: a violent misogynist who was staying in the same hotel shot two people and was himself killed by police not two hours after Kathleen had checked out that morning. I shudder to think what things would have been like had we stuck with the original plan.
A Smooth Ride Home
So on the morning of June 22, Kathleen rented a car from a nearby franchise, loaded the baggage from the hotel, and picked me up. There was a bit of a delay in renting the car thanks to short-staffing, but after nearly an hour she was able to rent a nice non-descript Corolla.
While I was waiting in the sun porch of the convalescent home, I learned really quickly that my capacity to stand for long was more limited than I understood: my blood pressure dropped quickly, causing dizziness. One of the nurses urged me to go sit in the "living room" area to wait, which I ultimately did after nearly passing out, reluctantly, since sitting was quite painful too.
Kathleen picked me up around 9:45 and after gassing up we were on our way! To be a little more useful (and because we had some challenges with CarPlay), I would navigate us out of Montréal. Contrary to any concerns we had, it was an easy exit from the city. We made our way to Autoroute 40 (which turns into the 417 at the Québec-Ontario border) and it was a (largely) smooth 2-hour drive home.
Complications Arise
Healing from the surgery has actually been quite good. Ive been following instructions faithfully, and so far it has gone well. On the other hand, I've had to learn that bed sores are nothing to be trifled with and can develop and grow very quickly.
When in hospital and convalescence one of my biggest sources of pain was in my tailbone. That was the first pain I felt coming out of anesthetic and it was the most dogged throughout. It's also a pain I'm familiar with thanks to my not really getting my eating disordered ways under control until surgery, I had nothing standing between my skin and bony behind. Normally, I could just be on my feet, buzzing around as I tend to, but recovering from major surgery left me without that option.
To make matters worse, my personal definition of being a good patient also meant that I'd not ask for anything extra in addition to being in full and enthusiastic compliance with procedure. In other words, as I was developing a fairly nasty and painful bed sore, I said very little to nursing staff about it. The two times I did, I was given helpful advice and extra pillows ("our smaller girls usually need an extra pillow. Place this beneath one side!"), which was helpful, but until I was ready to have the lobster bandage removed, being on my side was challenging and uncomfortable.
Removing The Lobster
When you get this bottom surgery, they sort of truss you up with a large bandage that, thanks to its shape and days of blood to absorb, it looks a little like a lobster. It's also stitched tightly into place in such a way that it doesn't move around. I think it also helps to give the results a proper shape.
Mine was removed by one of the nurses in the late morning (aong with the catheter) of June 21, which was very much a relief, however nervous I might have been once in those stirrups. I was shaking like a leaf as she was snipping away at the stitches and cutting the lobster away, save for one spot that is not cauterized for good reasons. She promised it would fall away on its own.
Once freed from the lobster's grasp, I was free to take a shower. My first shower in five days. When cleaning behind, I knew I had a sore when a small bit of skin came free, a bit like a blister from summer sandals. I tried my best to ignore the obvious at the time. It seemed inconvenient and I'm really good at feeling shame.
Contrary to what I expected that morning when blogging beforehand, there was no complex swirl of emotions. Just a sense of alignment, peace, and ...things being in focus for the first time.
All to say that it was the perfect recipe for a bed sore. And a fairly nasty one at that.
Emotional Toll Booth
While this was my first surgery ever, I thought I was emotionally prepared for what healing entails.
I was quite wrong!
In addition to feeling fairly useless around the house and alienated from my hobbies, thanks to the bed sore, I can't even really sit up to blog my way through it either (I'm propped up on my side writing this with one hand)
Since the time I can stand is limited due to the swelling associated with healing from surgery (when I arrived home, it was 10-15 minutes, now I'm closer to 20-40 minutes), the regular need to clean (one shower, two sitz baths, each with the need to air dry for 1.25h), the time spent on my side with an ice pack in bed (it's frequent), and Kathleen changing my bed sore dressing three times daily, it has been, to say the least, emotional.
I don't think I have ever cried as much in frustration and regret over the stupid bed sore as I did the first week home.
On The Mend
This week everything began to look and feel different though. I really am healing. And in most ways, healing quickly and healing well. Confirmed by the clinic with periodic photos (I never thought it would be photographed so much) and dialogue, they have been very pleased with the results. And most importantly, so am I.
The bed sores are coming along too. I still wish I had been more proactive and avoided them in the first place, but the dressings and polysporin Kathleen has been applying three times daily is working. I still can't sit until they're healed (perhaps another week or two), but it's coming.
There Is No Ledger
That's what Im telling myself anyway. I'm just harmonizing with the choir though. Kathleen has been telling me the same. As have very nice people on the internet. Maybe I'll come to mean it with practice.
Still, I don't feel like it would be possible to thank her enuogh for shouldering me, my puffy-eye'd snotty-nosed tears last week, and taking on almost all of the household responsibilities while I heal. I even robbed her of an amusing post-anesthetic story by just weepily-earnestly thanking her for being there when they wheeled me back to my hospital room.
Still, I don't know how I wouldn't feel like the luckiest girl in the world.
Because I definitely do.
July 4, 2026