Pop 89: Adventures in directions

By Madonna Hamel

An aide on the neurology ward is holding up a lady diaper. "I've gone from 'I'm a big girl now' to 'I'm an old girl now,'" I say. "Put the long end at the top and the short end at the bottom," she says. "Then just peel the tabs and attach."

I appreciate the directions. God knows I need them. And I am thrilled to no longer have my body forced to pee into a bag. My problem is, after brain surgery, I'm having a hard time telling long from short, top from bottom, or even inside from outside. I'm not sure if this is because of my cocktail of meds, the wearing off of the anaesthetic, or the effects of a tumour on my ability to discern time and space.

Thankfully, my new pal Lydia, another older aide, was just passing by at the time and offered the best advice yet: "Just do what works."

Earlier that morning Lydia walked by my bed as I was propping a book on my knees and, without missing a beat, informed me: "I can see your bu-um." And now my bum needed diapers.

Getting and giving directions is a real challenge at the best of times. It's humbling to ask where a certain street is when you're standing in the middle of it. But being humbled is part of this whole adventure in consciousness. (I prefer to refer to this ongoing brain cancer experience as an adventure – a venturing forth – rather than use the term "journey.")

To become humble, as they say in 12-step recovery, is to become right-sized and teachable. And I need to be both. It's hard to be humble when you're embarrassed, frustrated, uncertain and arrogant about what you assume you're capable of, or what you assume you're really good at.

(On the other hand, I believe it should be humbling to every expert or newly trained graduate to be reminded that, even if they understand their particular field and they know the protocol and they've read all the studies and they direct you to do something that may sound reasonable and helpful and according to plan, just because "it should work," doesn't mean it will.)

So much doesn't work according to plan when you've got an acquired brain injury. Right after my brother's stroke, he had to constantly remind me that, even though I'd point at the calendar and tell him he had a neurology appointment on Thursday at ten, early enough to catch the first ferry to the island and still be able to make it back in time to catch the last ferry, he couldn't sort Thursday from ten from first from last.

We get our directions from different places. Just yesterday, while filling my bowl with shredded wheat, I recalled how, like so many Canadian kids, I got my first lessons in French by reading the sides of cereal boxes. My sister Celeste practiced her French by reading shampoo bottles.

We all have a "Mode d'emploi" to get us through the tough days. I once had a boyfriend who suggested I write a Madonna manual of operation for him so we could avoid so many arguments and misunderstandings.

I suppose, whether we realize it or not, by our very maneuvering and negotiating and navigating, through trial and error, we teach our friends and family how to handle us. We write the manual.

My little sister recently got our nephew Eric, a gifted tattoo artist, to etch a compass on her forearm. She told me she got it so she could glance down at any time of day and remember that she can choose her direction in life.

When I first moved to the prairie and was getting my new bank account, the teller in Swift Current asked me my address. I couldn't tell her. I had a PO Box but I couldn't say what my actual building address was. "Oh, that's ok. I still tell people I live on Main Street, just past where the old tree used to be."

When I travelled on the road as a backup singer for my ex's band, we still relied on maps. Being the girlfriend riding shotgun next to the boss meant I was expected to be navigator. I didn't excel at the job, but I learned to trust the dotted lines of America's highways and byways. I became the road-tripper I was born to be, the daughter of a car salesman who passed down to all his kids a penchant for taking to the road. Beginning with long-haul drives from Prince George, BC, to Kelowna – vacations, ski trips, camping trips and random explorations – began for me a life of journeys and adventures behind the wheel.

By far one of the hardest parts of this new "adventure" I'm living is not being able to jump in my car and hit the road. I am on anti-seizure drugs so that I don't suddenly veer off the road. But I also have a left-side peripheral vision issue that means I'll be a passenger for the rest of my life. I will need to ask for rides, another humbling experience, especially as the place I love to drive to the most is the heart of Grasslands National Park, where, truth be told, all I do is walk anyway.

Speaking of asking: the best directions I ever got were from a man walking down a dusty road on the island of Antigua. I was with my pal Avril and we stopped to ask him about a roadhouse we were told about.

He pointed down the road and said: "You go straight, straight, straight. And den you ax somebody. Just ax. You'll get dere."

As for the lady diapers, they still confound me. I still find it hard to tell top from bottom. A couple days ago, having decided I was going to take a very long walk, I thought it best to wear one, just in case I had an accident on the way home. Thankfully, I made it safely back without pooping. But when I arrived at the door, I realized the dang thing had worked its way all to the bottom of my pants. And I didn't even have Lydia to point out that she could see my bu-um!