Hello,
Welcome to the land of Alberta, where healthcare is free as long as you don’t die waiting for it.
In June of this year I woke up to swollen hands. Every day for a week I’d hope maybe it would get better, but the pain and swelling spread. I moved like a hundred year old person. My eyes teared up while changing my toddler.
I couldn’t cut my own food and struggled to brush my teeth. I went to my doctor. He noted I recently cut carbs out and said “put them back in your diet and see me later.”
Fortunately it was school break at that point, so I spent a month of summer doing research. I added some supplements and bought compression socks, which took me ten minutes to put on. I went back to the doctor and told him my
hands weren’t better and were in a permanent claw position. My shoulders hurt and I couldn’t get out of bed some days. I was worried about caring for my children and that this wasn’t ending.
He told me to take an NSAID and Tylenol together and come back if it doesn’t improve. The next month after some improvement in pain (not performance) I went to an urgent care. I was about to start work and I begged for help.
I can’t “not work”. I have no diagnosis and would get no financial assistance, I was just starting work for a new school division and hadn’t worked my first day yet. I was prescribed steroids for five days and told to ask my doctor for a rheumatologist referral.
I went to a new doctor and cried, begging for help. He prescribed a new NSAID and gave me a referral to rheumatology and neurology, because the swelling and pain had not changed and I was losing feeling in my hands and arms.
There were good days and bad days, and the only improvement was some movement in my hands. I could cook for myself again. I also paid for several tools to help me open containers and learned to carry things with my forearms.
It’s October. I am on waiting lists. I have considered spending my time setting up my family to live without me rather than waiting, because the pain and uselessness is almost unbearable. I can’t stop working because there’s
no social safety net for people like me. A temporary contract, a list of symptoms, and waiting to see specialists. Five months of barely being able to get dressed. Five months of wondering why I, less than 40, woke up one day unable to use my hands or walk
without shuffling.
This is not like my appendicitis, which was seen immediately. Because I have some functionality, I can wait. And wait. And keep coming back to make a fool of myself asking for help to be told there is none until these specialists
have time.
Nobody is coming for me. I’m just told to wait.
Thanks Alberta health care. I'm glad you’re free, but I hate being treated like my life is of no urgency.
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