Lus dans les derni�res semaines:

-The Accidental, de Ali Smith.
Acerbe, percutant, � la fois d�sabus� et attachant et tr�s original dans sa prose. C’�tait mon premier roman par cette auteure �cossaise mais ce ne sera pas le dernier.

-A long way down, de Nick Hornby.
J’ai presque tout lu Hornby que j’aime bien, sans qu’il soit un de mes auteurs favoris. Je n’avais pas tellement aim� How to be good et j’ai pr�f�r� ce petit dernier qui m’a fait rire tout haut � maintes reprises. Il a un rythme incroyable dans ses dialogues. Ce roman se lit comme un sc�nario de film et je suis absolument certaine qu’il en deviendra un tr�s bient�t.

Lectures des prochaines semaines:

-Vers le sud, de Dany Laferri�re. C’est la premi�re oeuvre que je lis de cet auteur. Quelle honte. J’ai h�te de voir l’adaptation de Laurent Cantet.

-Venetian Stories, de Jane Turner Rylands. Pour me ramener � Venise et en conna�tre un c�t� moins touristique.

-Les hommes en g�n�ral me plaisent beaucoup, de V�ronique Ovald�. Parce que les hommes, en g�n�ral, me plaisent beaucoup.

“Despite its richness and variability, the well-defined world we inherit doesn’t quite fit each one of us individually. Most of us spend most of our time in other people’s world – working at predetermined jobs, relaxing to pre-packaged entertainment – and no matter how benign this ready-made world may be, there will always be times when something is missing or doesn’t quite ring true. And so you make your place in the world by making part of it – by contributing some new part to the set. And surely one of the more astonishing rewards of artmaking comes when people make time to visit the world you have created. Each new piece of your art enlarges our reality. The world is not yet done.”

From Art & Fear, Observations of the perils (and rewards) of artmaking.

Substitute “blogging” to “artmaking” in the paragraph above and it still works very well.

My nephew Renaud is back home from the hospital where he can rest while the family waits for the result of the biopsy. The doctor insisted on saying that he believes the lesion on his bone is benign but the biopsy will help determine whether he needs a bone graft or not. We’re all hoping, of course, that he can be left alone from now on and that no more surgery will be needed. When Renaud left his hospital room yesterday, another boy of the same age came in with a similar lesion around his shoulder bone. My sister saw the worry on the parents’ faces and shuddered at the thought of what they were going to go through.

This picture of Renaud as a soccer star was taken two days before he broke his arm. He was full of energy and wasn’t feeling any pain prior to the fracture. A bit of innocence has been lost through the medical adventure but we’re confident that the energy will come back just as strongly as it was before. He plays for a soccer team called Italy – though he won’t play this summer – but we’re hoping the name will bring him luck!

People who work at ice cream counters are always super friendly and look happy.
(unless they are a bored 16 year-old hired for the summer)

Plus, they always warn you about the fragility of your cone when you have them dip it in chocolate. “Fais attention”, they always say. It’s kind of comforting, in a funny way.

Il n’y a pas beaucoup de nouveau concernant mon neveu mais comme ses parents n’arrivent pas à retourner tous les appels et courriels de famille et d’amis inquiets et que ceux-ci lisent maintenant mon blogue, j’y ajoute donc les dernières nouvelles. Ça sert à ça aussi, un blogue…

Changement au programme hier: le médecin a décidé de ne faire qu’une biopsie avant de tenter une greffe osseuse, question de bien déterminer la nature de la tumeur. Après avoir pu examiner la lésion à l’oeil, le médecin semble convaincu qu’elle est bénigne mais seule la biopsie pourra le confirmer. Il croit maintenant qu’il peut s’agir de deux choses: un kyste anévrismal, qui nécessiterait une chirurgie et une greffe osseuse, ou un kyste osseux simple, qui guérit en général sans intervention chirurgicale.

S’il y a quelqu’un qui lit ceci et qui peut m’expliquer pourquoi on utilise souvent les mots tumeur et kyste en alternance dans les documents médicaux alors qu’ils ne sont pas tout à fait la même chose, j’apprécierais. Pourquoi dit-on de ces kystes osseux qu’ils sont un type de tumeur, par exemple, si une tumeur et un kyste ne sont pas la même chose?

Renaud avait très peur de l’opération hier. Le pauvre petit s’était convaincu qu’il allait se réveiller pendant l’opération et l’idée ne l’enchantait pas du tout! Son niveau de stress n’aide pas à sa gestion de la douleur alors hier soir à son réveil après la biopsie l’infirmière lui a donné une bonne grosse dose de morphine pour le calmer. Quand je suis arrivée à l’hôpital hier soir il dormait, le petit visage tout tendu, mais au bout de 15 minutes il a relaxé un peu dans son sommeil et a pris une pose avec le bras derrière la tête, digne d’un don juan sur une plage du sud de la France. Ça faisait du bien de rigoler un peu en le regardant.

Il fait atrocement chaud dans la chambre d’hôpital où il y a 4 autres petits garçons et 4 petits lits de camp sur lesquels les parents passent aussi la nuit. À côté de Renaud, un petit garçon de dix ans s’est fracturé la jambe en trois endroits après un accident de VTT. Le père de Renaud n’a pas très bien dormi sous la chaleur de la pièce mais Renaud a fait une meilleure nuit et va mieux ce matin. Sa plaie d’opération lui fait mal mais il n’a plus besoin de morphine et prend simplement des comprimés anti-douleurs. Pas moyen de savoir exactement quand la biopsie sera analysée alors le médecin a dit qu’il est possible que Renaud retourne à la maison demain en attendant les résultats. On devrait en savoir plus demain.

Son petit frère Alexis a quand même eu droit à un bel anniversaire hier soir. Son frère lui manque mais comme il n’a pas à partager l’ordinateur, il va pouvoir survivre à son absence encore pendant quelques jours. ;-)

Le médecin vient d’annoncer à mon beau-frère qu’il a de bonnes nouvelles concernant mon neveu: selon les résultats de la résonance magnétique, la tumeur à l’os semble être de nature bénigne, connue sous le nom de kyste anévrismal. Renaud sera tout de même opé demain après-midi pour retirer cette lésion et recevoir une greffe osseuse. Du coup, ils vont en profiter pour faire une biopsie. Vaut mieux avoir l’esprit tranquille.

Nous sommes étonnés par la rapidité des résultats et des interventions. Parfois le système arrive à bien fonctionner! Nous en sommes d’autant plus reconnaissants puisqu’il s’agit d’un petit garçon qui a bien hâte de rentrer chez lui (on ne sait pas du tout quand encore).

I have rewritten this post many times. I don’t know how to write it. I don’t know what it is I want to say. I don’t usually use this blog to get things off of my chest because it’s too dangerous, too personal. It’s weird to think this way because I’ve been writing this blog for 4 years and a half now and people who read me probably believe that the nature of this blog is very personal. But when serious things happen, I often stay quiet or I talk about them after the fact, especially if it can affect other people. But I’m compelled to write about this now because it occupies every single space in my mind. And because writing about anything else seems trivial or contrived right now. I’ve decided to write the post in English because English is not “my” language and somehow I hope that it will allow me to get some perspective. Or distance. I’m not sure which one I’m hoping for.

My nephew Renaud is in the hospital. My beautiful, 10 year-old athletic sweetheart who makes the hearts of all the girls in 4th grade swoon when he walks by. He was playing with friends last week and fell on the grass, breaking his arm in the fall. He was taken to the emergency room in an ambulance and the doctors didn’t like what they saw on the x-rays. A pathological fracture, they called it, the kind of pre-diagnosis that scares you with a long, dizzying list of possibilities. Something had weakened his bone, which would explain why a small fall managed to split his humerus in two.

Tests were done which determined that more tests needed to be done. After a night in the hospital, he was sent home without a cast because the specialists he needed were not in until Monday. Today he went in at a big children’s hospital and the doctors decided to hospitalize him so that they can run more tests. An MRI. A biopsy. Scary words, too big for a little boy who can only think right now about all the soccer games he’s going to miss and the vacation his family had to cancel. His little brother is turning 8 on Wednesday and he’s sorry to put a damper on his party. At day camp where the accident happened, the kids and counselors bought him a stuffed toy dog. When I went to pick up his little brother at the camp, the counselors asked me to wait for them to finish the giant card they were making for Renaud. I watched quietly as cute girls wrote sweet notes on heart shaped paper and then glued painted macaroni noodles on the outline of the notes.

He was in a codeine daze when we handed him the giant card but it managed to put a tiny smile on his face. Let me tell you: that smile went straight to my heart and broke it in pieces, like dozens of silly painted macaroni noodles. Fuck. How do people do this? How do they watch children suffer without falling apart?

So we’re all waiting for the tests and then we’ll be waiting for the results. There is nothing to do but wait and waiting is the hardest thing to do. I wish I could pray but I feel like a fake, reverting in times of need to a god I haven’t believed in in years. It feels disrespectful to those who are true believers, to use their god when I need comfort and when I hope I can influence the outcome of a medical test.

Even as a child, what I thought of as faith was more like superstition. I would pray before going to bed because I was afraid that if I skipped a night it would be THE night when god would have happened to listen to my prayer. I didn’t want to take any chance and lose my turn so I prayed every night. I did that for many years and then I gradually stopped. Nothing was changing in my family and I was beginning to think that god didn’t have much to do with it.

What’s left in times of uncertainties if there’s no prayer or no faith attached to it? Sending good vibes? Meditating? Staying positive? Staying cool and rational because chances are good that this will only be a big scare and things will go back to normal?

I guess the only thing left when one doesn’t have faith is the love and support of family and friends and we have that. (I almost wrote “thank god”.) I read about the bombs falling over Lebanon and I know that every day parents around the world worry about their children’s lives, worry that they won’t even make it to the hospital. When my nephew comes out of the hospital, more parents will come in with their children, nervous and exhausted, knowing they’ll be on the receiving end of bad news. Praying obviously doesn’t put an end to that but does it comfort one’s heart? Does it calm a soul or numb it?

Sometimes if feels like faith is a gift, one that I’m sorry I don’t have.

Beth Adams, a Montreal based blogger and a dear friend of mine, has just published a biography of Gene Robinson, the world’s first openly gay Episcopal bishop. There’s an interesting interview with the bishop in this week’s edition of the Montreal Mirror.

As part of the Outgames taking place in Montreal, there will be an International Conference on LGBT Human Rights. Bishop Gene Robinson will speak on a panel focusing on Canada and the U.S., on Thursday, July 27, at 9 am.

Also, Christ Church Cathedral will be hosting a worship service at 7 pm on July 27 titled OutMass: Celebrating Diversity, where Bishop Robinson will be speaking. Beth will also sign books after the mass.

Confus par toutes ces histoires concernant les probl�mes de financement du cin�ma qu�b�cois? Le Voir vient de publier un article qui fait un bon retour sur la question.

Zazon est un festival Juste pour Rire � elle toute seule. Je me suis vraiment bidonn�e, comme disent nos cousins, en regardant ses vid�os tourn�es au Qu�bec! La pire imitation d’un accent qu�b�cois que vous n’aurez jamais entendue mais bon, y’a de la beaut� dans cette folie absurde. Et puis oui, c’est vrai: mon dieu que les qu�b�cois sont gentils et incroyablement patients.

Allez voir:

Zazon cherche le Qu�bec

et

Zazon retourne au Qu�bec

Trouv� via Le Qu�bec � Damdam