Tuesday, October 28, 2008

One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest

Today was my third appointment with the lovely folks on the Eighth Floor of the old Victoria Hospital here in town. Pretty much the only floor left at the hospital that is still in use, other than the seventh which is used in conjunction with the eighth to warehouse their psych patients. Today was my appointment with one of their Psychologists. I've already been seen by a Psychiatrist and Occupational Therapist there as part of my assessment/treatment for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder resulting from the attack back in May.  Their next step now will be for the three of them to sit down together to discuss what I talked about at each of their sessions and for them to put together some sort of attack plan to put all of me back together again! Today's session lasted just over three hours, the longest of the sessions so far. So far I've been most impressed with my "team" and have ended up feeling surprisingly comfortable and at ease talking to them. Color me shocked!

Jim will eventually also have to start some sort of this therapy but I think that his doctors want him to have some more physiotherapy to aid his physical wounds before they introduce anything new to his mix. His next physiotherapy appointment is not until Thursday afternoon so we've got a days rest between the two. Well, sort of cause tomorrow is "doctor" day at the clinic so not so much of a break! The only downside to his physiotherapy  appointments is that they are literally on the other side of town. Even though we only have to take one bus, we end up being on the bus for an hour and twenty minutes! The upside is his therapy is located beside a mall that I practically never, ever go to because of how far away it is from us. I take advantage of the time that he is with his Physiotherapist to do some shopping! Just a win, win situation all around.

Speaking of hospitals, this certainly has been the week for them in my family. My foster daughter, Katie, just got home from the emergency after getting treatment for her earlobe. She put a stretcher in her right lobe that ended up being too big or put too much stress or something that she got an infection as well as splitting her lobe. I had no idea in advance that she was even going to do something like this so by the time she showed me, it was already infected. She is over eighteen and allegedly an adult after all. Apparently once the infection has healed, they will be able to recommend a plastic surgeon to repair the lobe. Ouch!!!

Yesterday, my daughter, Sara, got a phone call from her boyfriend, Andre, around lunchtime to let her know that he was at the emergency because he got his thumb caught in one of the machines at his work and that he was about to go into surgery so that his thumb could be saved and repaired. He is over here right now and all is well with him and his thumb apparently. Thank goodness. Already too much excitement and its only Tuesday evening. The week isn't even half over yet! Fingers crossed that it will only be uphill from here!!!

2 comments:

Noah said...

Do they charge for methadone in Canada? If so what is that charge?

thx
N.

sickgirl said...

Hi Noah,

Thanks so much for stopping by and taking the time to do some reading. I can only answer for how Ontario, the province that I live in, handles methadone. I understand that the daily charge for methadone does vary from clinic to clinic throughout Ontario. To further narrow down things, I live in London, which is a reasonably large city about a two hours drive west of Toronto, and am charged $5.00/day at the clinic - obviously we pay $10.00/day as we are two!

If you are covered by your employer's health plan, then you wouldn't have to pay anything. Until August 15 of this year, my fees were all looked after by our work plan - until it was cancelled because we are both collecting WSIB benefits due to the attack and stabbing that occured during our working hours in May.

Since then, we have been paying for our methadone out of our own pocket. While I understand that our company wasn't doing anything illegal by terminating our benefits, they certainly crossed on over to a grey area ethically. Obviously, this action has left a certain bitter taste in my mouth, but I'll not bore you now with this rant! This may be best left for another day!

I know that many of the patients at my clinic are covered by various forms of available social assistace from Ontario such as the health benefits offered through Ontario Works.