Author Archives: Jane Cawthorne

About Jane Cawthorne

Jane is a writer currently living in Victoria BC. She grew up in Toronto and also spent many years in Calgary where, among other things, she taught Women's Studies at Mount Royal College (now Mount Royal University). Her work is about women on the brink of transformation.

For my friend

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I’m thinking of you, my friend. You are deep in the struggle and it is the middle of the night. It is hard to sleep. I know you don’t want to wake anyone. They need their sleep. But you are not alone. Many of us are awake with you.

I’m imagining spaciousness for you. Seconds, moments, of ease. Maybe the space between the in breath and the out breath, where there is no work to be done.

These beautiful, troubling bodies of ours. They have needs. We love them like our babies. We are tethered to them and are not ready to let go. It’s okay.

I’m imagining you remembering the children when they were young, how you see them now in the grandchildren and how, even now, you can know such joy.

I hope you can think of one of the most joyous moments of your life. There are so many to choose from. What did it look like, sound like, taste like? What was above you, beside you, in front of you, beneath you? Imagine the floor, the earth, the perfection of gravity. It holds you now. Wrap yourself in the memory like a time-worn quilt just in from the clothesline, smelling of sunshine and fresh air. Or maybe your quilt has just come from the dryer and is just warm enough, just soft enough, perfectly weighted to curl into and rest.

Let’s sleep now, and if we can’t, we will rest.

On Not Getting the Memo

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There’s a doctor north of Kingston, Ontario, Sabra Gibbens, who still masks and requires her patients to mask. She wrote about it in the Canadian Medical Association Journal. Finding her article feels like finding some kind of rare bird or an exit sign in a corn maze.

Who is this doctor? Can I have one like her too? My GP “mask mirrors” now, which is better than nothing, but with this virus lingering in the air for nine hours, he’s not the only exhaler I’m concerned about.

Who is it that didn’t get the memo? Gibbens or her colleagues? Did she not get the memo to pretend SARS-CoV-2 is over or did her colleagues not get the memo that everyone is still getting sick and maybe part of their job is the prevention of contagious illness? Doctors are supposed to protect their patients, even when those measures bug some entitled cry-babies.

You know I’m losing my shit when I call anyone a cry-baby. But there it is.

I didn’t get the memo to stop caring about Covid. Or I got it and said, “Um, that doesn’t seem right.” At time of writing at least six people I know have had terrible bouts of it in the last two months.

Recently, I talked on the phone with an old friend coming out of six weeks of terrible illness. Too sick to call 911, at one point they were unable to breathe and certain they would die alone. But it never occurred to them that they may have had SARS-CoV-2. They report they are much diminished now. Others are sick but don’t test or even admit that what they have could be SARS-CoV-2. They have a mystery illness that lasts for weeks, and soon after post unmasked photos of themselves in restaurants or at events. I say nothing. Except here.

I remember many years ago when I lived in Calgary, there was an explosion a the Hub Oil Plant, which was not that far from where I lived. (Check out YouTube for some great video.) As the sky filled with black smoke, I started packing. Authorities were doing the “everything is fine” thing, but my eyes and lungs told my brain to flee and I popped the kiddo into the VW camper and off we went, far far away from the fire and the thick black smoke. As always, I was considered alarmist, even by my own partner, but sometimes you just have to listen to that little voice. Mine was screaming. Later that summer we were advised maybe not to eat our garden produce, but even that warning seemed to leak out without approval and was quickly expunged from the record. This was Alberta, after all. Absolutely nothing can be wrong with oil and gas.

Oil and gaslighting aside for now, (but do please read Sarah Kendzior’s excellent book, They Knew) I am similarly unsurprised by medical gaslighting.

It’s awfully difficult for a person like me, trying to live through an iatrogenic heart and lung disaster, to depend on the skill and support of as many doctors as I do, to trust their medical knowledge about my heart and lungs, while simultaneously acknowledging that they did not read the same memo as me.

Maybe I should print Gibbens’s article and tape it to my hospital door. For now, I’m simply grateful she wrote it. Thank you, Sabra Gibbens. Your patients have a real gem in you.

The Heart Wants What It Wants

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The heart wants what it wants.

And mine wants a new mitral valve.

But wait, you say. “Didn’t you just get a new valve?”

Yes, I did. Thanks for remembering. An aortic valve. Not quite seven months ago. And then two months after that, I had a lobe of my lung removed. It was (she says in her understated way) difficult.

The many doctors thought I could wait a few years to replace the mitral valve. But, the heart wants what it wants.

There’s a Hail Mary play going on—something about a balloon. But I’m pretty certain the upshot will be another open heart surgery. Time frame unknown.

I accept all well wishes, good vibes, prayers, whatever you’ve got on offer. And I send it right back to you.

Involuntary Treatment and Involuntary Isolation

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So the BC NDP have a new policy of involuntary treatment (at a prison, no less) for people who use drugs, people with mental health issues and people with traumatic brain injury. Involuntary treatment is a terrible idea. What happened to human rights?

It’s so much easier to lock people up, hide them away, and pretend to help them instead of actually helping them. I’m done with this government.

Thank goodness in my riding I can vote for Sonia Furstenau, leader of the BC Green Party. I have an alternative that I can stomach. She issued a statement about involuntary treatment and it is wonderful and right.

Here is a short history of why I’m so done with the BC NDP.

It started shortly after I moved to BC and began engaging with the Health Ministry on the airborne nature of SARS-CoV-2 and the urgent need to inform the public and put proper mitigations in place. After a back and forth and another back, they wrote and said that they would no longer engage with me on this issue. Or on any issue, so it seems. Apparently, they can do that.

I’m going to make a long and disappointing story short and move straight to this past week.

David Eby floated the idea that the carbon tax was something BC wanted to drop. That was the day after Jagmeet Singh of the federal NDP mused about siding with the Conservatives and forcing a carbon tax election. It’s too much. What do they stand for anymore? Nothing.

Side issue: Why do the NDP always swing right? Has this strategy ever worked? I seem to remember it getting Harper elected. Young people and truly progressive people are starving for someone to vote for, someone who cares about the future, and this old person wants the same.

I expect governments to follow science, to do the hard work of debunking misinformation and explaining policy like the carbon tax to voters. Instead, both the provincial and federal NDP are completely giving up and becoming part of the big lie. The carbon tax puts money back in the pockets of most Canadians. For heaven’s sake. It’s their job to explain that.

And without an alternative policy, what is their plan? It appears to be to let the planet fry. We already lost 600+ souls in BC during the last heat dome. The province is on fire every spring and summer. What’s the plan? And don’t get me started on LNG, fracking, pipelines, logging old growth, and all the other environmental disasters still going on all around us.

That brings us to this involuntary treatment nonsense. As a person who is “out there” and very much “on the record” with a traumatic brain injury, I’ll just speak to my own issues, as long as you understand that I realize “involuntary treatment” should never happen to ANYONE.

It should come as no surprise that many people with TBI end up unhoused. It’s a societal and governmental failure on so many levels. I am not unhoused, but only because I have some privilege. And to put someone with a TBI into involuntary treatment is particularly ridiculous because there is not much agreement on what treatment should even be.

What this boils down to is a plan to keep us “difficult people,” (TM) particularly if we are unhoused, out of sight and out of mind. You’d think we were hosting the Olympics or something. (We desperately need a sarcasm font in the world.)

But I’m going to go further. The kind of mind that dreams up involuntary treatment is the same kind of mind that abandons critically ill and disabled people during a pandemic and leaves them isolated in their homes.

The pandemic? Yes, the pandemic. The one that’s ongoing. That thing making everyone sick.

Again, I expect governments to do the hard work, to state the hard truths, to explain SARS-CoV-2 is still making people sick, to tell people when they were wrong when they said it isn’t airborne, to correct mistakes. Yet, there are no mitigations. There is no clean indoor air strategy. There are no tests anymore. Wastewater testing is being scaled back and, in some places, totally abandoned. Funny how if you don’t measure SARS-CoV-2 and don’t test for it, it’s easier to pretend it isn’t there. There is no masking requirement in hospitals. Some places are even banning masks. As long as everyone else gets to cosplay normal, disabled folks like me are forced out of public spaces that are not safe for us. Including hospitals. We are stuck at home. That is involuntary isolation.

Involuntary isolation exists on a continuum with involuntary treatment. They are both ways to make sure disabled and ill people, unhoused people, people who use drugs, and all the “difficult people” (TM) are not seen or heard. The government is now willing to “involuntarily treat” (read “imprison”) drug users, people with mental health problems, the unhoused, and, apparently, those with TBI. Bad enough. But when it comes to covid, we have already been effectively involuntarily isolated.

It’s hard for me not to conclude that they would prefer it if the “difficult people” (TM) and those with comorbidities would just die already. We’re going to die anyway, they keep saying. Not such a tragedy, is the implication. Get on with it is the implicit message. I’d like to remind everyone that we’re all going to die and not a single one of us wants to be rushed to the finish line.

Both involuntary treatment and involuntary isolation are part of the same impulse. That impulse eugenic. It’s fascist. And I won’t vote for it.

Involuntary Treatment and Involuntary Isolation

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So the BC NDP have a new policy of involuntary treatment (at a prison, no less) for people who use drugs, people with mental health issues and people with traumatic brain injury. Involuntary treatment is a terrible idea. What happened to human rights?

It’s so much easier to lock people up, hide them away, and pretend to help them instead of actually helping them. I’m done with this government.

Thank goodness in my riding I can vote for Sonia Furstenau, leader of the BC Green Party. I have an alternative that I can stomach. She issued a statement about involuntary treatment and it is wonderful and right.

Here is a short history of why I’m so done with the BC NDP.

It started shortly after I moved to BC and began engaging with the Health Ministry on the airborne nature of SARS-CoV-2 and the urgent need to inform the public and put proper mitigations in place. After a back and forth and another back, they wrote and said that they would no longer engage with me on this issue. Or on any issue, so it seems. Apparently, they can do that.

I’m going to make a long and disappointing story short and move straight to this past week.

David Eby floated the idea that the carbon tax was something BC wanted to drop. That was the day after Jagmeet Singh of the federal NDP mused about siding with the Conservatives and forcing a carbon tax election. It’s too much. What do they stand for anymore? Nothing.

Side issue: Why do the NDP always swing right? Has this strategy ever worked? I seem to remember it getting Harper elected. Young people and truly progressive people are starving for someone to vote for, someone who cares about the future, and this old person wants the same.

I expect governments to follow science, to do the hard work of debunking misinformation and explaining policy like the carbon tax to voters. Instead, both the provincial and federal NDP are completely giving up and becoming part of the big lie. The carbon tax puts money back in the pockets of most Canadians. For heaven’s sake. It’s their job to explain that.

And without an alternative policy, what is their plan? It appears to be to let the planet fry. We already lost 600+ souls in BC during the last heat dome. The province is on fire every spring and summer. What’s the plan? And don’t get me started on LNG, fracking, pipelines, logging old growth, and all the other environmental disasters still going on all around us.

That brings us to this involuntary treatment nonsense. As a person who is “out there” and very much “on the record” with a traumatic brain injury, I’ll just speak to my own issues, as long as you understand that I realize “involuntary treatment” should never happen to ANYONE.

It should come as no surprise that many people with TBI end up unhoused. It’s a societal and governmental failure on so many levels. I am not unhoused, but only because I have some privilege. And to put someone with a TBI into involuntary treatment is particularly ridiculous because there is not much agreement on what treatment should even be.

What this boils down to is a plan to keep us “difficult people,” (TM) particularly if we are unhoused, out of sight and out of mind. You’d think we were hosting the Olympics or something. (We desperately need a sarcasm font in the world.)

But I’m going to go further. The kind of mind that dreams up involuntary treatment is the same kind of mind that abandons critically ill and disabled people during a pandemic and leaves them isolated in their homes.

The pandemic? Yes, the pandemic. The one that’s ongoing. That thing making everyone sick.

Again, I expect governments to do the hard work, to state the hard truths, to explain SARS-CoV-2 is still making people sick, to tell people when they were wrong when they said it isn’t airborne, to correct mistakes. Yet, there are no mitigations. There is no clean indoor air strategy. There are no tests anymore. Wastewater testing is being scaled back and, in some places, totally abandoned. Funny how if you don’t measure SARS-CoV-2 and don’t test for it, it’s easier to pretend it isn’t there. There is no masking requirement in hospitals. Some places are even banning masks. As long as everyone else gets to cosplay normal, disabled folks like me are forced out of public spaces that are not safe for us. Including hospitals. We are stuck at home. That is involuntary isolation.

Involuntary isolation exists on a continuum with involuntary treatment. They are both ways to make sure disabled and ill people, unhoused people, people who use drugs, and all the “difficult people” (TM) are not seen or heard. The government is now willing to “involuntarily treat” (read “imprison”) drug users, people with mental health problems, the unhoused, and, apparently, those with TBI. Bad enough. But when it comes to covid, we have already been effectively involuntarily isolated.

It’s hard for me not to conclude that they would prefer it if the “difficult people” (TM) and those with comorbidities would just die already. We’re going to die anyway, they keep saying. Not such a tragedy, is the implication. Get on with it is the implicit message. I’d like to remind everyone that we’re all going to die and not a single one of us wants to be rushed to the finish line.

Both involuntary treatment and involuntary isolation are part of the same impulse. That impulse eugenic. It’s fascist. And I won’t vote for it.

Resilient?

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Someone called me resilient.

I’m just doing what’s next. Breathing in. Breathing out. I’m a big fan of breathing.

I try to be grateful for what I have (left) every day. I try. I try not to dwell on what I’ve lost. I try. Focus on the joy. But wow, that takes time. I had to live through pain to do that. That pain changed me. It burned me down to my elements. Maybe you know what that is like. Pain is terrible. Pain takes too much out of me and leaves me without the slightest bit of grace. No one would have called me resilient then. Maybe I don’t really know what resilient means. For now, the pain is mostly over. I’m grateful.

When I’m not in pain, I can focus on joy. The things that are beautiful. Someone said that 80% of what is beautiful and true can be found in a ten minute walk from your house. Flowers in sidewalk cracks. Kids. Dogs. Today I saw an eight point buck in the yard across the street. I realize not everyone is going to see that across the street from them. And he was sitting there like he owned the place. And I think he does. He was so still, I wondered at first if he was a statue. Then he blinked. I don’t know where he came from. Wonderment and curiosity are part of what is beautiful and true. If I had any energy left today, I would walk over there and see if he is still there.

I don’t know what people mean when they say words like “resilient.” I wonder if that buck knows? Is he resilient, living through the loss of habitat and finding a spot to be in someone’s yard? He’s just adapting. He’s doing what’s next. Breathing. Resting.

Maybe the worst word is “brave.” The idea that I have to be brave to live my life, to move forward every day with what I’ve got feels vaguely insulting. Nope. I’m just doing what’s next. Or maybe I’m looking at it wrong. Maybe we’re all brave. I’m no more brave than you when you have to get on a crowded bus or go to that job or to Costco or just live in this f’ed up world. I don’t want to be singled out just because I got sick. I don’t have to be brave to live my life, at least, I don’t have to be any more brave than you do. I have to be gentle. Gentle with myself. Understanding. I have to breathe.

As for “recovery,” that’s a word about nostalgia. To think about recovery is to look backwards, to look to the past. I’ll never be like I was and I don’t want to live in the mental and emotional space where that’s what I’m longing for or that’s the goal. Because it’s impossible. We can’t go back. Time only moves in one direction. I am what I am today. It is not what I was yesterday or last year. That’s the part I’m not supposed to say.

So I say, “Yes, I’m doing better.” Better than what? Better than I was five months ago. Worse than I was a year ago.

I am alive. I’m trying. That is enough right now.