Last night, Barb called me from her Toronto hotel room.  She keeps me well informed of what is happening on this, her journey into recovery from liposarcoma.

Yesterday, Jan 8, our Barb walked and shopped wearing her sequinned slippers, while others tracked through the grey Toronto landscape overheated in their coats and boots.  She will be glad to return to Fredericton, as she really doesn’t like the overcrowded hurry of the big city.

My reporting of the other day ended with the rack of lamb, which Barb says was delicious. The rest of that story is typical Barb.  She sat alone in the sparsely populated dining room, as Roberta was visiting family members. Across the room, a couple sat in one corner, while a table nearby served four cheerful women.  When their meals arrived, they joined hands and offered a word of thanks. 

From their conversation, Barb discovered that they were nurses, and, being Barb, she went over to their table to introduce herself, as a nurse from New Brunswick, in Toronto for surgery at Mount Sinai Hospital.

These union nurses, from Sunnybrook Hospital, gave Barb their number.  If she had any trouble, she was to call. Barb gave them her website address, telling them they would be mentioned in her blog. She calls them “four little angels”. So I am sending greetings.  Hello, Angels! Thank you for your kindness to my friend, Barb.

Although Barb did not join their table, she no longer felt alone.  Companionship, with strangers, far from home, but close in cause and comradeship.  Barb told them how she was the first president of the first graduating class in the two year nurses training program in Saint John, NB.  She was elected president in 1970, for the class of 1972. She won an award for “most elevating the spirit of the school”. 

This was the beginning of Barb’s political activism, connecting her with the NB Student Nurses’ Association, and eventually with the Nurses’ Union.  During that time, she created a scrapbook, which she has been tidying up in the last few weeks.  She intends to donate it to the New Brunswick Nurses’ Union.

Later in the evening, despite the rack of lamb, Barb was hungry for apple crisp and ordered room service.  The man who delivered it to her door had been working in the morning too, and was putting in an extra shift because they were short staffed. They chatted. Barb is very open about her situation. This man gave her a huge hug, she says, and told her, “You be okay.  I give this to you.”

Yes, Barb.  You be okay.  We give you our hugs too. 

Love, Alice, your Surrogate Blogger