They expected her to stay longer

"Du bist schon wieder zuhause?!" ("You're back home already?!")

Our German friends and family are united in their shock that Susanne was back home the very same day after a relatively heavy operation - Mastectomy with Reconstruction. Some even told us they had done some Googling, and it clearly came up that you should expect about five days in the hospital stay, plus potentially a few weeks of outpatient rehab. "What is wrong with Canada's health care system?", they asked.

It was interesting then to repeat that very Google search and find this: A search conducted in German confirmed our loved ones' assumptions, but if you search the same in English, it says that with good progress, you could expect to go home on the same evening...

Naturally, these conversations are often accompanied by a slight judgment - do Canadians really treat my wife properly? With due care? To preempt this: The answer to that question is clearly "Yes!". Not only was she in one of the best hospitals in the country and surrounded by friendly and highly professional people, but statistically speaking, the chances for complete recovery are about the same in Germany as they are here in Canada.

For us, all of this is a fascinating little study of differing expectations. As Germans, when you expect treatment involving an operation in a hospital, you expect to fall practically into a well-oiled machine and only be discharged when recovery is unavoidable. Here in Toronto, though, we are expected to show quite a bit of self-reliance. We have to keep up with After-Care Nurse appointments, report back to the doctor, maybe seek out contact if we have questions, and we get sent home with a packet of instructions on the day of the OP itself.

Initially, that was disorienting for us, and it felt almost uncomfortable. We had expected much more guidance - we were expecting more leadership, really. But it quickly became clear: being at home is lovely and familiar, all things considered, and having to be responsible from the start actually speeds up some parts of the process. Basically, in Germany, regarding medical care, there's almost a kind of learned helplessness. Here, you are put much more in the picture, and after an initial surprise, we actually prefer it.

It remains, however, an exercise in patience and spotting our own reflexes. It is indeed not a sign of better or worse care if a system is not playing by the rules you learned. In the end what counts is how fast you're back on your feet and I have a hunch the system here might even be ever so slightly better on that particular metric.