This morning I was finally able to get through to my GP’s office, and I spoke with the woman who had left the cryptic message on my home answering machine. I was gentle but firm in letting her know the consternation which that sort of the call can trigger. She won’t be doing it again, hopefully. She also agreed to re-order the contact numbers in my file so that my cell phone gets called before the house phone.I also asked her to tell me which damned test the doctor wanted to discuss, and she told me that it was, indeed, … Continue reading Following up the Medical Receptionist post

There’s a certain cruelty in finding a message on your telephone answering machine when you get home on a Friday evening after a particularly odd day’s business from the receptionist at your family doctor’s office, especially when she has stammered her way through the message that they’ve received some test results and, if there has been no follow up from your oncologist, the doctor would like to see you in his office. It’s a Friday. End of business. Not open again until Monday. No way to get in touch with her to ask for clarification, to ask which results from … Continue reading Medical Receptionists, please take note.

At approximately 0800 on February 4, 2010 doctors will be taking a twenty-four year old woman of east Indian descent off life support. Her parents have arrived from Toronto, her brother from Calgary. This lovely young woman, one of our acquaintances, has no brain activity; her kidneys failed her, her lungs stopped functioning effectively, and then her heart stopped. At this time they haven’t told anyone what is responsible, but the chatter going around is that it started off with a bout of H1N1. There will likely be an autopsy… H1N1 kills.Get your damned shots. Continue reading Hey, you! Get your H1N1 flu shot… stop being a dink about it!

In the aftermath of the Haitian earthquake a group of ten fundamentalist Baptist American do-gooders snuck across the border from the Dominican Republican, convinced temporary and permanent caregivers (including the parents!) of 33 Haitian children to allow the children to be loaded onto a bus and driven out of Haiti. The caregivers, and even the children believed that they were going off to ‘summer camp’ or to ‘boarding school’… based on flyers/leaflets that the team of ten were passing out. But also within their possession where other flyers that detailed their goal to remove 100 children from Haiti and take … Continue reading Americans kidnapping Haitian children?

The thing about reconnecting with old friends after a significant time out of touch is that they help you to remember other ‘wheres’ and other ‘whens’. The challenge about reconnecting with old friends after a significant time out of touch is that they help you to remember other ‘wheres’ and other ‘whens’ with startling clarity. As the expression goes, ‘the truth will out’!I’m sitting in Calgary this morning, in my sister’s living room, waiting until its time to go pick up G. from the airport. She is returning from a three week visit to her family in the UK. And … Continue reading Re-connecting

Now that the World Health Organization has realized that calling something the ‘Swine Flu’ has serious perception problems for pork producers, they have started referring to the strain as the H1Ni virus, and have asked media outlets to do the same. This is not the same as BSE (Mad Cow Disease). You cannot get the H1N1 flu from pork products, especially once cooked properly. But of course with people being people there is a bit of hysteria surrounding eating pork and the flu. And with politicians being their own species of swine some countries are capitalizing on the fear and … Continue reading Are the people at CBC Edmonton just stupid?

Whew! Its been a bit of a whirlwind of a week so far… G. is getting ready for her annual trip to the UK to visit family, and I am fighting the parameters of an engagement, and not feeling like I’m getting any traction whatsoever.What I’ve got is a situation where the client is unable to articulate where they’re going with something, usually taking a position that makes no sense, or that contravenes something that we have already architected for them… I make suggestions and they hold firm to their murky vision. I then bring in my supervisor(s) with the … Continue reading

There are some things that I just hate to be right about. This morning, it snowed, hard. Big, wet, heavy flakes of snow. It obscured my view of the High Level Bridge from the office window at the Terrace Building. And as I watched it falling a co-worker reminded me that I had predicted another heavy snowfall by April 15th… There are some things that I just hate to be right about. Continue reading …and its snowing!