I was in a tailspin all Monday, and early on Tuesday, I finished filing a complaint with the Provincial Health Services Authority, because I shouldn’t be the intermediary. It shouldn’t take this much of my effort to get this surgery. Summer shouldn’t be the excuse.
I came to find out that my family health practice clinic and BC Cancer were failing to coordinate. If their messages and updates weren’t getting through to each other, that was going to continue to be a big problem. All of Tuesday, I couldn’t think of anything else. I felt so helpless… we really are reliant on the health professionals to take things seriously and push on our behalf for the interventions we need. You can tell based on how many obese people exist that this doesn’t happen properly very often.
On Tuesday evening, my mom reached out to a family friend who lives in Harrop. Harrop is a small community across Kootenay Lake that you take a ferry to reach. As with every location on Kootenay Lake, it offers beautiful scenery and cold cold water on a hot summer day.
While we were visiting, I got the phone call from the PHSA and took about 20 minutes to run down my complaint. I outlined how much I was required to advocate to get this surgery. How I had to put all my eggs in the singular basket of one surgeon who was on vacation. How the tumor has grown since initially noticing it. How the BC Cancer Agency hadn’t sent updates to my family practice since May, or how the practice had failed to pass on messages or receive the faxes from the agency. How at every point, I had to be the intermediary.
When I got off the phone, I felt heard. The Patient Care Quality Officer said she’d be speaking with administration at BC Cancer Kelowna to get them to intervene and find a surgeon. I felt like it could be resolved, by the people who should have facilitated it in the first place, but that was still a relief.
We enjoyed some lemonade and fresh fruit and chips and salsa on the dock in Harrop, and talked about memories and what was new in our lives. It was a gorgeous day, hot but shaded by a large umbrella and surrounded by glacial waters and mountains whose snowcaps had fully melted.
On the way back to Nelson, I’d decided I was too tired to shop. Nelson has one of my favorite stores to buy clothes at and my favorite candy shop, but I felt like getting home was more important. That evening, I watched a little YouTube and went to bed early.
On Thursday, I got up and called BC Cancer to ask for an update. Then I went to an appointment at Renew Medispa and asked a technician what was wrong with my forehead. Apparently, ageing leads to swollen oil glands that don’t go away. She proposed a facial as the least expensive way to make a small difference and also retinol cream every second day. We will see if it minimizes this flaw and makes me a prettier corpse. The appointment didn’t take that long, but I did book a facial for next Friday.
The nurse from BC Cancer got back to me and explained that the oncologist had been in touch with a friend who is a surgeon and she had agreed to take my case on. Now this little seed of hope puts me in the same place, as I’m still waiting, but comforts me that I’m on a specific person’s radar and will hopefully hear from her team soon.
Next week, I will ask for her contact on Tuesday so I can call her office and speed up getting this procedure on the books. Once it’s known and in the calendar, I can book a vacation around it.
That’s what I’m about to do now. Get in touch with a travel agent to help me plan something where i can pull the trigger quickly. I’m ready for something more distracting than local trips around the Kootenay. As beautiful as it is, I don’t feel like I”m seizing the day as much as to go somewhere further away.
Tomorrow, is a day trip to Creston.
Imbued Experiences 
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