Son #3 comes home

Peony time!

My son just left this morning to return home. It was a very good visit, we seemed to be on exactly the same page as far as activity level and need for alone-time. I was pleasantly surprised at how good-looking he is becoming as he ages, I almost didn't recognize him when I went to pick him up at the airport. 

Mind you, that wasn't completely due to handsomeness. With his knitted cap, sunglasses and mask he looked like an alien. Towards the end of the week he talked about how much he was enjoying this and how sorry he was he hadn't booked a longer visit. After so many years he was afraid that a week was about as long as he could stand.

I bought tickets for us to go to a concert together at a local community hall. I thought it was a great concert, he was more critical. He thought the band's sound system and/or how the sound was being managed was lousy. Lousy enough that he didn't want to venture an opinion about how good the band actually was. 

Before we went into the hall we met some friends of mine and there was a lot of joking about how many friends/neighbours had Covid, how many last minute cancellations there were due to Covid. My son forgot his mask but I had two. We went in and shared a table with some more friends of mine, and they too joked about how many people they knew with Covid. Initially my son took has mask off to imbibe the drink he ordered, but quickly put it on afterwards. I asked him later about the fact he wore his mask for the entire concert when hardly anyone else (including me!) did.

He said, Are you kidding me? This place is a cesspool!

I had to admit he was right. The longer since the mask mandate was removed, the laxer we all got. The rate of infection and number of deaths have come down since April, but they are still much higher than previous waves. They say it is so bad here because we never got any herd immunity. We were so strict about the rules that we all stayed safe, but once the mandates were removed we all went a little crazy and ended up with one of the worst rates of infection in the whole country.

While here my son reconnected with an old friend. They hadn't seen each other in over a decade and a lot has happened in both their lives in the interim, so I think they were a little reluctant to meet since they didn't know if they still had a relationship. Turns out they very much did. They had several very long conversations while hanging out together and one of the things that came up was that neither could remember a time when they didn't know each other. They became friends before their memories kicked in. 

It's true, they were very young when they first met, and they only met because their parents were friends since before either of them were born. In spite of long periods living in different parts of the country, they had some remarkably similar life experiences. On his last night here the friend took him on a quick tour of the area, they hit several beaches and some other places, after dark. I thought that was pretty cool of the friend to do that.

My son was a little apologetic to me about how much time he was spending with his friend. I said, Don't worry, I'm not jealous. Spending an intense amout of time with anyone—even a beloved offspring—still takes its toll on me and I am happy for a bit of a break. I would have been very happy if he had booked a longer visit, but at the same time I don't know whether I would have had the stamina for it.

One morning he was up before me and he wanted to make coffee for me. But he took one look at my fancy espresso machine and decided otherwise. He referred to it as my Junior Chemistry Set that I call a Coffeemaker.

We had to be at the airport two hours before departure time, and it takes over an hour to drive to the airport. We had to be up at 6.00am and leave without breakfast. I was giving him directions (he drove), but normally he relies on Google for directions. I got distracted and we overshot the highway exit for the airport and had to drive an extra 25km to get back. I said something about there being highway signs but then realized that he probably never looks at the signs because he relies on Google to tell him. I am old school, I even keep a paper map of the province in the car.

So today I am so exhausted that I am just killing time till I can go to bed. Not so good at napping.

Alternative realities

My pet monster, can you guess what it is?

Went to see my doctor on Thursday. The NP at ICCS strongly recommended I talk to my doctor, get a referral to an internal medicine guy (internist?) and maybe a referral for ADHD assessment. Boy was that disaster. I am still in recovery.

You know that feeling of how you've just entered an alternate reality where up is down, right is left, black is white? At first you don't know how to handle it because it is so shocking and unexpected, and then you keep trying to say, No no, up is up, right is right and black is black! The other person proceeds to read you the riot act about how wrong you are, and further more she can prove it and even further more she has documented evidence that everyone else agrees with her: you are certifiably crazy. And of course 'everyone else' are people you know and respect and thought they respected you, only now you are being told that no, that's not true, here's what they really think of you.

So for example, my doctor offered me an opportunity to see a sleep specialist at some point in the past, but I had refused. Obviously I am a malingering drug addict who refuses to seek appropriate treatment, what other reason could I possibly have? Except that, this is the first I've heard of such an offer, and if I had in fact been offered that referral I would have leaped at it. Are we living in the same time-space continuum? 

For another example, apparently the NP said that the referral to the internal medicine guy was my idea, not hers. Not that I even knew this guy or what the heck internal medicine is. Or why such a referral would be appropriate for me (the NP said it would be helpful, the guy in question would run a bunch of tests and hopefully provide some answers, when I asked her why she was suggesting this referral). 

My memory of the conversation is that it was the NP who suggested it and I accepted the idea. Anyway, that's not true, according to my doctor it was me that suggested it and further more it was a very bad idea. I should instead go to the neurologist in the city that I saw a year ago, the one who took more than 8 months to finally deliver her report to my doctor.

The internal medicine doc is right here, the neurologist is more than an hour's drive away on the highway. After the NP suggested this referral a month ago, I had asked a couple of friends if they knew this doctor and was told that he was really great, spoke to you like you were a real human being, and further he has recently been in the news speaking out about healthcare problems in this province. Oh boy, sounds like a really bad idea. 

I did manage to insist on the referral to the local internal medicine guy but he's probably backed up till hell freezes over. My doctor quoted from the neurologist's report (the report that took over 8 months to write and deliver) about how thorough and comprehensive her consultation with me was, most of which I do not remember actually having happened. I do recall an unpleasant nerve conductance test that showed that I was perfectly fine, and a nice chat about her mother the veterinarian. My doctor did not mention a veterinarian. 

So, she told me that this very unpleasant alternate reality experience was all my fault because I only make appointments every six months and she expects her patients with chronic conditions to see her every month. News to me, first time I have heard her admit (albeit indirectly) that I might have some kind of chronic condition (other than malingering drug addiction or insanity), and secondly that I was supposed to make appointments every month (I'm gripping my head and shaking it, I'm supposed to be a mind reader?). 

When I asked her about getting a referral for an ADHD assessment, she said that she could have done the assessment herself, but since I clearly didn't trust her she couldn't possibly do that now. 

She gave me a card with a phone number on it to call. I looked at the card later and it was for Mental Health and Addictions, I had a hard time remembering what the heck I was supposed to call Mental Health and Addictions about. I did call, they told me they couldn't refer me or give me any information on how I might get an ADHD assessment, and further that it wasn't covered by provincial health insurance so I would have to pay out of pocket to get it done privately. They gave me a number to call which I did, I left a message but there has been no response. Oh well, it wasn't high on my list of priorities.

And that reminds me, she effused over some new drug that all the doctors are raving about for insomnia, but of course it costs an arm and a leg and is not covered by Pharmacare. She just shrugged her shoulders when I asked about that. I guess doctors don't concern themselves with such things as cost of medications.

What else. At a certain point I blanked out, trying to focus on not crying or hyperventilating. Oh yes, my doctor has a very soft voice and she was wearing an N95 mask plus a face shield, and sitting over ten feet away from me. I have a bit of age-related hearing deficit, not enough to warrant hearing aids (I was tested) but just enough to render my doctor's voice a distant mumble through the mask and face shield. Several times I asked her to speak louder and more slowly, which she did for a few seconds before reverting back to the mumble. I asked for a couple of prescriptions which she said she would fax to the drugstore, but she did not provide the details of what exactly she was prescribing. As I was leaving I asked what she was prescribing, just to confirm that it was what I wanted and she impatiently told me that yes she got it right and would I please leave now because I'd gone overtime. 

Sure enough when I picked up the prescriptions, one of them was wrong. Can't actually view the medication until it is paid for (it's delivered in a stapled brown paper bag), and since there was a line-up and I had other things to pick up, I did not actually open the brown paper bag until I got home. Of course, once you leave the drugstore you can't return it. The best I could do was call my doctor's office to ask for the right prescription, and the receptionist relayed my doctor's response the following day that she had already faxed the revised prescription to the drugstore and I should return the wrong medication. I spoke to the pharmacist about what had happened, and while she couldn't take the wrong medication back, she could fix it so it was usable. I appreciated the pharmacist's effort to make things right for me, free of charge. 

Note to self: be way more vigilant about making sure the prescription is right before leaving the pharmacy counter. Even if they are lined up out the door.

On a lighter note, my garden

I was around the bend with frustration and useless anger, I called a friend but she was busy. The friend recommended that I have a good stiff drink and she would meet with me the next day to listen to my tale of woe. I proceeded to obliterate myself with more than one good stiff drink; sometimes you just need to shut down your brain in order to cope. We did meet the next day, my brain was semi-obliterated so the emotional edge was dulled. We laughed about the insanity of it all. 

She happens to go to the same doctor and told me that she used to have such problems with this doctor until she made herself vulnerable by talking about her fears, and after that the doctor was nice to her. I guess I am supposed to do the same, but I have to say my anger at the alternate reality experience has not abated enough for me to even think about it. I remember dealing with the alternate reality when I was much younger, this just brings it all back. I think the modern term for this is being gaslighted. Gaslit? 

Just keep me away from matches, I'll be fine.

And finally, that reminds me that the good doctor recommended I see a psychiatrist, she would make the referral if I liked. I said, Sure, what the hell. I may regret it, but at that point I was focussing on not hyperventilating. And besides, it may be fun to see which referral comes up first, if at all (before hell freezes over). Who has the shorter waitlist, a shrink or an internist?

There's more, but it just stirs up more than I can cope with to write about it and besides this is getting long.

Photo from an article on abortion in the USA, in The Economist