• Home
  • Blog
  • Archives
  • Links
  • About
  • Guest Blogger
  • Contact

Tricia's Musings

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

  • Home and Lifestyle
  • Recreation
  • Health Fitness and Beauty
  • Entertainment
  • Web and Technology


You are here: Home / Archives for Health Fitness and Beauty / Ontario Health Care

Finished a bunch of tests at the hospital

July 1, 2010 by Tricia

It took me until today to recover from a battery of tests that I had done at the hospital on Tuesday.


Not that the medical tests that I had done were all that hard … it was just getting up super early that did me in! I think I only had three hours sleep that night and then I had to get up a lot earlier than I normally do. So I was wiped out all day and as I said it took me until today to catch up.

On Tuesday I had two ultrasounds. One pelvic – I have endometriosis so my doctor wanted to check on things, and the other was of my thyroid to check on that large tumor that I discovered last year. Oh and I was dehydrated because it was so hot here in Toronto on Monday so even though I drank 6 large glasses of water when I got up on Tuesday morning my bladder still wasn’t full enough for the pelvic ultrasound. Lovely.

Once those two tests were done I had to get a mammogram. A short walk down the hall from ultrasound and I was getting changed into yet another gown. The last time I had a mammogram I was in my twenties. I had discovered a lump and was sent for tests. Naturally, since I seem to have an uncanny ability to grow tumors they did find a growth in my breast. Luckily it was benign. I had a lumpectomy and I’ve been fine since then. However since I hadn’t had this lovely test for years my doctor wanted it done. So a few squishes and squashes later and I was done.

My last test, in the xray department, was for orbits. I’m having an MRI of my head near the end of July and since I was a jeweler many years ago who used to get gold in her eyes I had to get my eyes xrayed just to make sure that I didn’t still have some gold slivers in my eyes. Uh huh.

Of course, since I work at the hospital, I new all three of the women who did my tests. It’s kind of embarrassing when you know the people who are doing these kinds of tests on you. Oh and when they found out how many tests I was having done at once they looked at me like I had malignant Mesothelioma or something. LOL

Anyway … the tests are over and I’m hoping that I don’t hear anything bad about any of the tests. Well I’m pretty sure I’ll hear something about the thyroid ultrasound. I’m supposed to be having the tumor biopsied every 6 months, but I haven’t had a biopsy for more than a year. Oops!





Filed Under: Endometriosis, Health Fitness and Beauty, Ontario Health Care Tagged With: biopsy, endomitriosis, eyes, Hospital, mammogram, MRI, orbits, pelvic ultrasound, testing, tests, thyroid ultrasound, tumor, ultrasound, work, xray

No health benefits for me anymore

June 18, 2008 by Tricia

A few weeks ago I was notified by my workplace (where I’ve been off on medical leave from for over two years) that my health benefits were about to end. That sent me into a panic as I take a lot of expensive medications each month and for the most part they were covered by my health insurance package.

So Chris and I got busy and filled out forms for another form of health benefits through the hospital where my husband works. However, we’ve just found out that that package is only for brand new employees. Funny that he never got the paperwork when he first started working at the hospital eh?

So now Chris and I are trying to decide whether it’s worth paying hundreds of dollars each month for prescription coverage and for other health benefits that we generally do not use often (massage, naturopath, chiropractor etc) or if we’ll just pay for my meds out of pocket. The first thing I’ve got to do is figure out how much my meds really cost us each month. While we’re trying to decide what to do – and paying out of pocket while we’re deciding, I think I’ll also look into some cheap life insurance. We lost some life insurance coverage when I lost my benefits package too. Groan.

Anyone know of some relatively inexpensive health insurance packages in Canada?

Filed Under: Canada, Health Fitness and Beauty, Home and Lifestyle, Ontario Health Care Tagged With: Canada, cheap life insurance, chiropractor, health benefits, inexpensive health insurance, insurance package, insurance packages, life insurance coverage, Massage, medical leave, medications, meds, naturopath, paperwork, prescription coverage

We need to get new health insurance

June 6, 2008 by Tricia

I’m starting to think that I’m never going to get back to work at the hospital. I’ve been off work on medical leave now for two and a half years! Two and a half years – mostly without pay too, as I only had sick leave pay for the first 15 weeks. Argh.

Topping that off, I’ve been off long enough now that my health insurance is about to end. They apparently only cover employees on medical leave for 30 months. So once I got the letter from work, about two weeks ago, Chris went and applied for group health insurance with his hospital union plan. We still don’t know if we’ve been approved or not. I hope my illness doesn’t cause any problems with getting coverage.

In other news, when Chris came home from work the other day he said that they were busy putting cell phone amplifiers in several areas of the hospital. It was only a year or so ago that they actually allowed people to use cellphones in the hospital. I remember working in the ER and constantly telling people to turn off their cell phones. Now everyone’s walking around with one!

Wish us luck on getting new health insurance!

Filed Under: Health Fitness and Beauty, Nursing, Ontario Health Care, Toronto Tagged With: cell phone, cell phones, coverage, group health insurance, Health Fitness and Beauty, home, Hospital, illness, medical leave, phone amplifiers, two and a half years, union, work

Wondering when the axe will fall

February 22, 2008 by Tricia

I was just talking about how much I’d like to get back to work, but I’ve been on medical leave for 25 months now. It’s hard to imagine that I’ve been off for so long!

Almost every day I wonder when the phone will ring and on the other end it will be the oc health department at the hospital calling to tell me that they can’t extend my medical leave any longer. If that happens I’ll be very upset.

Since I’m officially on medical leave I still have my full time position. It’s being held for me. I also have health benefits. I do have to pay a certain amount each year – money that would normally be taken from my paychecks, but I’m still covered.

If I ever do get that call I’ll have to switch over to a private family or individual health insurance plan. Actually, Chris works at the hospital. He’s only part time (but works almost full time hours). I think he can apply for health coverage. I should get him to check on that and we could switch over. Then if the axe does fall we’ll at least still have continued health insurance coverage.

Do you have health insurance from your workplace?

Filed Under: Great Sites, Health Fitness and Beauty, Inflammatory bowel disease, Nursing, Ontario Health Care Tagged With: apply, back to work, calling, Chris, fall, Family, health coverage, Health Fitness and Beauty, Hospital, individual, Insurance, medical, medical leave, Money, off work, part time, phone, position, private, talking

I miss my job

November 22, 2007 by Tricia

When Chris came home from work the other day he told me about all the changes to the ER.

I’m an ER nurse and I’ve been off sick from the department for close to two years. Obviously it’s been some time since I even went in to visit my old co-workers. When I was hospitalized two weeks ago it was in one of our downtown hospitals … maybe I should have gone to our ER instead.

They’ve been renovating the space and expanding! It looks like emerg is going to double in size and that’s a good thing. Our ER is said to be the second busiest in Canada. Hopefully they hire an adequate amount of staff to manage the new areas. Even though the ER probably always had the most staff on during a shift out of any other hospital department with the amount of patients coming through the doors it almost always felt like we were understaffed.

What they really need there is better time and employee management – starting with the admins! Maybe a business performance management system needs to be installed as well along with all the other upgrades.

I really missed being there as Chris told me about all the changes. I truly loved being an ER nurse and I miss my job. If this darn Crohn’s would just settle down I could go back.

Filed Under: Great Sites, Health Fitness and Beauty, Home and Lifestyle, Inflammatory bowel disease, Nursing, Ontario Health Care, Toronto Tagged With: business, Canada, change, Chris, crohn, Downtown, employee, ER, ER nurse, home, Hospital, install, look, manage, patients, renovating, sick, system, visit, work

  • « Previous Page
  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
  • Next Page »

Connect with Us

  • Facebook
  • Flickr
  • Instagram
  • RSS
  • Twitter

Categories

Sites of Interest

Useful Links

Eavestrough Cleaning Toronto

Shopping

Gifts, Gadgets,
Books and More!

Recent Posts

  • Is your home well insulated or do you have energy leaks?
  • Pet Safety Tips
  • Top 10 Most Fundamental Yoga Poses For Beginners
  • Will My Interior Décor Stand The Test Of Time?
  • Outdoor Furniture- Spicing Up Your Backyard
  • Ensuring You Have A Good Experience Staying At Hotels With Children
  • Mother’s Day Cookies

Recent Comments

  • Bill on Top 10 Most Fundamental Yoga Poses For Beginners
  • [bonus]old school new body-f4x workout on Why does my husband always bring home the wrong stuff?
  • Rodhe Stevens on 5 Little Known Secrets To Finding Cheap (But Durable) Furniture
  • Julia Carlson on How To Install A Mosaic Tile Kitchen Backsplash
  • Humane Raccoon Deterrent Idea on Helped save a baby raccoon last night

Subscribe


Subscribe to our RSS Feed It's FREE!

Subscribe to Tricia's Musings by Email It's FREE!


Follow me on TWITTER

Find us on Google +



Find us on Facebook



I have two mottos-
1. Live life to the fullest; and
2. Don't have any regrets.

Get More Traffic

Visitors since 2006

Meta

  • Log in
  • Entries feed
  • Comments feed
  • WordPress.org

Search this site

Tags

blog blogs camera Canada Chris computer crohns dinner dog Family flower flowers Food friends funny garden Gardening Green Thumb Sunday Health and Fitness Health Fitness and Beauty holiday home Home and Lifestyle house husband IBD Inflammatory bowel disease Internet Music neighbors pain photo photos plants puppy Shopping sick sleep spring Toronto TV Video visit website Wordless Wednesday

Blogs I Visit

  • Say No to Crack
  • The Domestiquette
  • RennyBAs Terella
  • Get WebStyle
  • BlogTO

Copyright © 2026 · Lifestyle Pro Theme on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in