M is for Medical Guilt and Dr. Awesomesauce

The great thing about being Canadian is you have AWESOME health care. The not-so-great thing is, you feel guilty about using it.

OK, so maybe you don't, but I certainly do.

There's so much pressure on us (from the government, which is trying to save money, and from healthcare professionals who are run off their feet) to not go to the hospital emergency department unless we're fecking dying.

Sometimes we don't have much of a choice. Like yesterday, I tried to get an appointment with my family doctor because I had a sore throat, fever, swollen glands and earache. All I wanted was for her to take a quick peek in my ear and see if I had an infection but, no, the clinic I go to pre-books everything, so unless you know you're going to have an earache three weeks from now, you pretty much have to go to the hospital – or just ignore it and hope it goes away on its own.

It's so embarrassing, going to the hospital feeling like you're going to croak any second, only to be told, "You just have a virus. Go home. Get some rest. (And the unsaid - stop wasting our precious time.) Blah, blah, blah."

So, understandably I wasn't in a big hurry to visit the hospital but when my fever kept going up and my throat got sorer (more sore?) I put on my big girl undergotchies and went to the ER, sure as sun-up that I'd be going home with my tail between my legs.

As soon as the doctor came in the room to see me, I started apologizing. The best defence is always a good offence, right? It's like, if you point out that you're fat as a whale, nobody else has to do it ... and, goodness gracious, it's important that somebody point out your whaleness, otherwise, how would you know?

"I'm sorry, it's probably just a virus, but I couldn't get an appointment with my doctor and they said to come here, but I didn't really want to and I'm probably wasting your time and I know the healthcare system is overburdened and it's completely my fault for coming here with this stupid virus. I'm so SORRY."

The doctor grinned. "Stop apologizing," he said.

I swooned. I had a nice doctor on my hands. And he wasn't bad looking, either .... not that I noticed ...

"I just feel so guilty," I said, still apologizing.

He continued to reassure me that I had every right to be there as he checked my ears and throat, and then he said, "Well you made a good call, coming here. The back of your throat is coated with pus – you've got strep, alright."

JOY! I was sick! Really sick! If I could have done a happy dance, I would have.

Dr. Nice gave me penicillin and Tylenol 3 and a mouthwash and sent me on my way. I thanked him profusely, almost crying in the process (because that's what I do when I'm sick, I bawl like an idjit).

"Thank you," I said, with utmost sincerity. I wanted him to understand how much it means to be treated well when you're sick. "You are a sweet man."

He smiled.

L is for Laid Up

For today's A to Z Challenge, I'm calling in sick! That, ladies and gentlemen, right there, is why it's a good idea to write your posts ahead of time ... see ya tomorrow... unless I'm dead ... then I won't ...

A to Z Honesty - U is for under stuff

Under the weather. That's me! Sick! Fecking head cold arrives fecking days before my much anticipated spring fishing trip. Even though I felt like crap on a stick yesterday I went to work because we're extremely short-staffed at the moment and they needed me and all my mucousy magic.

I felt crappy but was getting the work done as per usual, thanks to some snot-stifling Daytime Tylenol Cold, guaranteed to be non-drowsy. All was good until about 3:30 p.m. when I realized I had been sleeping at my desk for an unknown quantity of time. Seriously. Soundly sleeping. There was drool on my desktop. I woke myself up when I started to snore.

Under, over, under, feck. I picked up my new glasses yesterday! YAY for new glasses! Ever since I had my cataracts removed I've been living with cheap dime store cheater-glasses. Can't read a bloody thing without 'em. A couple weeks ago I went to the optometrist and got fitted for some proper bi-focals. Because, in case I haven't mentioned it before, I'M FECKING OLD.

I figured, since I would be wearing these new glasses 24/7, that I wouldn't cheap out on them. Cheap - HA! These glasses cost more than our car. (Our old winter beater car, by the way. You didn't think they were gold plated, did you?) They have progressive bi-focals so you can't see the line; they have a non-glare coating to make night driving easier; they go from dark in the sunlight to perfectly clear inside (my eyes are so much more sensitive to sunlight since the operation); and the frames themselves are frameless, state-of-the-art fecking ridiculously expensive Silhouette thingeys. These glasses are so cool that the lady at the optometrist office was fairly drooling when I came to pick them up. "Some day," she said, wiping the corner of her mouth, "I want a pair like that." For a moment I was hoping she was talking about my boobs. Then I remembered gravity. Fecking gravity. Fecking saggy underinflated boobs. Like birthday balloons six weeks after the birthday.

So these are fancy glasses. Fancy EXPENSIVE glasses. They slice, dice and julienne fries. But can I SEE through them? HA! If I hold my neck the right way. If I look UNDER them a little and then OVER them a lot. It seems like there is a tiny area that is perfect for reading and if I don't look through that exact pinprick of a point, everything is blurry. No, that's not true. It's not blurry, it's FECKING blurry.

Under the weather part deux. It's snowing this morning. Snow. Reeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaally. And, like Forrest Gump and his box of fecking chocolates, that's all I'm going to say about THAT.

Deck the halls with boughs of vomit

I was humming Christmas carols this morning while making coffee.

This happens to me every year. I'm slow getting into the Christmas spirit but, by the time it's over, I'm in full-on, meet-me-under-the-mistletoe, buy-something, wrap-something, eat-something seasonal-greetings splendour. So I feel like the little brother in A Christmas Story, the kid who is so overdressed that he can't walk, can't run, can't fart, and is continuously whining, "Come on guys, wait up guys, oh guys..." That's me, whining, as the Christmas train blows past.

Yesterday was one of those days you wish never happened. We were headed north to visit friends we hadn't seen in some time. Sam seemed fine before we left. He was having a little trouble going to the bathroom (he gets constipated sometimes) but nothing untoward. He started looking uncomfortable just as we passed the last turn-off to civilization and public bathrooms. When it was clear we were in the land of nothing-but-swamps-and-bush, he suddenly announced, "I gotta have a crap and I feel like I'm gonna throw up!"

Nothing speeds a driver to a curb as fast as a kid saying the throw-up word. Tires squealed and my face just missed hitting the dash as Dave swerved off the highway. I jumped out to help Sam get out of the car safely and then watched as he scrabbled down a steep, snow-covered embankment. At first it looked like he was going to throw up, all gaggy and retchy and such. Then, without further adieu, he yanked down his jeans and squatted in the ditch.

I was impressed and repulsed all at the same time. My kid was going to defecate at the side of a busy four-laned highway. I have Crohn's disease and I wouldn't be caught doing that in a zillion years. I can't see very well at the moment (my cataracts) so I thought, maybe he's only peeing.

"Are you peeing?" I asked. Hopefully.

"I'm crapping," said my son.

Oh geez.

"I'll go get you some Kleenex," I said. I grabbed a box out of the car.

Dave asked, "Is he puking?"

"No," I said, "apparently he is crapping."

"Oh geez," Dave said.

I thought I could just lob the Kleenex box straight to Sam, but I missed by, like, 20 feet and thus had to slide down the embankment towards the crapping child to wrangle the box out of the only tree in the ditch and hand it over. I did so, discreetly, not wanting to embarrass Sam, who was already crapping in front of every person driving north on one of Ontario's busiest north-south highways and probably didn't care one iota about crapping in front of his mother. Although I would never crap in front of my mother. I don't think. Maybe if I was desperate. OK, so Sam was desperate.

Moving on, we came to Burk's Falls where there is a Tim Horton's.

"Sam," I said, "would you like to go to Timmy's and use their bathroom?"

"Yes," said Sam.

Thank goodness, I thought. An actual bathroom will be so much less embarrassing than a ditch. While Sam was in the bathroom, Angus and I went to the counter and ordered coffee and hot chocolate. I was just about to pay the nice young cashier when Sam came up to us, white-faced and sick-looking.

"Mom," he said, "I just vomited in the bathroom."

The cashier's smile disappeared but she continued to get my change.'

Inside I was thinking, "isn't it cute how he uses the word vomit?" What I said was, "You threw up in the toilet, right?"

Sam shook his head. "There was somebody on the toilet so I vomited on the floor."

All colour drained from the cashier's face and, I swear, went to mine. I looked to her and squeaked, "I'm sorry."

"That's OK," she said, but I wasn't convinced.

I told Sam to go back in the men's room and wash up. Apparently he still had to use the toilet as well, "but the man who was in there got poo all over the seat," so he decided against it.

Those poor Timmy's staff. Cleaning up my son's vomit and some old guy's poo. There ain't enough money in the world to pay me to do that.

Top photo: my new coat and mittens I found under the tree. Thanks Santa!
Second photo: Misty in her Christmas dress.
Third: Dave with our festive mailbox.
Fourth: my handsome non-puking men - Sam, Dave and Angus.
Fifth: me and Dave wishing you and yours a happy ho-ho-ho.

Momma Bear, the eff word and other crappy subjects

Maybe eating Fibre 1 for breakfast isn't the best idea when you've had the poops for two weeks.
I'm having a Crohn's flare-up, or something. I can't get through the day without a fistful of Imodium. I know. You don't want to hear this. Trust me, I don't want to live it. Life is just shitty that way sometimes.

Speaking of stink, it's raining like stink outside. It's been raining for two weeks solid. The only good thing about this much rain is it makes you appreciate blue sky when you see it.

Just got off the phone with the vice-principal of my son's high school. I had a mouthful of Fibre 1 when I answered so I was all muffley and "bl-hell-umph-o," like that. He sounded confused at first. But it was 7:45 a.m. and I'm still in my nightie, the pink one with "Best Mom" on it that I bought for myself because my children are boys and they wouldn't set foot in a women's lingerie department. So there was a big hullaballoo yesterday morning. I was in the same Best Mom nightie (no, I never wash it, never), drinking my coffee, recovering from my latest trip to the bathroom, when I spotted this boy talking trash to my son on Facebook. This Grade Nine person must be an english major because he used the eff word extremely creatively as he invited me son to the high school parking lot at high noon to show how effing tough he is.

I'm sure he just wanted to have tea with my son. Maybe discuss the use of the eff word in modern literature, something like that. Because he insisted, in a later FB blurb, that he had no plans to beat the crap out of my son.

Apparently my son, who I love but who isn't perfect, much like his mother and the entire rest of the human population, said some very mean things to a young girl. My son said she had said mean things to him first. So we had a big discussion about not saying mean things to anyone, anyone at ALL, but especially not to a girl because, well, if you ever hope to have a lasting relationship with a woman, talking trash to them is not going to win them over. So this other kid was coming to the girl's defence, like a knight in shining armour, ready to take a round out of my son to defend her honour. Which, you know, is admirable in a way. The girl probably really appreciated it. Hey, if my husband wanted to take a round out of someone for talking bad to me, I'd appreciate it. (In a big way. Like, he'd be smiling for a week afterwards.) But I really couldn't have some kid beating up my son in the parking lot, could I? I mean, I'm his mother. It's my job to defend my children. Not just my job, my calling. I love them and, while I respect the knight in shining armour's decision to defend the girl, I can't have him laying a thumping on my offspring.

So I copied the entire conversation onto a text document and e-mailed it to the principal and then the vice-principal had both boys in for a separate visit and straightened them out. At least, I hope it's straightened out. The last thing I want is more anger, more retribution. The thing about kids today, the thing about Facebook and texting, is it's all there for the record. It's not like the old days when you could threaten someone verbally and then deny it ever happened because there was no evidence. When you threaten someone on Facebook, it's there for the world to see. You can delete it, sure, but if someone (like me) has already copied it and pasted it somewhere else, you're euchred.

And the way kids talk on Facebook? Unbelievable! The things that come out of their mouths is reprehensible. Why do they talk like that? It's disgusting! Is this something they're going to grow out of or is this next generation going to live life verbalizing like sailors? When they're grandparents, are they going to talk to their grand-babies that way? "C'mere you effing cute effer, sit your effing arse up here on your effing grandma's effing knee, you effing effer-snapper."

Anyway, that was my day yesterday. The vice-principal called this morning just to catch up and fill me in on the details, which was nice. And it was nice that he caught me in between trips to the bathroom. Tomorrow I go to the hospital for my Crohn's treatment, which is a very good thing. Cause life is too short to be this shitty.