CHAPTER 12
ONCE A WEEK…
« Well it only totals 52 washes per year that deal, did I suddenly just realise! ».
I think that was the moment I started to weep uncontrollably…
After saying:
« But madame I normally wash myself every day I mean really? It is just my generation, everyone who works gets to wash each and every day no? »...
Maybe the elderly don’t get to sweat as much and don’t need it every day I don’t know but if they want to why not? All I know is I need it...
Maybe something has to change in the system. I’m not even 50 yet.
I know we will have to invest in home care services even if it was only for the dignity of the humans that need it.
Making available some budget for those who want to help people in need is essential dammit, even if you love that person unconditionally, taking care of your loved ones on a permanent basis is not financially possible for most people, why should someone else suffer with you as well?
Having a flexible roster at work or some help at home when a close relative is sick or injured it should be possible, no?
(It was my husband’s hand I needed the most, not my neighbours’).
«Forget it, I’ll take care of it myself then!” I told the poor lady who called me one day to make an appointment to come and help me wash…
I was so cross that I even called the provincial (State) government.
I didn’t have her mobile number (the local Prime Minister was a lady at the time, Pauline was her name, hey is it pink I wondered…),
So I called her local representative. I couldn’t leave a message on her answering machine or her voicemail… because she DIDN’T HAVE ONE! But she had a secretary, I mean an assistant or whatever is the politically correct name they have these days… to take a written message for you…
(I had calmed down a little by then…) like in the olden days, it was prehistoric or was it a subterfuge to make you forget about it and move on?.
(I imagine the poor lady stuck with an old landline phone with a wheel – not even one with numbers on it – and an old typewriter… millennials here, ask your parent to explain to you what these thing are, they will be happy to interact with you in person for once).
(I don’t think I will get through to her, especially that the conversation didn’t start too well). After thanking her I said:
“A few years ago, I called that lady representative, I forgot her name, to asked her to reduce the price of Botox injections for medical purposes, for my doctor who injects me massive amounts of Botox in the spine every so often to help me cope with the chronic pain. It was just a question of code I was told.
(I don’t want to give free publicity to that product but, for those who are afraid of receiving 2-3 drops of that stuff to reduce a couple of wrinkles well I have been receiving up to 6 bottles of that stuff on my backside sometimes and I am not dead! I probably have the least wrinkled behind in town as well, lol).
I had spoken to the neurologist who regularly injected me about my quest with the government at the time (he was after all implicated in that process). The government lady at the time said she would bring it up in the chamber next time they would sit and she did, as a few weeks later the issue was settled. Thank you “Madame”, respect...
… So, I warmly thanked the “administrative assistant”.
But « SHE » replied, using the same TONE I was using with my teenager clients when I was a sort of social worker, that I wasn’t talking to the right person!” because there was a change in government and therefore local representative since (and one more since).
(Can I talk to the new, new representative then?).
“Forget it then madame “the adminassistant”, I just wanted to add my voice to all the sick and injured in Québec who were struggling, most probably more than me. “Forget it then, I will send an email or a letter!”
(I got discouraged writing the email address which was so long, make it simple lady) that I wrote a book instead! I will send her a copy when it is published…
Not knowing what to do anymore, I called another government department. At least there, after a long and may I say warmish discussion with an empathetic miss Tremblay (one of the most common name in Québec) …
… I regained a little bit of faith in human nature.
She was at least very supportive morally and she recommended private agencies where I could have access to more appropriate services. Alleluia, because my husband was working a lot of overtime hours at the time. I was one of the lucky ones who could afford to be treated properly.
I still felt really sad for all the others who couldn’t.
Especially because my working-studying-university teaching relative-helper was particularly tired these days, after daily visits to my hospital bed in the morning before work, and sometime after work just to kiss me and comfort me… He who was working full time on a project at the time far from home on the North shore on a street name after a Michèle-Bohec in Blainville, the city where I was born...
“I knew her when she was alive” I told him. I only learnt days ago, after completing my final rewriting who she actually was in reality...
I met her way back, when I first started working in a Beauty Salon after my first back surgery, located near where she worked. I was washing hairs then.
I knew she was someone important because she always left a $5 which at the time was a lot of money...!
So that faithful day, while I was rinsing her hair, I accidently dropped the water hose which sort of well wet her a bit. Instead of turning off the water I was struggling to grad the swirling “snake”, yelling like an idiot...
And yet, when all the commotion had ended…
(she was fully soaked by then), she was totally sweet and sympathetic and she smiled at me when she gave me, with her cold and shivering hand my big reward… That is what we call real “class”.
Madame Bohec was the co-founder with her husband of a very successful bakery La petite Bretonne which was one of the first company if not the first offering petites madeleines pastries and “croustillants croissants” on a large scale throughout Québec (those were not available in all supermarkets before)... Michèle-Bohec later became the governess of the local Chamber of Commerce did I learn later…
May you rest in peace.
So, during my stay in the hospital that time, I was longing for SMS’ and Messenger messages on my mobile phone (which had matching colours to my dressing gowns I was wearing at the time).
They were my only life savers upon which I could rely then...
“You are strong, you are beautiful, you can get through it!” They all told me, which reminded me of an old advertising campaign which ran on tv years ago.
I really enjoyed those years when my brother worked in that world (his second job after finish his Bachelor’s degree was for a reputable advertising agency at the time “Partenaires en communication – Partners in Communication”). I was his first critic very often (always positive of course) ...
That was his favourite job, he told me recently.
It is now past midnight on a Sunday night.
And I just realised that I forgot to mention that, a little while after the CAR incident, I baked a cake.
OK we ate it since, I couldn’t keep it as proof all this time, call the police or the local tv station, so I took a few pictures.
Deterrers will say it could be anything but hey I say it looks more like an angel than a cake, no?...
All those pictures are still in my old pink mobile phone still, and in my computer to proof their authenticity and confirm that they weren’t retouched in any way.
Oh, which reminds me that they too told me that they needed to make the switch to the 3.0 (3.0 lol) also, to get on with it in our century.
(P.S.: I don’t hear them per say, I either feel them if they sort of take over my pen when I write. I didn’t understand then that they wanted me to create a web site and make YouTube videos for today’s generation to have access to THEIR message...).
So, now, to show me they have now mastered the technology, they angels make my phone ring when they have something important to tell me (my own number appears as the caller ID, cool hey!) …!
They never appear in the call history however.
I have several witnesses who were there when I received these calls…