Tuesday 18 December 2012

Hack Hack Sneeze

Well we're still sick. How exciting for you to read I know, but it is the dominating factor of my life at this point in time. Usually I pride myself on our robust and healthy family. We almost never see the doctor, and rarely get more than the common cold. However this season just seems to be knocking us out again and again with hacking coughs, sneezes, headaches, "bowel issues", and the most recent problem ear infections. We ended up having to take our oldest to a walk in clinic at 8:30 pm last night. We had to drive frantically around the city just to try and find one that was open; quite an adventure in itself.  Evidently you cannot trust the hours that are posted on the net - actually the three I had chosen were shut down altogether...the one I finally did find was purely by God's good grace as I was heading home to let my fingers do the walking (or driving in this case) and just happened to gaze out my window at a red light to see the faint glow of a walk-in clinic sign on a pharmacy.  I actually did say a really informal prayer (okay maybe it was more the expression of an exasperated father saying, "Come on!  Please just let me find a clinic that's open...") only moments before I found the open clinic.  Perhaps it's a sign of my lack of faith that I was not looking for a clinic at all but was in fact on my way back home to solve the problem on my own by looking-up and calling some clinics to find one that was open (what I probably should have done in the first place).  Nevertheless...I digress. 

One interesting tidbit that I found when we finally arrived at the walk-in was that the doctor that was attending us was actually trained and certified outside Canada and was therefore not able to prescribe medicine. He instead consulted, via video-conference, with a doctor in Toronto to validate that his diagnosis was correct and then get the OK to issue a prescription with the Toronto doctors name on it. I personally feel very confident with foreign trained doctors. I feel that their proven initiative through getting a good education in their home country, and then come to a new country and continue on in a different system that makes them jump through some ridiculous hoops to practice their vocation here, makes for one smart and dedicated Doctor. Not that becoming a Doctor in Canada is all that simple but I would guess its a bit harder for someone coming from Somalia, but maybe I'm wrong. Either way I'm glad to be living in Canada where I can walk-in to a clinic free of charge and get good care in a very creative way. Yay public health care!

I do hope that our sickness saga will be coming to a close soon and I can report more fantastic events soon. But for now I need to finish up this blog so I can get another Kleenex.



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