Tricia's Musings

Random Thoughts about life in general, living in the big city of Toronto



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Changing doctors

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Earlier this year I got a letter from my family doctors office stating that she was taking a leave of absence from her practice. The letter made me believe that the other doctors at the clinic would take over my care until she returned or else one of them would permanently take over my care.

Uh huh … wrong!

Luckily I only had to go to the family doctor once since I got that letter and then two months later I got a call from the head doctor at the clinic and she told me that it didn’t look like my old doctor was coming back and that none of the other doctors there could take new patients. Nice treatment for someone who’d been seeing that doctor for 12 years.

So I kind of feel like I’ve been abandoned by my family doctor and the clinic she assumed would take over my care. Oh and get this – My family doctor had made a movie two years ago – one that she tried very hard to get into the 2009 Toronto film Festival – I think she left her practice to keep trying to get her movie into smaller film festivals and fringe festivals. I even found some information on the internet that makes it look like she’s now turning her movie into a play. No wonder I feel abandoned.

So … I asked my pain doctor to be my family doctor. It works well for me since I see her pretty much once a month anyway and even better it’s walking distance from my home. The only problem is that now I have to get my medical records transferred over from the old doctors office. Naturally their going to charge me for document scanning and it won’t be cheap. Since my doctor pretty much abandoned me and the clinic that was supposed to take over my care refused I don’t think I (and my husband too since he was a patient there as well) should have to pay a fee to have my chart transferred to another doctor.

Do you think that’s fair?





A Beautiful Fall Day

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It was a nice Fall day here in Toronto. My husband and I decided that since it was so nice out we’d better get outside and get some of our outdoor work done.

I spent some time tidying up the front garden beds. Some of the roses had grown and their branches were starting to block part of the front walkway.

My husband has spent some time over the last month repairing the parging on our foundation at the side of the house whenever the weather has been nice enough to do this kind of work. He had finished repairing the parging, but it needed to be sealed so he spent some time sealing the foundation this afternoon.

It’s supposed to be nice tomorrow as well, so maybe we’ll do a little bit of work in our backyard garden. I know that my husband wants to take our Patio table apart and get it stored for winter.

Winter … man I can’t believe I’m saying that word already, but I guess it’s coming – and soon. It will really only be a couple of weeks, and then we’ll be outside hanging our led christmas lights. That’s definitely something we need to do before it starts snowing.

Did you have nice weather in your area today? Did you get outside and enjoy it? Are you like us, trying to get some yard work done before it gets too cold?

Getting my vitamins

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I’ve been talking a lot about the new migraine medication that I started taking about a month ago. I’m sure if you were new to this medication you’d be babbling about it too … it’s so weird!

I mean — I’m starting to feel a little more normal again, but for the first few weeks I kind of felt like I’d been drinking or like I’d been taking illicit meds or something. I’ve never taken a medication that’s made me feel so strange – yet that’s worked so fast on it’s specific problem.

Of course as I keep saying it has lots of side effects. One of them is that I might start to lose some of my hair! It’s a low risk, but it’s there. So … rather than waiting around to see if my hair starts failing out and then having to start looking for a hair loss product I’ve been proactive and I’ve started taking a B vitamin called Biotin.

I’m just taking a low dose 300 mcg daily rather than the 3000 to 5000 mcg that’s recommended when hair loss has already occurred. I figure it can’t hurt, and since I have Crohn’s and have trouble absorbing a lot of my vitamins and minerals anyway it’ll probably help me out in other ways too. I’m also taking a daily multivitamin and Omega-3 oils.

Do you take vitamins daily or do you think your regular diet gives you enough vitamins and minerals?

Feeling more like writing – what do you want to read about?

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I haven’t been myself the last few months and I think it’s been evident on my blogs.

Obviously if you’ve been reading my posts over the last several months you know I haven’t been feeling all that well. First it was the Crohn’s that (well for the last five years) and then that seemed to start clearing up (finally!), but then I started having severe migraines.

I thought the pain of Crohn’s was bad enough, but somehow over the years I managed to work through it and well, at least I could work from home and when I really wasn’t feeling well I could at least read or watch TV.

Then when the Migraines started I began to get dizzy with them. Even watching TV or trying to read was difficult. Heck – sometimes even just lying down didn’t stop the spinning sensation. Now if only the migraine medication wasn’t causing so many side effects and now maybe skin blemishes I’d be happy! I think I have to get some acne products to battle the blemishes.

Normally my blog posts have lots of pictures in them, but I just realized … I haven’t picked up my camera to take photos of my garden or even taken my camera to any of the events or places I’ve gone since the end of May or beginning of June. Now that’s a first!

The good thing is that my head is clearer these days. My migraines are a lot better and well, the dizziness is still around, but it’s better than it was. In the last month it’s easier for me to write posts that it was all summer. Now if only I had more pictures of some of the things I did over the summer to add to my posts that would be nice. LOL

Oh one more good thing … maybe .. yesterday I wrote that my abdomen was so sore that I was curled in a ball on the couch. Today, for some reason, I’m feeling quite a bit better. My abdomen is still crampy, but it’s better than it was. Maybe it will slowly start to get better over the rest of the week. Fingers crossed.

So … now that I’m feeling a little more up to writing, or a little more “able” to write, what kinds of things would you like to read about? If you’re a long time reader of Tricia’s Musings what kind of posts do you enjoy reading when you come to visit?

Lets see .. I can write more posts about this great city – Toronto – and the various events that I like to try to attend (usually free or almost free), or I can write more posts about my silly Labrador Retriever?, life with my husband, crazy neighbors, my garden, home renovation and decor – although we haven’t been doing much renovating these days. What do you WANT to read about?

Have to complain about the letter carrier

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I don’t know what’s going on with our mail delivery service this summer. We’ve lived in this neighborhood for almost ten years and for most of that time we had the same mailman.


Actually our mailman ended up being a friend of ours as he was seeing (and living with) a close friend of mine from work (they even helped us put in our skylight) so it was always nice when I’d see him delivering our mail.

I haven’t talked to him lately, and I haven’t seen him delivering our mail either. Perhaps he got a better route or a big promotion? It seems that over the last few months we’ve had a series of temporary mail carriers.

The lady that’s been delivering the mail the last couple of weeks is the worst. I hope she doesn’t turn out to be our permanent carrier! I think she’s afraid of our dog barking. Yes, even when the door is closed and there’s no way our dog can even see her or you know … get to her. Of course if our dog could make contact with the mail carrier it would only be to say hi and probably give her a lick since she’s the absolutely friendliest dog in the world. She just likes to bark when she hears someone at the door.

It doesn’t help that this woman who delivers the mail has big heavy mail bags on both sides of her body and she bangs into our screen door every time she enters our front porch.

Anyway I guess she’s afraid of the sound of a barking dog because she certainly never even sees our dog. So now, when she hears Midnight barking she just drops the mail and runs!

The mail doesn’t even get into our mailbox. It’s often left scattered all over our inner front porch and sometimes it doesn’t even make it to the inner front porch – sometimes it’s outside on the steps! That’s not good.

I’m picturing soggy, ruined mail in the winter if this keeps up.

Oh and yesterday I found not only our mail but our elderly neighbors mail in my rose bush! It was our neighbors social security disability check! Imagine if I hadn’t found that mail or if it had blown away? Then my neighbor wouldn’t have received the money she probably needs to make it through the month.

I think on Monday I’d better remember to call the Post Office and make a complaint about this letter carrier. I hate to do it, but this kind of poor mail delivery has been going on for weeks. It’s not right.

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