Well, the terrible flu I mentioned returned, and a trip to the hospital landed me in the intensive care unit for a while.  It wasn’t the flu after all, but acute pancreatitis caused, it is thought, by previously undiagnosed diabetes.  It seems I’ll be living the remainder of my life at the end of a needle.

The whole hospital experience was thought provoking.  The queue times in the emergency room were very long.  Even being sick enough for ICU, it took 4 hours before I first saw a doctor and 9 hours before I was admitted to hospital.  For most of that time there was nowhere for me to lie down, and sitting up was quite difficult.  People with less severe conditions were waiting 12 or 13 hours to be seen.

Nicole actually suggested during my first attack (when I thought it was some kind of flu) that I should visit the emergency room.  It was the thought of spending the better part of a day waiting to be seen that caused me to resist.

Clearly there is room for improvement in our emergency room capacities, but that’s only one part of the picture.  The larger picture is that I was very sick and in urgent need of medical care.  I got the care I needed, and this being Canada, I came home with no added stress about how to pay the medical bills … aside from the medication and insulin I now need, there are none.

The system is not perfect, but I am ever so grateful that it is there.  The bottom line that when I fell, it was there to catch me.