Just put your feet in these stirrups here.

I love the Townships in May and June. Little Princess and I walked into town, bought a few things (a new wire barbecue brush at the cheapo store, tofu, lemon pepper, quinoa and bulgur at the health food store, and four packages of basil seed at the feed store), did some business at the bank, made appointments with the campus doctor for tomorrow and, most importantly, I have an appointment to see a doctor tomorrow. Right, I know, you have no idea how important or impressive this is.

I live in Canada with socialized health care, right? It costs me nothing (apart from what I pay in my exorbitantly high taxes) to see a medical practitioner when the need arises. Except there are no medical practitioners around to be seen. I have not had a family doctor in years. Literally. Doctors are not taking new patients and even though medical schools are graduating physicians at a great rate, they do not stick around. Oh no, they generally flee south of the border (that would be to the US of A) where they can make more money because they do not have socialized medicare there. Get it?

So, it turns out that the university has a doctor at health services whose talents are underutilized since our enrollment has taken a downturn the last couple of years. Her services are now being offered to the university community at large (i.e. employees and part-time students) when available for a small fee ($10, which I think I can afford), our provincial medicare paying the rest, which would be considerably more.

I’ve seen this doctor before as she worked for a while at the community clinic where my family doctor is supposed to be (she herself has been on medical leave for years now and every time I’ve gone for this, that and t’other I’ve seen an intern) when I had sciatica. Don’t ever get sciatica, okay? It’s no fun. At all. Period. Seriously. I was in such pain I wanted to lie down on the railway track and wait for the train. Luckily I didn’t and the pain went away. But for a few days there, I just wanted to die. Anything to make it stop.

Okay, so that doctor is now working for student health services and I get to see her tomorrow. Woo hoo! Pap smear, here I come!

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