Dec
11
This entry is being written from my bed.
I was in for surgery Thursday morning and am quietly recovering at home receiving the occasional visitor with care package in hand – aren’t friends lovely?
Since I have yet to add to this column anything really personal about myself, I decided that this entry would centre around my surgery and how wonderful our Canadian Health Care System is.
But before we dive into what happened yesterday, let’s go back to about April or March when this all first started.
I had been having some bells and whistles go off for a few days doing my obligatory washroom digestive system excavations when I had noticed that there was something wrong with what I was leaving behind. Darkened and red are not common for the toilet bowl…
Almost immediately afterwards I developed a thrombosed hemorrhoid which sent me to hospital from the pain. After getting a prescription for Anasol and being told the hemorrhoid would go down within a few days I was relieved – but, fate doesn’t play that way.
I returned to the hospital with the same symptoms a few days later and asked if anything else could be the cause of my discomfort. “No”, I was told, “continue with the Anasol and everything should be fine.”
Continuing the course of action I was assigned wasn’t going to make me happy, I decided that it was time to do things my own way – which usually gives me better results – so I picked up a referral form on the way out. I was referred to a specialist that indicated the hospital was wrong and I had other things going on – wonderful.
A colonoscopy, a few procedures, and almost a year later – we’re back up to date.
The specialist I had to refer myself to was excellent and took care of things like would be expected, but was I displeased with how slap and go our hospital emergency system operates these days.
In the end, I rule that we have a great health care system. But, you have to know how to make sure you get the care you deserve instead of just listening to what an emergency department has to say.
In other news (and to keep the holidays in mind) there are a number of Mister Leatherman Toronto (MLT) fundraisers coming up for great causes that I’d like to suggest you save a few extra dollars for – more on that next time tho as it’s time for more morphine – yay!
SERIAL SEAN
xo
January 20th, 2010 at 3:02 am
Agreed Sean. Like most things in life you get what you pay for. Fortunately health care in Canada for the most part is free. And it does what it’s supposed to do for the little things… For the big things it seems we usually have to push and take charge, which is I suppose what we should be doing to begin with, taking charge of our lives and our health and not whole-heartedly handing over that over to a stranger. After all, who knows us better than ourselves?
I went through something similar a few years back with a burst appendix. My downfall was the retardedly high pain threshold that let it get to that point, but I digress… A week in the hospital post-op, then six months of complications and fighting with doctors. Which like your experience tried fixing a gaping chest wound with a bandaid and fed me all the wrong answers. I ended up having to like you, take the bull by the horns and make things happen for myself, when nobody was willing to do it for me.
Long story shorter, I finally found a doctor who listened to me when I said it hurt even though it shouldn’t have and fixed it.
So in parting, sometimes having a temper tantrum to get your own way IS appropriate as long as the energy and the thought process behind it is channeled into something good.
Glad to hear it’s all fixed up!
Cheers.