Issue #955
Including:

From Russ

The Ontarion

Hi All,

Normally we’d all be bummed out with the fact that we are now past Labor Day weekend and summer is psychologically over. This year it doesn’t seem to matter all that much and it’s almost a relief. I’m hopping that things kind of calm down and settle down a bit around here now that school has sort of gone back, and some people are sort of going back to work. The amount of crazy people desperate to escape the city over the last couple of months has made life miserable for the locals living along the Sea to Sky corridor. Traffic heading out of the city and coming north up the highway each and every day has been like a wild stampede of desperate, entitled lunatics. Then each evening it all happens again as they race and rage, heading back to the city. The carnage has been staggering, often causing the highway to be closed for hours at a time as the mess gets cleaned up from the endless crashes. And yes, crashes, not ‘accidents’. I hate that word, it gives the bad and impatient drivers an ‘out’ from having to take any sort of moral responsibility for their behavior. So, hopefully, things will calm down a bit now, at least on week days. Weekends will probably stay insane until the dark days of November when camping in some ditch becomes somewhat bit less attractive.

As it currently is, there is very little to do, and really no where to go. Anything or place that isn’t closed is running on reduced hours or reduced services. Any place that is open for business is too busy to be safe. And on it goes. So we may as well be over with summer and get on with fall where the masses will hopefully start to hunker down a bit and stay home.

As well, with the kids now back to school, we won’t be able to see them again for a while. They and their parent’s bubble must expand somewhat and therefore, ours must shrink. As with any of you who have kids or grandkids going back to school, it becomes a bit more scary. No one knows what exposures the others around them have been having. No one knows what kids have been sent off to school just because the parent’s wanted a day off from parenting. And so on. If things go well and smoothly we’ll see the girls in perhaps a month. If cases start going up, it could be a lot longer before we see them. However, unlike with our grandparents, we have cool technologies like FaceTime etc. We can see and be seen every evening, instantly and in real time, on-screen, instead of in real life. That will do because it will have to do, and time still goes by faster than any of us want it to.

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This week’s musical selection is an oldie by Bob Dylon called ‘Don’t Think Twice’. While it’s a fun song to do, it’s also fairly difficult for a couple of reasons. Firstly, there are 4 rather wordy verses to learn the lyrics for and secondly, it can be done slowly or fastly or anywhere in between depending on the style and flavor one gives it. But the style must fit the tempo, or vice versa. So, it can come out ok, or it can come out crappy, and its all subjective and depends on what the listener is expecting to hear. So, the bottom line with this one is that if you don’t have your expectations set too high, you shouldn’t have too much of a problem with my rendition. Or that’s the theory, the way I see it. But for what it’s worth, I think I played it a bit too fast, and, just to be different, I’m wearing a white T-shirt instead of my usual gray one.

Don’t Think Twice

doug

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From Russ

Cover-up?

Many years ago I injured both ‘rotator cuffs’, but being young and stupid did nothing about it. Now I’m old and stupid and have been told by at least two surgeons that there’s nothing they can do about my damaged shoulders. They are both beyond ‘repair’ and certainly beyond ‘replacement’ (the shoulders, not the surgeons). Pain management is my only hope.

This is now a ‘chronic’ condition and I’ve had several injections over the years giving pain relief from two months to two years or more. Have never had a ‘bad reaction’ until about two years ago when my family doctor nearly killed me.

The process should go like this: a doctor agrees to do the injection and sends a fax to my pharmacist who prepares the ‘cocktail’ as per my doc’s directions. I pick up and pay for the stuff, and proceed to the clinic where I have an appointment with my doc to shove the long, long, needle deep into my shoulder hitting the right spot which causes excruciating pain for about 3 seconds – then it’s done and I’m asked to wait 15 minutes before leaving the emerge.

I walk out ‘pain free’! What a great feeling! But this one time it didn’t go like it was supposed to. My doc was working in Emerg on this particular Saturday, and I was to meet him there and he would administer the injection. I arrived in plenty of time and was asked to wait in a regular waiting room. The doc arrived and asked,

“Where’s the medication?”

“I don’t have it – I wasn’t sent a prescription”

“Well it’s your responsibility to bring the meds to me – we don’t keep that stuff here in the hospital”, he replied angrily.

(silence)

“Now what?”, I asked.

“I’ll go and see what I can find around here” he snapped. He returned in a short time with some stuff, and told me to sit on the cot, while he prepared the ‘shot’.

As he was pushing in the needle, he appeared to hesitate. Looking into my eyes he said,

“I’ve done lots of these – just relax”. I was relaxed, and the needle didn’t hurt as much as it sometimes does. When he was finished, he instructed me to sit on a chair in the room for about 15 minutes. As I waited, I began feeling euphoria (it was wonderful!), then my legs began to numb – then my arms – my jaw – I couldn’t speak or call for help. Then someone came in, and I was sliding off the chair and was helpless to stop myself. I’m not sure what happened next, but three people came rushing in and stripped my upper clothing off over my head, and laid me down on the table. Lots of things were going on – everyone was in a hurry – someone shouted “Code Blue!”. Someone spoke to me, telling me who she was, and shining a penlight into my eyes. I was hooked up with a bunch of electrodes on my chest and arms. I remember asking, “Why am I standing on a board?” It seemed I was bare-footed, and standing upright on a flat, smooth board. But, a voice said calmly,

“You are lying on your back” Then turning to speak to another nurse or doctor said, “He keeps asking why he’s standing on a board”. After a while, the ‘rush’ was over. I was feeling more normal – I could move my limbs. “What happened to me ?” My doc was now in the room, examining me. I said, “Did I have a bad reaction to the shot?”

“No, you’re all right – no reaction – just some ‘apprehension’ we give this same injection to many of our in-patience who suffer from severe pain”, was his lame explanation.

I firmly believe the doc injected me with the wrong medication.

Angry with himself for not sending a prescription to my pharmacy so I could have brought the right medication, he found something that would do and injected something bad into my left shoulder nearly killing me!

Tune in next week to learn what happened at the clinic today.

I’m holding a prescription and reading the label;

Methylpredinis acet 40/Ml

For use in physician’s office.

Uncle Russ.

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THE ONTARION REPORT

Hello everyone!

Well, summer is almost at an end and fall is just around the corner! It’s starting to feel cooler each day and I’ve even noticed that the leaves are beginning to turn colour. It won’t be long and we’ll all be out raking or blowing the leaves off our lawns. This is the time of year for spreading our fall fertilizer so the lawns green up when spring comes around. I guess I’m getting ahead of things by thinking so far in advance. Oh well, most of us tend to try to think past the impending winter months here in Canada. I’m hoping I guess that the sooner spring arrives, the sooner this Covid – 19 problem may be solved! I know it is getting worse and worse worldwide but there’s always hope for a cure in the near future, isn’t there? It’s time for people to get out and have their flu shots to protect us from another annual problem! Here’s hoping for a less than serious flu season but I doubt that’s going to happen this year. Just have to stay home as much as possible and try to keep things contained by doing so, along with the proper precautions for lessening the spread of Covid-19! Hand washing and mask wearing are the main precautions to keep up! Let’s keep our fingers crossed that the second wave isn’t as bad as expected!

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On a positive note, I had my tri-monthly check up with my kidney specialist today via phone call this morning and as it turned out, it was with very good results! He went over my medication list and since all is working well, he made no changes to that heavy list! I’m still taking the same 23 pills per day and that’s maintaining my heart and kidney functions! Made me very happy that he thinks all is well with what I’m doing to stay healthy these days. I don’t need any more health issues for sure!

Speaking of health issues, what’s with all the downing’s this year? It seams that people can’t stay out of the lakes when the waves are obviously too large for safe swimming! I guess they’re just eager to get out of the house and enjoy some summer activities while the weather is still warm. The water hazard isn’t the only situation taking lives this year. How about all the motor vehicle deaths this past 10 months? It seams that every night on the news there are several deaths due to collisions on our roads and highways! With that in mind, this year has been one of the worst on record for motorcycle deaths in Ontario. When compared to last year, the number of deaths on motorcycles has increased by more than 25%. So far this year, there have been 27 deaths in motorcycle involved incidents as compared to 14 last year by the stats I’ve heard. It’s a shame that there are any deaths on our roads but I guess with so many people riding on two wheels to enjoy the good weather and so few people paying full attention when driving or riding it’s bound to increase the number of collisions! When I was still on the fire department, we’d have two or three collisions involving motorcycles in a summer and even that many were bothersome back then! I’m actually glad that I sold my motorcycle a few years ago. I did enjoy riding but after a few years of it I decided that the roads were dangerous enough driving on 4 wheels let alone trying to stay safe on a two wheeled machine! The longest ride I took was one with Adam when we both had motorcycles and set out to ride all the way to Cape Cod Mass to do some whale watching. We entered the States at Buffalo and got onto I believe it was highway US 19 (not sure of the number) but it is the east/west highway that stretches all the way from Buffalo to Boston Mass. It was a fun but quite tiresome ride indeed. We made it all the way to Cape Cod without incident as well as home again safely. I think we were both very glad to reach home after a week of riding on two wheels! The trip was enjoyable and so was the whale watching! We saw many huge whales off the shores of Cape Cod and that excursion is one we will never forget! Actually, Carole and I had taken a whale watching tour not long before Adam and I had our adventure doing the same. Carole and I had taken a trip in the car to the states of New England the year before Adam and I did it on the bikes! Seeing the whales was the thrill of a lifetime and we’ve got quite a few great pictures of the whales breaching in the waters off New England.

The photos are something to look back on and of course tend to stir great memories of that trip! We’ll have to dig the photos out again and take a look back one of these nights. That’ll be something to do on a quiet Covid – 19 evening when we’re looking for something to fill a few hours!

Well, that’s about all I have in mind this week!

Thanks for tuning in and I’ll look forward to talking to you all again next time in The Ontarion Report!

Bye for now … Greg

PS: Something To Think About>

Good Idea for filling an evening, go dig out your old photos and bring back all those great memories!

Addition: A Bluejay, a Cardinal and a Dove all walk into a bar: The bartender looks at the three of them and says "I suppose you want half a dozen wings?!"

#2: > A horse walks into a bar and the bartender says: " Hey, why the long face?"

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