After a brief stop at the always chaotic and overloaded Emergency Room down in Belleville... I was fortunate enough to get assigned to an amazing neurologist at Kingston General Hospital... who immediately ran me and my skull through all the insanely futuristic, particle-emitting medical artillery then known to mankind.
At some point, days later... after being disconnected from the tubes and ancillary machinery and sent home... I got a call from the doctor's receptionist, on a Tuesday I believe, asking me if I could come by his office that Thursday.
Now, this was more than a little unsettling, as I had a friend whose father had recently had to wait 11 months just to see a neurologist up in the Ottawa area. I mean, these folks are obviously up to their asses in medical alligators.
Of course, the only conclusion I could come to was that I was totally smoked... the only real question being... "Well, Doc... how long have I got?" Needless to say, this was the longest 48 hours of my life.
Turns out, the test results were all negative... and I had the one Doctor in the western hemisphere who thought he should share the good news in a timely fashion.
Which is why I could relate so much to this...
Long story short, I ended up in my GP's office getting my neck felt up. Being the ever-cautious fellow that he is, he sent me for a CT-Scan of my head and neck, and set me up with an ENT specialist, which did nothing to allay my fears.Maybe this isn't something you can appreciate until you've actually been there, but guess what... as you get older... I guarantee you're gonna be riding the "health care" bus with increasing frequency.
Since the appointment was the day after the scan, they gave me a CD of the scan results to bring with me, which meant I had approximately 14 hours to become an expert at reading CT scans, which is nowhere near as easy as it sounds.
Even though I was easily able to locate the area in question, and learn a lot about bone density, contrast dyes and all 257 slices of my own head, I lacked other potentially useful things such as a medical degree and any clue as to what the fuck I was looking for.
See... the thing is, I just can't understand why the medical system is not the top priority in Canada today.
It just blows me away that the Chretien Mafia were able to piss away two billion plus dollars chasing down rifles and shotguns used by farmers, hunters and target shooters.
Just think what rewards a two billion dollar investment in medical research and the health care system in general could have reaped.
Remember... friends don't let friends vote Liberal.
More here and here.
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FROM THE COMMENTS:
"An article in the TO Sun March 6, 2005 (Lorie Goldstein) reminds us that when Rae was Premier of Ontario he paid the University of Toronto mega bucks so that they would reduce the size of their med-school grad class."*
"See... we are still having Rae days... those are the 8 hour waits in ER because you don't have a family doctor."