Possibilities
In the eyes of both patients and staff, St. John’s Rehab is a place marked by compassion, dedication and courage.
Everything we do is directed towards helping patients achieve independence. We show them possibilities -- how to achieve what they may think is impossible. We work alongside them proving every day that it is possible to return to their families, career and community – and eventually, it becomes a reality.
Excerpt from A Place of Quiet Miracles
By Val Lougheed
"This is a place of miracles. Not the loud, brassy, bragging “miracles” that the evangelists try to sell us. It is a place of quiet miracles – a place of personal struggles and private victories.
…And the miracle is that the staff – all the staff … the nurses, the cleaning people, the doctors, the social workers, the therapists, the assistants, the nuns … have time to listen. They make time. They don’t start off by giving us advice about what to do, or how we should be handling this or that. They start off by listening – by taking the time to understand who we are (or at least, who we think we are).
And somehow, in this quietness, they communicate a deep respect for each one of us as individuals, and an extraordinary degree of understanding … and of acceptance. I suspect that they have heard these stories before, and they are not surprised, frightened or repulsed by what they hear. They are empathic and sympathetic.
And after they listen, they offer small gifts of wisdom. Some ideas of how to cope with life such as it is now, some words of inspiration to help us believe that somehow, we will be OK, some prayers to ask a higher power – whoever or whatever that may be – to comfort us … to take care of us, to make things 'OK.' "
Published in January 2004, the short story A Place of Quiet Miracles is a first-hand account of Val Lougheed's experience as a patient at St. John’s Rehab Hospital.