[evank15]

Monday night I developed light abdominal pain which graduated into harsher abdominal pain by Tuesday morning. I decided it would be a good idea to go up to the local walk-in clinic.

So I get up there and there is five or six people ahead of me. By this time the pain is a lot worse. I tell the receptionist I'm in rough shape. She asks for my BC Care Card, asks who my family doctor is, and in three minutes a doctor is seeing me. The doctor asks me to pee in a cup. Okay. Five minutes later he says my pee is clean, but judging by where the pain is it could be my appendix. He tells me to go to the emergency at the hospital.

Front of the line service at Walk-in Clinic, urine test and consultation. Cost: $0

I get to the emergency. There's a woman at the reception with some useless problem. She also happens to be american. There are also a number of others with less serious maladies waiting. By this time I am really hurting, probably the worst pain in my life. After a few minutes they talk to me. I barf in front of them twice. I give them my walk in clinic paper and my care card. They admit me. Nurse comes to see me, says doctor will be right with you.

Ten minutes later I get an IV going and they hit me with Gravol and morphine. Not enough I say. Half hour later they give me more. Doctor says I need to have an MRI to make sure it's my appendix and not colitis or something else. 30 mins later it's MRI time. Wow, that was easy. It's my appendix. Doctor says I'll be in for surgery ASAP. I say I need more morphine. Finally they hit me with enough and I pass out. A few hours roll by while I'm sleeping. 5PM comes and it's surgery time. I am so high on morphine by this time, I have never been more comfortable in my life. It turns out the Chief of Medicine is going to be doing my surgery. Sounds good to me. By 7:00 I'm in post-op. 4 nurses there taking care of just me. By 9:00 I get to my room. Nice big room shared with three old women. I get one of the window quarters. Yay. More morphine. Morphine throughout the night from the pretty young nurse assigned to us. Quite comfortable.

Now it's Wednesday night and I'm home. It was an ordeal, but I got through it. And guess how much money I owe? Yep, you guessed it.

For all the ****ing on this country's health care system gets, I think it deserves a round of applause once in a while. The system served me well. Thank you Tommy Douglas, thank you Canada.