St Bartholomew-the-less

What a treat the Sunday Service held in the garden courtyard of St Bartholomew-the-less, London, England was. It is situated on the grounds of St Bartholomew's Hospital. The priest was exceptional I have to say. I loved his sermon which did look at the Story of Talents which Jesus told. How we received "talents" at our birth and that God does expect us to use those talents in a meaningful way throughout our life. I have always believed that.

I did rake and covered some more of the gardens with large mounds of leaves - lots of time still for rotting and sinking into the earth before the snow that stays comes. I would call this our rainy season which eventually turns into snow and stays with us for six months give or take. My daughter said the bees live in the leaves though the winter. Sounds good to me. So long as I am not in charge of gardening or regenerative gardening that is a good thing.

Worked on the Siderfin Book as well and slowly but surely I am working my way through the 11th generation. There is one confusing individual that I will continue to sort out tomorrow. But gradually I am merging my cousins material into mine. Well with everything up in the air I guess it doesn't matter anyway. Precision is always nice but a good feature of being human is being able to move on from that, retrench and figure out next steps whatever they are.  I really was extremely relaxed about the whole cataract surgery thing. The timing I said  had to be very precise and gave the dates I said mid-december to Christmas Eve Day for my good eye as I thought they still did surgeries right up to the 24th. To the Secretary I said 15th to the 24th as well as mid December right up to Christmas and that was six months ago. But what comes back (after two messages left by me early November and the optometrist office calling as well since I was told I would hear well before the 1st of November) but the 7th and the 14th of December although I am sure they went very quickly when they were re-assigned. This does not work as I said. However, hopefully this new referral still has some dates just before Christmas. Time will tell. I shall continue working on my book as it does look like it will go into December. It doesn't really matter when my weak eye is done as it can wait until the 15th of May to the 15th of July if there aren't any spots in early January. My brain does not actually use the weak eye except when I force it to work which I have been trying to do. I was patched as a child (my good eye) but it didn't work for me apparently when I was just one and two and my brain simply wouldn't try to use it after that time. I was surprised when I tried to use it consciously (my nephew recommended it) and with patching of the good eye and really concentrating I can see a little but it would take a lot of effort and probably the brain would still not use it in conjunction! Likely I am too old; but one never knows I suppose.No ideas on that. But necessity is the mother of invention for sure.

My reading of the available medical literature (available to me) indicates that a monofocal IOL lens set to clear-distance vision will be best for me (did not realize I would have to do that reading actually as I would have done it in advance so I would know about lens and things). Not exactly how I wanted to spend that particular time but anyways education never hurts. Putting a $1000 lens on a useless eye is just weird (the surgery is $2000 for the more advanced lens system). Having two different lens even weirder. The Eye Institute isn't actually part of TOH I guess since there isn't a chart for me in the Records Department showing the results of my extra eye tests or my referral appointment (one test was reimbursed by my private health insurance). I worked at the General Campus/Medical School for five-six years in total. When I was working for a physician at the General in what became Women's Health at the Riverside I was involved in the patient's records being centralized to the Records Department at that time (2004-2006) as I was the Exec Sec. I just thought they all were. 

One wonders if I donate $2000 (the cost of the more expensive lens) to The Ottawa Hospital can this happen any quicker; probably not and I am understanding people's frustration at getting things medical done. I generally donate in December (a smaller amount than $2000!; my pennies only go so far) to The Ottawa Hospital in memory of Edward and will also give a donation to Montfort this year in his memory. I am gradually getting donations sorted around. I had donations that I preferred and Edward had donations that he preferred but it does take awhile to get everything sorted around so you are still honouring your partner's desires and your own.  I am really opposed to private care now that we have gone to socialized medicine as it weakens the system (I was the reverse in the 60s although did switch my thinking way back in the 60s when I was working in the hospital). If you have private hospitals like in England than you can run two systems but we do not have private hospitals and as I said if someone wants to build one go for it but if it becomes untenable then you have to donate it back to the system we are not buying it from you. 

But in terms of paperwork for my cataracts all of the information should be in a file; the initial testing, the interview with the physician was only about fifteen to twenty minutes with her doing most of the talking and my listening. I was surprised to learn of all the changes in lens but then I would have read up on it if I had any idea that so much had changed since my father had his cataract surgery fourty years ago (but I am busy writing this Siderfin book!). She chose the $2000 lens which was fine if it was the best choice but she also knew my one eye was useless so in retrospect it sounds like a waste of $1000 on an eye that doesn't benefit so the OHIP lens would likely have been the better idea (although the $2000 up front cost is supported with insurance so I really wonder that that is a good use of the system when the OHIP lens worked perfectly for my father). However, having said that I have yet to have an actual opinion other than my own on that to be honest. The surgery itself just seems like a straight forward procedure that takes 15 minutes in total. I did feel that the appointment hadn't covered the material as I needed more information and definitely it felt like a rush but medicine is busy I can appreciate that and I decided I would read up on what I had learned when I got home. I did, called back later that day and said I would have the OHIP lens to her secretary and related my time restrictions to her as well (already given to the physician). Then later the other two eye tests and the results should be in a file with them (they did mention they would be speaking with the doctor so did ask the secretary to ask the physician to forward any information from that to the new referral). These two technicians were excellent by the way.  So referring should be pretty simple and I would wish that it had been done last June when it was apparently known already that my times could not be handled by that particular physician (surgery times are set far ahead). Weird really. Perhaps I just slipped through the cracks even yet; no ideas on that for sure. 

I just discovered that along with cataract surgery at the Eye Institute, and the Riverside Campus the Montfort also has an ophthalmology department and they principally only do cataract surgery. So that sounds good for actually getting this done in a timely fashion (there are lots of places for the surgeries to be done in the public system). I prefer not to go private to get the times that I need and certainly mid May to Mid July is a longer period of time although it is somewhat annoying to have it delayed. I will not be able to kayak but on the other hand skiing will be available to me this winter once we have enough snow. So an equal tradeoff I guess. I mean you can claim the cost on your income tax but I have avoided private care all these years as I do not believe it is good for the public system. I do realize that my eyes themselves are somewhat complicated but cataract surgery has been done for over fourty years and looks pretty straightforward for the actual process and recovery (plus my dad's eyes were exactly the same and his was most successful fourty years ago). I just happen to have a difficult schedule in order to avoid having to use up nursing care on my insurance as I really do not need a nurse just my daughter who is willing and able to manage at particular times; my other daughter has thousands of patients and a busy schedule at her hospital so would definitely not interfere with those patients who need her. Plus the nurse is not going to pick me up at the hospital after surgery! Back to cleaning. I shall be patient though as this new referral is most interesting as he has trained here in Canada and did a fellowship in the States.

On to the day, up early, thinking too much probably. Will have a nap after breakfast which is soon as I am hungry. This is a cleaning day so not much work done on anything else before tomorrow. I may send my thoughts on solving the problems of not enough family medicine specialists for people in Ontario to the Federal Retirees of which I am a member (because my husband was). I was a provincial civil servant when I worked at the hospital. That is HOOP and I could send it to them but they are not particularly political. The Federal Retirees definitely does get into such things although generally on the federal level but I think the proposal is sound and would certainly get extra skilled people into Family Medicine whilst the Baby Boomers go through the system as they age; they would not stay permanently of course (although once in it is a fascinating specialty) and would continue onto their second specialty which only Family Medicine graduates can do. But the accumulated hands on knowledge can only benefit anyone in medicine. As I played with the math they could actually work for just two years as Family Medicine Specialists and still help to solve the crisis in terms of available Family Physician Specialists and help to reduce their student debt before heading into their preferred specialty. Doing the Second Year rotations of Family Medicine in doctor's offices as is normal for that specialty and then doing two years as Family Physician Specialists does put a lot more people into these offices where they are needed for primary care. Mind you I do realize that the existing Family Medicine Specialists will have to add supervision in a much larger way to their daily tasks but it may take some other workload off of them hopefully. Each year there would be a guaranteed group into the system and it can change when that need has satisfied itself; i.e. enough family physicians for the people of Ontario since that is where I live but it could be effective in any province that has a medical school (and provinces that do not could share the expense of keeping it going to benefit). It is  a lot cheaper to run a clinic than it is to run an overloaded hospital!

Breakfast, I am hungry. Weight is stable, date squares are a great addition to the diet. Should make them but it would make too many but they might freeze. Shall investigate.