12:11 a.m. - 2003-01-13
Healing
I don't recall what I dreamt, but I woke with tears under my lashes. Yet, a little later, as I was preparing to go out, I felt a sense of joy and peacefulness. There was nothing in my personal day to give substance to either emotional state, so I guess I will just have to wait to see how that unfolds. When I first opened my eyes, I wondered if it meant that the threatened war had commenced. I'm glad it's not that - at least not for this day.
I went to see my doctor today, just for a check up. It was about one year ago that I became really ill, so it's just a way of measuring my progress. My doctor has just opened his new office, with a number of other doctors on staff, and everything was still being unpacked. It is quite a bit farther than the original clinic where I met him - one bus, then the train, and a one block walk(30 minutes), as opposed to a block and a half walk (7 minutes) - but finding a doctor I trust and respect has been a 10 year search. Besides that, the waits at the first clinic were never less than an hour - appointment or no, so it all equals out when one is seen on time.
While he was checking my blood pressure, my doctor was telling me that the clinics that patients are transferring from are refusing to forward their charts without a large fee for each patient for "admin costs". To my way of thinking, that is against the Federal Health Care Act, since Canadians have the right to choose their own doctor. I can see a fee being applied if a person was known to "doctor shop", but that is obviously not the case when a new clinic is opening and all the patients are transferring. For some patients, the fee will be more than they can afford, essentially meaning the previous clinic is able to punish their "desertion" by putting their health at risk by refusing to pass on vital information. It also isn't right that a new clinic should be forced to absorb the expense either - money paid by taxpayers for health care should go toward just that, not a war of "professional" retribution. I offered to do the photocopying required - the "admin time" - as a volunteer during the time I'm not working. That way, at least my time is being used in a positive way and the money can stay with the patients or be put toward their care instead of being used to assuage someone else's bruised ego. The other clinics'loss of patients should be used as a wake up call to improve their service not as an opportunity for retaliation. That attitude and behaviour, in itself, explains the exodus. Anyway the fact that my blood pressure was relatively normal after that conversation proves I'm doing fine. I'll get my pen - mightier than the sword - out later and see if I can't raise a few politicians' blood pressure.
When I got home, I read that Maurice Gibb, of the Bee Gees, died overnight - I think that's very sad. It seems that group has always been part of my life and I can't think of a ballad they've sung or written that I haven't loved. Over the years, they've been dissed because of their flexibility in musical genres even though neither quality nor creativity suffered - it being implied that that makes them lightweights. I often think professional jealousy is speaking when that kind of putdown in any career is used. I also think the ease with which the Bee Gees expressed universal emotions such as grief, love, and pain threatened a lot of people who couldn't deal with that clarity.
Tonight Muchmusic ran a recent profile of the groups'long history - it was very well done. I hope Maurice's death doesn't silence the surviving brothers - Barry and Robin. Honouring the memory of their brother, Andy, in their music after he died, gave an additional depth of emotion and power to every work the Bee Gees did thereafter. Their recent song with Celine Dion - "Immortality" - is about living one's passion, thereby giving expression to the "inner flame" we all have somewhere in our souls, as the one true means to fulfilling our own destiny. That song speaks to honouring their own extraordinary gifts as well as their brothers' lives.
"Respect is love in plain clothes". (Frankie Byrne)
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