Canadian Health Care

So, Canadian friend(s?), tell us about your health care system. Right now, many Americans are freaking out, saying that the waiting list to get care in Canada is months. Basically, Canadians are dying of cancer waiting for an appointment for treatment, all because of how "horrible" your health care system is.

I'm curious. Please, weigh in. Give me a first person account. How does your socialized (or, according to my fellow countrymen, ran by communists and/or the devil) system work?

I'm trying to be better prepared for when we immigrate.

Not Back to Work Day

So my job rejected my bid to go back to work today. I can't go back until I'm fully functional with the left arm.

Son of a bitch.

Thank goodness for short term disability. Even though the forms all say I'm applying for STD, and I'm not sure I want that. And since when is there an application process for that? As if you'll be declined.

So I guess I'll relax, watch my head to toe bruises turn yellow, and watch some more Nitro Circus. Staring at Travis Pastrana helps the healing process.

Back to the Basics

Have I mentioned that we're staying in our apartment for another year? I'm sure I have. Anyway, rather than being disappointed about all the things I CAN'T do, I'm figuring to ways to get back the things that I enjoyed and that were important to me.

Recycling: I'm sad to say that I've quit completely. Laziness, lack of space, lack of time, lack of energy, lack of spousal support - all have gotten to me, and I've just quit. I'm going to start up again, and my lovely friend Cathe has made it easier for me by allowing me to just bring it to her house and dump it in her city bin. I won't even have to sort. I'm starting back up again immediately.

Gardening: I have little room for it. The only good place is the balcony the cats have currently taken over. So, we decided to do raised beds over at my mom's house. She's excited about it, willing to foot the bill for half, and I've been doing the research on getting started here in the desert for the last few months. We're finally about ready to go. Well, we have the stuff, anyway. I'm out of commission, so I'll just be directing which is really more up my alley, so hey, it's win win.

Home schooling: BW is convinced he wants to go back to it. MM's less than thrilled, but I'm all for it. I'm switching to part time next month and I'll only go in three days a week, so we're going to try it again. BW will finish out the school year, and then we'll go back to some sort of year round version of education at home. This time around I'll focus a bit more on the basic, measurable things like math and spelling so MM will be more comfortable with it. Last time we did some, but I mostly believe in the learn it when you need it theory. It seemed to work, BW went back to school with out any issues, but I do get that theory is not within MM's comfort zone, so I'll try to do home education in a way that's good for all of us.

Even though BW's still in school, I've signed him up for park membership and he'll start a few fun classes next month. We're looking at three. One is archeology for kids - a one day workshop; one is ceramics - a one day a week month long program; and third is tennis, a one day a week six week program. The ceramics one is a little far from our house, so we may skip that it. I think between things like that and joining up with our local hs community, we'll be able to meet his social/entertainment needs. I'm looking forward to starting up again.

In addition to this, I'm attempting to not buy anything new until the end of the year. Used, yes, new no. At least for myself. MM and BW are exempt. I am bending the rule at socks and underwear. We'll see how this goes, but, I figure between the lowered income of working part-time, the desire to get rid of the clutter, and just trying to back off on all the STUFF I own, this should help.

So, that's all that's new. And now that it's taken me forever to type this one-handed, I bid you all farewell.

Update

Good Afternoon!

I went to the doc yesterday and was told the bone had a minor fracture. It doesn't even warrant a cast. I can't even break my arm effectively nowadays, sheesh!

I g0t a half cast and a sling and instructions not to move it much. I was told to stay home from work for another seven days, but I just can't. I'm too bored. And my husband is freaking out that I'm home so much. And in today's world, it's a little scary to miss so much work. So I'll go back for half days starting Monday and take it from there. I go back for follow up next week, and will get to ditch the sling and half cast and start moving it more again.

So, that's it for now. Next, I'm sure my gas pedal will stick on my Prius, and I'll be unable to stop the car while driving it one-handed. It's the next logical step in my accident prone life.

Klutz

I'm wounded again, can you believe it?!

Two weeks from the day of my surgery, I was walking down our stairs and I missed one - the third one from the bottom. I face-planted into the concrete and broke my arm. I wish I had it on video, because I imagine it was spectacular.

This happened just one day after returning to work from the foot surgery.

Son of a bitch.

I can barely type, and I'm in a Vicodin induced fog so please excuse any typos and misspellings. I'll keep y'all updated with my recovery.

My Texas Peeps

We have three sets of people in, or coming in, this week from Texas. I'm so excited!

First, is my cousin. Here for some training, and was totally unexpected - he called when he got here, we had no idea he was coming. Yes, I understand that no idea he was coming IS actually the definition of unexpected. Sorry - I have a bad habit of overexplaining things. Bygones.

I haven't seen him for years. We had a nice lunch with him yesterday, and him and MM are going to be spending some quality time together this week. Which is nice. MM has met him several times, but they've never really spent time together. They're gonna go do guy things, which apparently involves off-track betting, scary movies and video games. Not strip clubs, because they both subscribe to the 'that's what the internet is for, and that's free' theory.

Second, is our family friend/extended family member, J. He's moving back in with us. He had moved from Arizona to Texas to stay with us, but he stayed when we left. He didn't really have any attachment to West Texas other than us. He's estranged from the remaining family that he had back east, so he's adopted us. Or we've adopted him. Something. Anyway, he's going to be in tonight, and we fully expect to have him with us until he dies. Or we have to check him into a home. For the long haul, basically.

He's great with BW, he helps out where he can, and we all seem to get along pretty well. Of course, ask me that after our lease is up - after a year in an apartment. We have decidedly less space than we did in Texas. We're going into this knowing that there will be a bigger space in our future, so we'll do our best to not annoy each other in the meantime.

Third, and with no offense intended to first and second, are my personal favorites, M2 and her family. I really need to find better nicknames for people, I know. They are here for the week, and BW and I are sooooooo excited. MM, not so much. M2 and the fam are more BW's and my people, rather than his. Which is fine, because we don't have to share them. Unfortunately, I am still working with limited mobility, so most of our visit will involve my ass and a chair. Which sounds so wrong on so very many levels, but I'm sticking with it anyway.

I can't wait for them to get here. It's too bad I won't be mobile enough to do much more than a meal out and a lot of sitting around with my foot elevated, but I'm still going to love the visit.

Now, if I can only I can talk them into moving here.....

Good Morning!

I've been away so long! I'm not even keeping up with my friends' blogs anymore, it's terrible.

My bloggy friend updated me with her new place, so I thought I'd repay her by returning from the land of the lost. You're welcome, Sheri. ;)

So. What's new . . . . In no particular order:

I'm switching to part-time in April. MM's working somewhat (cough) steadily - it's construction-ish, so you know how that is - and we're taking the plunge so I can be home more with BW. We're hoping the money he makes in the good times will get us through the not so good ones. We'll see. I'm excited, but nervous. As usual. You know, worried that this is the wrong choice, but really wanting to be home more. I'll be working three days a week. There's a possibility of maybe working from home those days, too, which would be lovely.

While I'm worried about being able to afford it, my hubby is doing his best to let me know that this is the right decision. For instance:

BW comes home from school wearing nothing but shorts and a short sleeved shirt. When we had a high 50 degrees and rain all day. I, having had surgery that morning, (more on that next) was not there to see him off to school. When I question this clothing choice to MM, his response is "Well, I told him it was going to be cold today!". Oh, well, as long as you TRIED to prevent him from freezing, it's all good. It's a good thing we don't live in Alaska.

WTF? MM tries, he really does, but basics like clothing and regular meals escape him. He does the same type of thing for dinner.

BW: I'm hungry. I didn't eat dinner and now I'm STARVING.
MM: I asked him if he wanted anything, and he said no.
Me: But he didn't eat anything but snacky stuff and now it's 9:30 and I'm trying to put him in bed, and he's starving.
MM: But he said he wasn't hungry when I asked. I ASKED!!
Me: Arghhhh!!!!

So, me getting home at 9:30 at night is just not working. My new schedule will have me home by 7:30, still able to take BW to school every morning, and home two of five school days. I'm not sure if we'll be able to get back to homeschooling next year with this schedule, but I'm determined to try. We're going to see how the summer goes and decide from there. Cross your fingers. BW wants it, I want it, we'll just have to see if it'll work out.

Now for the surgery. Did I mention I'm growing pearls in my feet? I think I talked about this foot surgery before - I had it last August. I had that splintery thing in my foot. No one could figure out what it was. It turned out to be some sort of calcium deposit in my heel. Oddly enough, it came back, in a slightly different area, bigger and ouchier than last time. I had the surgery again to have it removed yesterday. This time, I'll follow up with an appointment with a podiatrist and hopefully they can tell me what the hell it is and how to prevent it, because this is starting to suck.

This time, I'm taking time off work to care for it. Last time, I rushed back to work, didn't use the crutches or keep it elevated like I was supposed to, and walked around way too much way too soon. I don't know that that had anything to do with it coming back, but I'm not risking it this time. Luckily at work they're being very supportive. Of course, I'm sure they'll be somewhat less so if I miss work for this again, so my foot better cooperate. This is becoming inconvenient.

So, other than that, nothing new going on. I'm still trying to finish my semester of school - only about a month left. I'm still trying to figure out what I want to be when I grow up. We're still trying to figure out what we're going to do house-wise. We did decide to stay in the apartment another year or so, we'll have to see how the money thing play out for us with me working p/t.
I'm going to start a garden at my mom's place to make myself feel better about it.

We're all just sort of hunkering down to see what happens next. Which is always kind of exciting around here.