9:29 p.m. - 2003-02-02
Sunday
I'm looking for a website that I knew I should have written down earlier. I had downloaded a free demo copy of a game from prettygoodmahjongg.com which was very good. During the time I was off work it helped reduce my stress levels more than just about anything else. I meant to purchase a regular copy when my finances were stable again - meaning now. Problem is I can't find it by any of the searches I've done. I wonder if there is a registry of such businesses. I guess I'll have to keep trying.
I went out with my Dad today. He was pretty down. The fifth anniversary of my Mom's death is imminent and it's obvious he's really feeling it. That year, they had gone to Mexico for a month to celebrate his retirement right after Christmas. They had a great time, but on the way back Mom experienced congestive heart failure. I think it was caused by the extensive damage the drugs she was taking for arthritis had done to her internal organs. She had been taking an herbal preparation imported from Korea that had taken her from being in constant pain and in need of a wheelchair, to pain free and fully mobile. The pharmaceutical companies lobbied successfully to have it banned in Canada, along with a number of other herbals, because it's effectiveness had become very well known and was cutting too much into their profits. That forced her back onto the drugs that eventually caused her a great deal of suffering and then death.
Anyway, their airplane was diverted to Salt Lake City so that she could receive care. The people there were terrific. They told my parents that they felt that surgery had a good chance of correcting a small hole in the septum of her heart as well as the collateral problems caused by the drugs. My parents had Alberta Health Care extended travel coverage, but were told that because the procedure could be done here in Calgary, they would not cover the costs. I think my Dad said it would have been about $300,000 for the procedure and they did consider selling their home to pay for it. However, my Mom wanted to come home, being assured that she could receive care here. When they arrived home the family doctor saw her within 12 hours, but he couldn't even get her booked into to see a cardiac specialist until three weeks later, because of the health care cuts which had and have caused such long waiting lists. My Mom didn't live out the week. Dad tries very hard not to dwell on what might have beens or to give into the anger, but he's human and he has a right to those feelings.
Anyway we went shopping for a little then stopped for lunch at Ricki's - eggs and pancakes for both of us. There was a woman at the next table who was so loud and so angry that we found it difficult to carry on a conversation so we didn't stay very long. We decided to take short drive out to one of the communities that I look after during a Federal election that I need to monitor because of the growth.
Guess what - another whole series of blocks with houses a-building that was not even graded the last time we were there in December. Biggest concern? Finding someplace for all the people in these new communities to vote. There are no public or commercial facilities in any of them and the ones I normally use in older communities just won't have the capacity to absorb them all. If an election is called in summer, maybe I can just rent an open field and set up big tents. In Calgary that would be really risky considering our weird weather, but my only other option is to designate them to polling stations several communities and several miles away. In our wide open spaces up north, voters often travel 200 miles by ski-doo to get to their polling stations but urban folk just don't deal with the inconvenience very well. I guess we just do the best we can and hope that the candidates have a lot of volunteer drivers available to ferry people back and forth. I'll still have to have extra people on our complaint lines to deal with the fallout.
Dad dropped me off and I gave him back all the money he had loaned me and his favorite book on his family's history which he had loaned me, so that felt good for both of us. Some days you just do the best you can.
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