To Souris With Love

It was a year ago yesterday that I had my right radial head replaced with a titanium upgrade, the result of an unfortunate fall off a box in the gym.

All things considered, my recovery over the last 366 days has gone well: three weeks post-op I started physiotherapy, just over a month post-op I went back to the gym, and, slow and steady, I’ve regained strength and range of motion. Not all of either, but most of both, to the point where many days I’ve reached full “hey, I didn’t think about my arm at all today” status.

Until a week ago last Friday.

After a month of driving all over Nova Scotia, and a day of bumpy cycling from Wolfville to Horton Landing and back, something tweaked: I felt pain in the end of my elbow when I leaned on it, my extension range of motion decreased by about 10%, I noticed numbness and “pins and needles” in a few of my fingers, and my arm went back into “I think about it all the time” mode (accompanied by grumpiness over a plight I thought I’d out-plighted).

On return to the Island a few days later things improved somewhat, but things continued to feel off, so I emailed my orthopaedic surgeon’s office to see if I could get in to see him. The reply, alas, was:

Unfortunately you will need a new referral with updated X-rays in order to be seen again.

On Thursday, after a few days of trying, I got through to my family doctor’s office, and was able to book a consult for yesterday to see about getting the needed referral. The locum who saw me gave me a brief once-over, reviewed my history, and agreed that a consult with the surgeon was in order; on the way out the door she handed me a requisition for an X-ray. When I got home I went online to book an appointment, only to find… no appointments available at all at Queen Elizabeth Hospital. I phoned the diagnostic imaging booking line at the hospital, and got through to a voicemail that said the same thing, encouraging me to look to other hospitals farther afield.

This is how I ended up at Souris Hospital this morning at 9:45 a.m. for an X-ray of my elbow.

I love Souris Hospital!

In contrast to the melée that often greets one at morning admitting at the QEH in Charlottetown, in Souris you just walk right in and the person at the front desk does it all, immediately. After checking in, I walked 30 paces to the left to the X-ray department, the very friendly X-ray technologist took my requisition form, and five minutes later I was at the table contorting my arm into all manner of challenging positions. I was out in the lobby 10 minutes before my appointment time.

That was easy.

I also love Souris Hospital for this warning sign near the entrance, which could be described as a “Warning: Fundamental Design Flaw” sign:

I also love this sign in the front vestibule, because I can imagine the “we’ve had a dramatic uptake in visitors holding us responsible for removed clothing and footwear” report at a meeting, with this sign seen by the assembled group to be the appropriate response:

Lisa generously accompanied me to Souris, and rather than rushing back home we decided to make a morning of things.

Our first stop: Evergreen Café on Main Street for morning coffee. They were slammed, and so it took us the better part of an hour to get a table, get menus, place our order, and receive a black coffee, an iced latte, and a cinnamon roll. All were tasty, though, and we bided our time by writing a letter to young L., off at summer camp and behind a no-SIM, no-wifi iron curtain, and thus reachable only by the post.

While enjoying our coffee and pastry, we made happenstance plans to join our friends Valerie and Lars for lunch at Tipsy Farmers across the street.

While waiting for them to arrive in town we headed across the street to the Souris Post Office, where we bought a stamp, and an SASE to let L. write back, from the friendly postmistress.

With still more time to kill, we walked around the block and found, to our surprise, that the front door to Souris Show Hall was open. 

I hadn’t been inside the building for 33 years, since the days it was still Souris Cinema and Catherine and I drove up to see Made in America, starring Whoopie Goldberg and Ted Danson, in 1993, for the sheer novelty of it. 

In the years since, the building has been heavily renovated and has become a vital part of the community, hosting movies, music, and theatre. We got a quick tour from the friendly summer student at the helm.

We continued down Church Avenue to the curious St. Albans Anglican Church around the corner. Its front door was open too, and so we gave ourselves a self-guided tour. With just 5 rows of pews, it’s essentially “minimum viable church,” but it has all the things you need: a baptismal font, a pulpit, an organ, a furnace, and a beautifully typeset copy of the Book of Common Prayer.

After our church tour we joined Lars and Valerie at Tipsy Farmers: solid burger, excellent salad, bustling atmosphere, lively conversation. They also sell a full range of to-go products, so if you are ever in Souris in need of a jug of butternut squash soup, head there.

Before we left town, we stopped in at MacPhee’s, née IGA, the biggest grocery store in town, a store I knew heretofore only as “where my improv friend Doris works when she’s not working her other jobs.”  What a delight! This is no small-town grocery store with limited tinned-peas-and-the-like selection: it’s the equal or better of any big city grocery store, with anything and everything you’d ever want, from pickled asparagus to stuffed Dumbo-the-Elephant toys.

We stocked up the pantry, and headed back to the shore. I was happy for the opportunity to dive deeper into a town I thought I knew, grateful to have a partner willing to parlay an X-ray mission into a day of curious exploration.