The Squamidian Report – May 7 / 16
Issue #728
Including:
The Ontarion
Hi All,
There sure seems to be a lot going on in the country these days, most
of it not good at all. But, in all honesty, I haven't been paying as
much attention as I'd normally be doing. For the last week, no, make
that two weeks, I've been pretty well down and out. It all started with
every bone and muscle in my body hurting and then I started coughing so
hard I thought I'd hack my lungs right out of my body. At some point I
had gotten so weak I could barley sit up. 'The Wife' decided I needed
medical attention fairly soon and called to make a doctor's
appointment. If he could see me quickly I'd go that route, otherwise,
I'd go to the walk-in clinic. Turned out he could see me the next
morning, except that it wouldn't be 'him', it would be a doctor that
was filling in for him. As far as I was concerned, that was a good
thing because our family doctor is always in way too much of a hurry to
give his patients even remotely the time needed to deal with their
needs so I'm always relieved when 'he' turns out to be someone else. I
walked in to his office and he turned out to be a she. She was filling
in, in the mornings, for him and working her usual shift as the
emergency doctor at the local hospital in the afternoons. After
listening to my story and checking a few things she sent me up to emerg
to have a chest X-ray. She suspected pneumonia, which the X-ray
verified. Her instructions to me had been that my X-ray results would
be sent to my doctor's office and she would leave a note for him to
watch for them. She also said that she'd be working the afternoon at
the hospital and if things got worse I was supposed to come and see her
in emerg.
That evening at about 7:30, the phone rang. It was her. She had
finished her shift and decided to check my X-rays herself rather than
have me wait for the family doctor to get the results and then
supposedly and eventually deal with them. The gist of her call was she
wanted to know what pharmacy we us so she could phone in a prescription
right away herself and therefore save us a lot of time. Wow, I'm not
used to that kind of care, concern or service. By 9 that evening I had
started my twice daily antibiotics regiment. Those things kick in
pretty fast and I've been mending quite nicely but I can't believe how
fast I'd been sinking. I also can't figure out where or how I got
pneumonia. Never had it before in my life. Don't think I ever want it
again. I also can't believe how fast and caring the health care system
can be when you run into the right people, as opposed to how slow and
frustrating and perhaps even dangerous it can be when you are just 'a
number'. By the end of this week I even felt strong enough to lift the
bike off its side stand and go out for a toot in the hot sunshine.
And I do mean 'hot'. Holy Mackerel, its been hot here. We have somehow
gotten ourselves into a summertime heat pattern thats been setting all
sorts of new hight temp records. It was 30 in Squamish on Friday and
several times during the week. Thats way too hot. We are losing our
snowpack and it is getting dry out there. That is scary. Fingers
crossed for rain.
doug
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THE ONTARION REPORT
Hello everyone!
WOW, is there a load of sad news that’s been plaguing Alberta over the
past number of years! With all the happenings that have hit that
province it’s hard to turn on the news without hearing another sad
story from out west!
First of all, 11 years ago March 3rd, 2005 the
town of Mayerthorpe Alberta was thrown into shock when four of their
RCMP officers were murdered by a lone gunman/farmer on a rural property
that he owned. He ambushed them as they entered a Quonset hut building
on his farm to investigate illegal goings on that had been reported to
their office that day. The shock of such an event put the town on the
map and was in the news for weeks on end. The town and many other
Canadian citizens donated funds to erect a small park along side the
highway leading to Mayerthorpe that now contains the bronze statues of
the four brave men who lost their lives that sunny day! Every year on
the anniversary date of the murders there is a ceremony held by Grade
11 students at the park in remembrance of the four town heroes and
their families. Last week the town of Mayerthorpe was again in shock
and in the news after it was announced that one of their own
Firefighters had been arrested and charged with 18 counts of arson
after setting fire to the heritage railroad bridge that was a well
known site and vital link to their town from other parts of Alberta.
The young man charged was a Mayerthorpe volunteer Firefighter and also
the son of Mayerthorpes former mayor! He is only 19 years of age and
was responsible for setting 18 fires in and around the town so he could
help fight the fires and in doing so make some extra money! This was
indeed a shock to the entire town as well as to his brother
firefighters! The Fire Chief stated that the entire fire dept staff
actually felt more in morning than in shock. He said it was so
difficult to believe one of their own could do such a thing and
especially the young man charged. As a young child he was honored by
the town as a “junior” Fire Chief because he was so into becoming a
firefighter when he grew up. What a shame to have him be the arsonist
they’d been hunting for over the past year that had set a total of 18
fires! This young man will no doubt spend a good part of his future
years in jail due to his actions and of course his life from this point
on will be ruined by his actions.
The next situation affecting the citizens of
Alberta has been the ongoing drought that has plagued the province for
the past two years. It’s not only made the farming situation very
difficult but it’s also affected everything from the cost of food to
the drinking water supply in many small towns!
With many troubles already on their minds, Albertans were hit with the
oil crisis over the past couple of years and have suffered
economically. With severe job losses due to the oil fields crisis many
Albertans have lost not only their livelihood but their homes as well.
This has kept Alberta in the news for the past
couple of years with nothing to do about it but keep their fingers
crossed that the new federal government will be able to turn the
economy around in favour of the oil sands project so that Alberta will
once again spring back to life on the world stage as a major oil
producing province!
As if the previously mentioned problems facing
the people of Alberta wasn’t enough to battle against, the city of Fort
McMurray also in northern Alberta is in the midst of a very real crisis
at this very moment. The drought affecting the province has made it a
giant tinder box and as I’m sure you all know that city of 80,000
people is in a shambles due to the huge forest fire that is burning
over 7500 hectares (10,700+ acres) and has burned more than 1600 homes
and businesses in Fort Mac! The city has been evacuated over the past
couple of days and many of the citizens will have no homes to returned
to once the fire is extinguished. This almost unstoppable fire will not
only burn most of the homes etc in Fort McMurray but due to the amount
of acrid smoke and ash created by the fire the remainder of the homes
and commercial buildings in the city will be uninhabitable once the
fire has either been extinguished or has burned itself out! This soon
to be ghost town will most likely be akin to Russia’s Chernobyl, but
without the radioactivity! I’m sure the city will eventually be rebuilt
once the oil sands crisis is solved and the economy picks up but it’s
going to take an incredible amount of money and years of hard work to
bring it back to life!
All I can say is let’s keep Albertans in our
prayers and may GOD and the rest of Canada help them through this awful
situation!
That’s it for this week folks!
Thanks for tuning in and I’ll look forward to talking to you all again next week in The Ontarion Report!
Bye for now … Greg
PS: Something To Think About>
Good judgment comes from experience, and a lotta that comes from bad judgment!
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Have a good one..
the doug
The Fine Print!
The articles in these issues are the sole property of the persons writing them and should be respected as such.
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