Saturday 4 July 2015

Setting everything up.

We've moved into Springhill! Well, kind of. We have the apartment with two car loads of stuff which we spent Wed and Thurs unpacking and sorting as much as we could without having any furniture. Hopefully we'll get our big stuff back from various family members this week so we don't have to sit on lawn chairs and sleep on an air mattress. It's a bit like we're camping inside.

On Friday, I managed to get mostly everything set up with the hospitals. It took about all of my phone minutes with all the calling back and forth but I think everything is organized now. The blood work was slightly confusing for all as the requsition said to ship it to Toronto while it really just had to be shipped to Halifax with the results faxed (faxed?!) to Toronto.

Everything else seems fairly straight forward except that no one knows who is now looking at my blood thinner levels which were slightly elevated so no one has told me how to adjust my medication. The levels weren't crazy high so I hope to sort that part out on Monday when people are back from the 'long weekend.'

I also had my lung function test at the Amherst hospital. It took a bit of harassing the booking center to get an appointment this week but they did manage to squeeze me in as I said "last time was low, I need to be checked this week!!" I had naively thought that I could call the respiratory department and they would book me in right away like Toronto but that system doesn't work here. Everything has to go through the third party which is frustrating for all. I guess every two weeks I'll either get a surprise call to go for my appointment now or will have to call to remind them to schedule me.

The good news is that the respirologist there has experience with people who've had transplants and knew who to send the results to in Toronto. Also, my lung function is back up. Woohoo! Fev1 of 1.83. I can only hope that it stops dipping and will stay consistent for a little while. At least they've been consistent at home, even increasing slightly, so maybe all the fresh air is helping.

The third medical thing on Friday was getting some meds from the Halifax dispensary. They ship me the meds which is fantastic. Usually it's through Canada Post but if it's the same day delivery, it goes on the bus. So I got a call almost as soon as we arrived home from running errands from Amherst saying the parcel was waiting for me at the Irving in Amherst (apparently the bus no longer stops in Springhill). I was not ready to rush back to Amherst as we were on the way to the beach and about a half hour later, I got a call from the dispensary saying the shipment had been mixed up and my order had been sent to the hospital while I was now the owner of a case of puffers.

It took awhile to get sorted out with the pharmacist from the hospital had to go switch the parcels back. It was a big kerfuffle that was actually rather amusing on my end. Everyone else was way more frustrated about it than me. I suppose I would have been more annoyed if I had gone to pick up the meds and they turned out to be wrong instead of driving out to a friends cottage to relax by the ocean while everything was sorted out.

Now we're back in Petty to get more of our stuff and so I can go to my appointment with the family doctor on Monday to drop off more paperwork. It never ends!

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