Anakana Schofield

What a rare old weather day … sun with bluster that became bluster with eye assault… which dipped to cold to colder and foggy cold was the final note. The most distinctive bout of fog so far this Autumn/winter season which my son insisted was not fog at all but gunpowder.

A very Sherlock Holmes finish to Halloween evening. I lacked my usual stamina for traipsing door to door and did a short bit with the family and left to knit with Lori, while the boyos and Grandma carried on.

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This afternoon at the prostate clinic I was reassured to see a couple of other young women, an old man with pigtails (not a Halloween costume) until finally a poor fella was rolled up on a bed with only a quarter of an oxygen tank remaining. I offered that he should go ahead of me and then worried the entire appointment about his oxygen tank expiring while the Dr. talked to me because somehow he didn’t jump the queue as I hoped he might. Due to this excessive worrying I now have a sheet of paper for some kind of test and have no idea what it’s for, so will take it to the lab for some translating.

Urologic Science reminds me so much of St Pancreas train station in London. I think you’d have to have been there to understand the connection. But the strident looking trains getting set to depart to the North remind me off the patients who exit from their appointments with good news, the handshake from the Dr and six-month-to one-yearly check up appointment. They skip out of there. Perhaps it was a good clinic today, since multiple skippers exited.  But there’s the returns and the one-way tickets in there also. Co-incidentally I saw a man out on the street before I went in who had the look of Jack Layton about him and I had a bit of a Jack moment remenbering that it still seems astonishing that he’s dead and not say, leaning on a cane or climbing stairs in Ottawa.

I am lucky as they seem to have figured out my problem. The care is excellent in that clinic.  (They also use Macs..) Canadian Health Care at its best. I won’t have a bad word said against our health care system.

Yesterday I listened to Jack Layton get buried in French en route to and in the car park of a supermarket.

A woman sang Rise Up. I sat in a hot car surrounded by passing shopping trolleys.

It was desperately sad. Still it felt appropriate to be upset and mourn the loss of him amid getting on with the practicalities of the day.

Also, I recommend getting buried in French. Somehow it’s more satisfying.

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This week I also had cause to attend the Prostate Clinic. I learnt there are 10,000 patients at that VGH clinic.

I sat between 2 old men and felt pretty special. The place reminded me of Heathrow Airport.

I like my doctor very much and we both agreed it’s good I do not have a prostate.

I asked him how can we feel hopeful if Jack Layton who has full access to healthcare and appeared a fit, healthy man (to my eye) and excellent advocate for himself cannot survive it.

What hope is there for the man who smokes 40 a day and drinks a six pack and doesn’t go to the doctor? Says I.

They do die, he replied, you just don’t hear about them.

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