Canada Moms Blog

My Doctor Fantasy - It's Not What you Think

I am Canadian, so I feel I should hesitate before I complain about our health care system.  It is public health care, which means everyone has access to it and if you chop off your hand with a chainsaw, you will get treatment whether or not you have enough money to pay for the surgery. I have heard and read about the health care systems in other parts of the world and they scare me and I am desperately glad that our system is as good as it is.  This does not stop me from wishing it was better.

Maybe you chopped off your hand with a chainsaw because you were drunk.  Maybe it was an honest-to-goodness accident.  Or maybe you chopped your hand off with a chainsaw because you were having dizzy spells and headaches due to an undiagnosed condition - undiagnosed because you were on a 6 month waiting list for tests, or because your doctor half-listened to your description of symptoms and wrote you a prescription for an extra strength pain killer.

You still get the same treatment.  You still get your hand re-attached, your blood re-filled, your hospital bed, your jellied dessert.  But my frustration with our system is this: there is so little focus on
prevention. We are in a constant state of crisis, of triage, of stop the bleeding.  And there are amazing specialists doing fantastic work in this country.  But the family doctor, the general practitioner, is almost impossible to find.

This is on my mind because I have in my hands a referral - worth its weight in gold - for a new family doctor.  I left my old childhood doctor 15 years ago. Since then I have mainly gone to walk-in clinics, with the exception of my two pregnancies, where I saw maternity doctors.  Why?  Because there are, on an average day, three family doctors taking new patients within a 30 km radius of my house and you can bet that they have something wrong with them.  I have seen several over the years. 

One was awesome - but 72 years old and retired after three visits, leaving no replacement and no referrals.

One prescribed birth control pills and Botox for just about every ailment.

Two never called me back.

One screened us, asked if we were "healthy," took a week to decide that yes, he would take us on, as we had no chronic conditions or addictions and then let me know that actually he didn't do immunizations (the only reason I'd bothered to look for a doctor; silly me, I didn't know about Public Health) so I could just take my 8 week old baby back home with me.

Our current family doctor took us on after my second son was born. She didn't want to, but I had a referral from my maternity doctor.

She is not a very good doctor.  She is dismissive, disorganized and often uninformed.  She gave my 6 month old a sticker to distract him while she administered his vaccination. (I then had to pry it out of his throat while she jabbed the needle in.) She sent my husband on a wild goose chase for a blood test when what he needed was a cheek swab that she could have done in her office.  By the time he got back to her office, she had left for the day, so he went to a walk-in clinic.  When I asked her about having an IUD inserted, she told me that an IUD wasn't what I wanted and that anyway, they are not very effective.

Lady. I didn't ask your opinion.  I know how effective IUDs are and I know that a family doctor can put one in. Not that I would want you to because you would probably put it in my liver by mistake.

For all of the above reasons, and many more, I am reluctant to go see my doctor.  If that means I sit around stewing about something for days and then end up at the walk-in clinic because my snot is orange (true story - sinus infection!) so be it.  I would rather wait and see than deal with someone who may or may not know what she is talking about.

I have become used to this approach over the years, since family doctors are so hard to find. I have been lucky enough to not need a doctor until now.  But my kids are in the picture now and I want there to be someone in our lives, be it doctor or nurse practitioner or naturopath, who can look at them and say, yes, that's a weird rash or hmm, let's get that strange bump checked out or even, hey, you grew three inches since last year, way to go.

I don't look to a doctor to reassure me that my kids are normal.  I don't want one to go to every month just to see what's up.  But when I do need a doctor, I want that doctor  to be someone who wants to be there, who cares about people, who is not stupider than me, who is at least as up to date on birth control as I am.

Here is my vision of health care. It is doctor-focused here, but I would happily see a nurse practitioner if there were any. 

First, medical school should be accessible and affordable. People who want to be doctors should be able to be doctors.  That way, we end up with doctors who want to be doctors, not doctors who want to be rich / famous / just like X relative who was a doctor.

Second, residency should not break anyone's relationship or spirit. Doctors need families.  They need support. They need to be treated as human beings if they are to treat other human beings.

Third, general practice should pay well.  Doctors should be able to maintain a practice and a private life and make a living. 

If people go in to medicine in order to help people, if family doctors can make enough money to live comfortably and not have to sacrifice everything, money and soul, to be physicians, then I truly believe there would be enough general practitioners to go around.  Everyone would have a doctor she trusts.  Everyone would have an annual check up. Everyone would know what "normal" was for her, so that when something was abnormal, she would recognize it. Her doctor could say, "Hey, you haven't had headaches like this before.  Better not operate any chainsaws for a while, at least until we can run some tests."

That frees up a bed in Emergency. And it also frees up my current doctor to go back to school and figure out what she really wants to do with her life. Cattle hand, perhaps?  Or electrician? I think I'll give her a list of suggestions at my last visit.

Original post for the Canada Moms Blog.  Clara blogs here and tweets here and really is grateful for socialized medicine.

I Am Not A Jerk After All!

I had the strangest experience today.  I was dealing with my almost-3-year-old, who is a bit of a pain lately, what with the constant questions and ornery behavior.  He was begging me for cookies or milk or attention or something and he tripped over my foot and fell on the floor, forcing that whiny cry that means he's had enough cookies for one day and needs some protein to balance out the sugar, stat.

I said, "Oh, that must have hurt."
He said, "Yeah!"
I said, "Here, have a drink of milk."
He said, "Thank you."

Then I went into the kitchen and gave my head a shake.  I felt no anger, no boiling rage, no frustration, even, besides the low level of frustration that is always present.  I felt only sympathy.  Poor kid.  He's all wound up because we haven't gone outside yet today and my feet are huge, he trips over them all the time and how embarrassing for him. 

Is it Still A Vacation if You Don't Go Anywhere?

On May 26th, my husband and I will have been married 8 years; the past three with kids.  These years have been pleasant, with most of the usual ups and downs of a relationship.  It's possible we experienced the 7-year-itch but who is to say; we have both been semi-conscious for the past 12 months, ever since our second son was born.

The past year has been stressful.  To say the least.  I knew that going from one to two kids would be harder in some ways and easier in others, but I didn't expect the hard ways to be so physically exhausting.  The logistics of getting out of the house in the morning, for example, have near-paralyzed me on more than one occasion.  I did not expect to be paralyzed by the prospect of a trip to the grocery store.  I am a grown woman, one who takes a lot of vitamins! 

The Only Reason I Would Consider A TV In My Car

In the summer of 1999, my husband and I, at that time just friends, took off for a two-month jaunt around North America in a Dodge camper van with carpet and captain's chairs.  We camped and drove and camped and drove and ate Taco Bell bean burritos (only $0.79 USD!) and drank wine from boxes and sweated a LOT - the van had no air conditioning and it was a hot summer in the American South, go figure - and when we came home we were 20 pounds lighter, our hair unruly and bleached from the sun, our skin brown from dust and campfire smoke.  There is a photo of us that we asked a passer-by to take just after we returned to Vancouver.  We are posing with the van in a back alley, filthy and free and slightly glaze-eyed at being back in the city.   

Two great loves were born that summer.  Ours for each other and mine for traveling great, purposeless distances by car.

The van is long gone and I have since completed a few road trips just as compelling in a Toyota Tercel to Winnipeg but my longing to spend another summer cavorting with no sense of purpose other than discovery and adventure has not faded.  Even as I am currently mother to a 1 and 3 year old, in a suburban townhouse, with no hope of parole, er, vacation, for a few years yet, I have been considering the possibility of packing up, driving away, aiming vaguely for the East coast.  Could we do it with kids?  And would we want to?

Why Canada's National Sport Gives Me Nightmares

When I was working and pregnant with my second child I had a conversation with a colleague on a Monday morning.  He told me about his weekend.  On Friday night he had played in a hockey tournament.  Saturday morning: up at 4 am to take his son to hockey practice.  Saturday afternoon: son's hockey game.  Sunday morning: up at 4 am again for daughter's hockey practice.

"That'll be your weekend in a few years," he said, gesturing to my belly.
"Hell no, it will not," I replied, "My children will not be playing hockey.  My children will not even know what hockey IS until they are out of my house."

I got a funny look for that.  Because how could you deny your children the joy of hockey!   Canada's other official sport, besides lacrosse!

Easy.  My deepest, most shameful anti-Canadian secret is this:  I do not want to be a hockey mom.

Kicking Calm: How I Learned to Embrace My Angry Side

I was at the dentist recently, having two teeth filled.  He finished the first tooth, which he had drilled so deep I swear I felt my eyeballs cower in fear, and took his mask off. 

"Are you all right?" he said.

I looked away from "CBC Newsworld: Politics" (mental note: next time schedule dentist's appointment for 4 pm so I can at least watch Oprah) and nodded. 

"I can tell you're a mom," he said, "you're so calm."

Calm? 

Sure - when my face is frozen with anesthetic and I'm reclined in a comfy chair, watching TV.  Unless the dentist and his assistant climb up on my lap and start screaming at me, one in each ear, I am sure to remain calm, relaxed even.  Going to the dentist is almost as good as a spa visit these days.  But with my kids, when I'm being a mom?  I am not generally calm.  And I am OK with that.