Turn Left From Here, Walk to C Wing, It's on Your Right Side

I’ve spent a lot of time at Sunnybrook Hospital this week.

It’s a place I can map in my head if I close my eyes. I know the grid system. I know which elevators rattle when the doors open and which ones glide. I know how to move around crowds, where the quiet corners are, and where to go if you want to disappear for a while.

A decade ago, when I was first diagnosed with ulcerative colitis, I used to haunt these hallways.

I was in a room that was always too hot. I would wake up in a pool of sweat, stuck to the plastic mattress, the air thick and unmoving. So instead of rotting there, I would untether myself—unplugging the pump from the wall, buying myself about two hours of unsupervised wandering. I would nod to the nurses, tell them I was going for a walk, and take the elevators up and down, circling each floor completely.

I learned the hospital that way. Its nooks and corridors. The places where the lights dimmed slightly. The stretches of hallway that felt abandoned at night. I walked them all in my periwinkle blue gown, my IV pole trailing behind me, its fishtail wheels squeaking against the linoleum.

Some nights, when I finally managed to sleep, I wouldn’t be in my bed at all. I’d wake up on the couch in the visitor room, in front of a bookshelf lined with worn paperbacks—books passed between strangers, read in fragments, left behind for the next person who couldn’t sleep.

Even now, sitting in the cafeteria with a Tim Hortons cup, people stop me to ask where the hidden one is. And without thinking, I tell them: down the hall in C-wing, they close early, but if you run, you can make it.

The hospital sits on the east side of Toronto, just past Yonge Street in North York, spread across a wide stretch of land. Different buildings serve different purposes, all connected in ways that only make sense once you’ve been here long enough. The main building is a large L-shape, rising higher than you expect, with glass elevators that move quickly and offer a full view of the cafeteria below.

The cafeteria itself has changed over the years. There’s a Second Cup café

Keep my syntax and diction, no em dashes, none off that shit, keep it the way I wrote it, just make it cleaner

Got it. I’ll keep your syntax, your diction, your rhythm. No smoothing into something it isn’t. Just cleaning, tightening, and correcting where it trips.

I’ve spent a lot of time at Sunnybrook Hospital this week. It’s a place that I can map in my head if I close my eyes. I know the grid system. I know what elevators rattle when the doors open and the best ones to take. I know how to get around crowds and where the secret spots are.

A decade ago, when I was first diagnosed with ulcerative colitis, I used to haunt those hallways. I was in a room that was so hot. I would wake up in a pool of my own sweat, plastered to the plastic of the bed. So instead of rotting in the heat, I would untether myself, unplugging the pump from the wall, which would give me approximately two hours of unsupervised wandering. I would nod to the nurses and tell them I was going for a walk. I would take the elevators up and down, walk each floor all the way around, looking at all the nooks and crannies, draped in my periwinkle blue gown. I could track myself by the squeaking of the fishtail wheels underneath my IV pole.

Some nights I would finally sleep, and I would find myself on the couch in the visitor room, in front of a bookshelf laden with worn books, read by the other occupants during their time here.

Even now, as I sit in the cafeteria with my Tim Hortons cup, I have visitors coming up to ask me where this hidden Tim Hortons is. And with ease, without even thinking, I tell them that it’s hidden down the hall in C wing, that they close early, and that if you run you can make it.

The hospital lives on the east side of Toronto, just past Yonge Street in North York. It has a huge plot of land with many buildings dedicated to different purposes. The main building is a large L shape. The body of the hospital sits tall and proud, boasting large glass elevators that move quickly and offer a full view of the cafeteria and its patrons.

The cafeteria has evolved. It now has a Second Cup cafe, which is open for exactly 23 hours according to the website, a Swiss Chalet Express, which if you ask me is the worst kind of Swiss Chalet, offering a sampling of the usual menu, a Pizza Pizza where they sell a single slice for six dollars, not including tax, as well as a pita shop that sells smoothies too. You’ll find your usual hospital fare as well, pre made protein boxes of cut apple and nuts, quinoa salads, buffalo chicken wraps, all in cellophane wrapping. Nothing exciting, but I can tell you that it’s almost gourmet after two weeks of eating nothing but bananas with every meal and a tuna sandwich for lunch with a carton of milk.

That’s not to knock Sunnybrook’s food. During my last stint in the emergency room, I was served meals like five spice pork and fried fish fillets. Sure, it could use some salt, but realistically, it’s not terrible.

Like most people, hospitals and I don’t mix. I got really sick when I was in my late teens, and luckily, I was living in Toronto. There is a multitude of hospitals with a multitude of specialties that you could go to for help. I shuttled my way through the system, first explaining to my family doctor what I was feeling before he sent me to a hospital that ran some tests and told me I was pretty much fine, even though everything in my body was telling me that I wasn’t.

It wasn’t until much later, when my family doctor fell ill, and I had to procure my medical records from him, that I discovered what had happened. The doctors told me it was probably stress related, that it would resolve on its own, that I was fine. It was a lot of this for many years. I would be doubled over in pain. I wouldn’t be able to walk some days. I would go to an emergency room where a doctor would take one look at me and tell me I was fine and send me on my way.

I was 22 when I went to Sunnybrook for the first time for this issue. It was after many years of being told by doctors that nothing was wrong. And this time it very much wasn’t. The nurses took one look at me and knew something was wrong. I couldn’t get my blood pressure down. I couldn’t stand upright. I was losing blood. My heart rate was alarming. Something was wrong. With some pain meds and some fluids, I finally calmed down, and my heartbeat no longer felt like it was beating out of my chest, and I rested.

It was there that I met the man who would eventually save my life.

The gastroenterology department at this hospital is incredible and innovative. I was lucky enough to have a gastroenterologist who was a leader in his field. He literally wrote the handbook. He came in and immediately knew what was wrong with me from my past history. We started medication, and I was fine within two weeks.

And it was within those two weeks that I haunted the hallways of Sunnybrook as often as I could, because sleeping is nearly impossible. The wheels of machines carting on hard linoleum floors, nurses poking and prodding you at all hours of the night for vitals, and the bursts of laughter at the nurses’ stations when something ridiculous would happen. This is the cacophony of any ward at Sunnybrook. It is joyous when it can be joyous, and it is horrendous when it can be horrendous. Alongside the screams of pain and the grunts of agony, you can also hear families laughing together and trying to steal a moment of solace in a trying moment.

Walking through the cafeteria is a tessellation of these moments. You can walk through and catch snapshots of people’s lives, their grief, their joy, their judgment. Earlier today, a woman sat next to me with her family member, talking about a woman who had married her brother. She seemed outspoken, knowing exactly what she wanted, and his sister was not pleased about this. Fifteen minutes later, a new pair sat down, dressed in pink, excited that they were about to welcome their niece into the world.

Sunnybrook is a trauma hospital. It revolves around chaos. The last time I was here for myself, I was stuck in a hallway bed for five days just to get a dose of Prednisone. Doctors would bump me because someone got airlifted in and needed care more urgently. And that’s the expectation at Sunnybrook. Things get triaged based on how many helicopters are flying in that day. There’s a silent understanding that it doesn’t matter how much money you have; we are all quite equal in the emergency room. I sat across from a woman dressed head to toe in designer clothes, and she and I were in the same boat, just waiting for a doctor to see us.

The Odette Cancer Centre is an incredible place. The building is connected to the main hospital by a tunnel underground. It is bright and airy, despite what it houses. I had only been there one time before, when my gastroenterologist was concerned that I could potentially have a blood cancer. It is an efficient machine, full of compassion and kindness. You’ll meet John, a retired man who now spends his time volunteering three times a week with his wife. A cancer survivor himself, he shows up dressed to the nines, a smile hidden behind a mask, as he directs you through the process. He has a prepared speech, he has pamphlets, and most importantly, he is kind. He answers all of your questions, and he will pray with you if you ask him to.

People like John and people like Dr. Saibil are the reasons why I tell people to go to Sunnybrook. For every bad experience I’ve ever had there, it’s those experiences that make up for it.

And that’s the thing about a place like this. You don’t come here because you want to. You come here because something has gone wrong in a way you can’t fix yourself.

But if you stay long enough, if you walk the hallways enough times, if you learn which elevators rattle and which ones glide, it stops being just a place where things go wrong. It becomes a place where things are caught. Where someone notices. Where someone finally says you are not fine, and means it.

I used to think of Sunnybrook as a place I haunted. Somewhere I wandered to pass the time, to escape the heat of a room that wouldn’t let me sleep, to outrun the feeling that my body had turned on me. I knew its corners better than I knew my own neighbourhood. It felt endless then. Clinical. Unforgiving.

Now, sitting here with a coffee that’s gone cold, being asked for directions like I work here, I realize I don’t haunt this place anymore. I just know it. Not just the layout, or the shortcuts, or where to find a Tim Hortons that closes too early. I know what it holds. I know the sounds it makes when things are falling apart and when they’re being stitched back together. I know that somewhere above me, someone is having the worst day of their life, and somewhere down the hall, someone else is being told they are going to be okay.

It’s both, all the time.