Signs of Life: The Quiet Work of Rebuilding After Repatriation

The Proof of Rebuilding After Repatriation to Canada

Rebuilding After Repatriation: This is a four-part series in June 2026 on what happens when a patient has to leave their established healthcare in one country and move to another.

1. Repatriation: Healthcare and Disability Do Not Cross Borders – What I lost and what I rebuilt.
2. Why Patients Become Historians (And Why I Carry A Binder) – What I carried with me.
3. Rebuilding Trust in Systems – Who helped me rebuild my life and my healthcare.
4. Signs of Life: The Quiet Work of Rebuilding After Repatriation – The quiet signs that rebuilding after repatriation is no longer just an idea—it’s becoming my reality.

Rebuilding After Repatriation

For months after returning to Canada, I measured my progress by what I had lost. Then, almost without noticing, I started seeing signs of life instead of what I had lost.

I thought I had left everything behind, but I didn’t. I’m looking at the evidence in my journals and receipts. I shipped 15 boxes of precious things and winter clothing, a giant backpack, and my power wheelchair. My cats were transported through EVA Air thanks to the kindness of friends at Mary’s Doggies Taiwan – an animal charity I’ve supported in Taiwan for decades. (THANK YOU, LIZA!) I still can’t believe I managed two cat carriers, my manual wheelchair, a giant suitcase, and a roller carry on of medication, but I did.

Someone might think I left a lot behind, but I actually sold, donated, or threw out more than 15 boxes of things. In total, that’s 30 boxes that I moved in my power wheelchair. That’s how vital that piece of mobility equipment is to me!

Sadly I sacrificed many personal items and high value items such as my furniture, monitor, my Dyson air purifier, old devices; and my books and pottery, along with my comfort and rest. I also lived in the same dirty clothes for weeks to ensure I could get my good clothing out. Letting go of my albums and photos was difficult but I preserved those memories in different ways.

I made deliberate choices to protect what mattered most, understanding that some losses could be replaced while others could not. Now I understand that many of those decisions proved necessary, even though I wish they hadn’t been. Somehow, on December 27, I knew I needed to protect as much as possible. I’m so glad I trusted my instincts.

Looking back, I can see the extraordinary effort it took to plan and execute my departure while seriously ill, without reliable access to money or food, and while navigating what felt like abandonment and medical neglect.

I planned, executed, and escaped with surgical precision — competently, while seriously ill, and within 25 days.

This covers my ‘losses’ which were not so bad after all when I think of them. He’s in my rear-view mirror now.

Even in December, when everything around me felt frozen, I knew I had a metaphor.

I kept thinking of a crystal snow land, hibernation, and the impossible quiet before transformation. Rebuilding didn’t start right away. I was conserving energy, protecting what mattered, and preparing for the moment when I could move again.

There was no doubt in my mind that I could do it.

I did not know how long it would take, or what it would cost, but somewhere inside me I understood that winter was not the end of the story. It was the cocoon.

June arrived with butterflies, and by then I could finally see what had been happening all along.

I was not disappearing. I’m transforming again.

Now I’m thinking of the wins and signs of life as I’m rebuilding after repatriation.

At the beginning of June, I was talking about getting through mountains of paperwork and appointments which are all still ongoing.

At the end of June, I’m writing about my new life.

I’m not there yet, but I’ve rebuilt my healthcare team, I bought a car, I’ve got freelance clients, I submitted my application to graduate school, I’ve renovated my basement into a gorgeous Asian scholarly abode, I’m navigating benefits and government systems and attending therapy and medical appointments. I’m rising every day just as the butterflies are emerging.

I lost my home and my incredible healthcare in Taiwan while also losing the rhythm of daily life that had taken seventeen years to build in Taiwan. The confidence that comes from knowing exactly how a healthcare system works and where to turn when something goes wrong was also lost.

Plus I lost my family. I had hoped my mother in law would recognize familiar patterns and understand why I had to leave. Sadly I was never given the chance to speak to her. That opportunity was taken away from me early in December.

The child that I raised as my own for 21 years is also lost to me. That hurts because I loved all of them despite the dysfunction within the family, Losing those relationships has been incredibly painful.

Every day over the past six months has seemed to revolve around more appointments, another referral, another application, more forms, another phone call, or another piece of paperwork.

Rebuilding didn’t feel like rebuilding. It felt like survival.

The strange thing about rebuilding is that it rarely announces itself.

There isn’t a single morning when you wake up and realize everything is okay again. Instead, it arrives quietly and almost unnoticed. For the first time this month, I realized I could see some light at the end of the tunnel. The darkness of these past six months is still there, but OMG, the things I have accomplished despite that darkness. And while I am surging ahead despite terrible health, I see that he is so far behind me, he’ll never catch up.

One day, you realize your healthcare team is beginning to take shape. Then my power chair arrived. I completely renovated the basement and I will explore that incredible project in a separate post.

After months of research from March through June, I found a vehicle that actually works with my body and my power chair.

New clients came onboard. I secured my first WFH job with a company this week. Then I had another incredible project land in my inbox and now I’m working on business strategy and consulting with two real estate and property owners, an office that needs their systems streamlined, and an artist who needs a new website.

I started making plans instead of contingency plans.

Then I realized Interval House was pulling through for me and I’ll be exploring a meet and greet with women in two weeks.

Suddenly, I found myself standing in my basement looking at my tiger-covered desk. The desk that represents my birth and my Chinese zodiac sign.

I laughed.

Of all the things I imagined representing this chapter of my life, it certainly wasn’t a desk covered in tigers. It’s the most perfect writing and coding space ever! Dark wood. Bold colours. A distinctly Asian aesthetic that somehow made perfect sense in a Canadian basement.

It’s not just a piece of furniture. I did not borrow it from someone else. It’s mine and it represents a place to think and build my future.

It was the first space I had created entirely for myself since returning home. This is where I will write, research, plan for my clients, build my business, continue building My Several Worlds, and hopefully start my graduate studies in social work at Wilfrid Laurier University.

It’s where I can imagine the work that still lies ahead.

Looking around my basement, I realized something else. I hadn’t tried to recreate Taiwan or China.

Instead, I wove these parts of my world together with colour, artwork, memories, awards, and yes, lessons. Because I’m still learning!

Rebuilding after repatriation doesn’t always mean replacing what was lost. Sometimes it means carrying the best parts of one life into the next.

People often think rebuilding is measured by dramatic milestones like finding a home, getting a job, signing legal papers. And yes, those moments matter.

But rebuilding after repatriation is also measured in much smaller ways.

It is measured in the first morning you sit down to write because you want to, not because you have to. I’m measuring it by the confidence that my healthcare team is beginning to know me. It is measured in making plans six months into the future instead of worrying about tomorrow. I know there are many more chapters to write about.

Five months ago, I arrived in Canada carrying almost everything I owned in suitcases and boxes.

Today, I look around and see something very different.

I see evidence that my life is slowly taking shape again. Evidence that I am no longer defined only by what I left behind. I also know that rebuilding isn’t a destination.

It’s the journey to get to that part of life that fulfills me.

It’s a collection of small, quiet moments that eventually become a life.

My tiger desk will never appear in my medical records. It won’t show up on an immigration form or a disability application.

But every time I sit down to write, it reminds me that I survived the hardest part. It’s a nod to two women who helped me start this journey of mine 25 years ago. When I traveled to China I carried one book by Pearl S. Buck called My Several Worlds.

I built this website around the premise that I live in several worlds.

The second woman is me.

I built all of this. I am building again. And there is so much joy in it.

When I arrived in Canada in December, I couldn’t imagine writing these words. Rebuilding after repatriation seemed impossible.

June arrived with butterflies, a growing healthcare team, new clients, an application to graduate school, and a basement that had slowly become a place to write rather than simply a place to recover. None of those things happened overnight. They emerged quietly, almost unnoticed, until one day I realized I wasn’t measuring my life only by what I had lost. I had begun noticing signs of life.

No one knows where this road leads, least of all me. I hope it leads to graduate school, to better disability policy, to helping other people navigate systems that can feel impossible to understand, and to many more years of writing. What I do know is that six months ago I couldn’t see this future at all.

Today, I can finally see it. And perhaps that is the clearest sign of life yet.

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