Last Updated on: 3rd February 2024, 11:55 am
Raaaar! This idiot saga will never end. Remember how I said I cut my toe on that glass? Well, even after I cleaned and bandaged it, I feel odd pain in it. It feels like the pain has moved. So, I’m starting to think I got glass *in* my toe. Since I’ve been prone to getting infections, hi ho, hi ho, it’s off to a walk-in clinic I go. That is, if I can find one. Since it’s theCanada day weekend, everything is closed. Apparently people aren’t supposed to get hurt on Canada Day weekend in small stupid ways, and injuries great and small all need to pile into the emergency room at the only hospital in this damn city. At least that’s the way it’s looking.
Because I don’t want to spend half the day bussing and cabbing to closed doors, I’m trying to make sure the info is current, and in fact, nothing is open. In order to do this, I called amuch touted service by the government. It’s called Telehealth Ontario, and it’s available 24 hours a day and you can speak to a nurse. I haven’t had the best of success with them before, but I’m sure they can at least verify that in fact, dick all is open and yes, I have to take up the valuable time of the nurses and doctors at Guelph General while they deal with car crash victims, people suffering heart attacks and strokes, and other assorted goodness. I’m sure they’ll look at me and about want to strangle me. I don’t even *know* if I have glass in my damn foot. Or maybe, if I’m lucky, I can go to a walk-in clinic where I belong, a place where someone goes outside of their doctor’s hours if they have a bad cough, a small concern, something more trivial than death and guts.
I must point out that I wrote the majority of this as I sat on hold. I think this is important. Anyway, back to the bitching.
A receptionist first picks up and asks basically what the question is. I figure that maybe, possibly, the receptionist can answer this one without even adding to the queue that the nurses have to deal with. I ask the question of whether there are walk-in clinics open in this city, and nope, the receptionist says the nurse will handle that question. What the hell? Then what is the receptionist for? She’s about as useful as the woman at the front of the ER who asks for all your info just so the nurse can ask you again, and so can the doctor. Some fine efficiency we have there.
I continue to hold, being asked every few minutes whether I’d like to arrange a call-back or leave a message or continue to hold. I hold because if they call back, I may not realize it’s them, think it’s a telemarketer and miss their call again, so why not just sit and hold?
Finally, the nurse picks up, and asks me what my question is. I tell her, and I feel like I’ve been transported to Radio Shack, er, The Source by Circuit city. She needs to know my date of birth, middle initial, address, postal code, all manner of things. Finally, we get down to the question, and I got the answer I didn’t want. Looks like Homeboy’s off to the ER unless I can find a friendly and intelligent neighbour to have a quick look and at least tell me if I should bother wasting the time of medical personnel.
Wow, I’m in a bitchy mood today. Hopefully I won’t have to spend a huge chunk of it in the goddamn ER. But I’d rather that than end up with some kind of horrible infection from who knows what that was on that glass.
