bump in the road

I got a little package from Ottawa last Saturday - a large envelope with a sealed business envelope inside. The enclosed letter instructed me to bring the sealed envelope to the doctor who did my medical evaluation for immigration, who would then open said envelope and instruct me further.

I wasn't authorized to open the envelope myself - it had to be brought to the doctor sealed. The Ancient One who did our exams has hours only a few afternoons a week, and the office is very inconvenient, so it would be a few days before the mystery could be solved. This left plenty of time for my imagination to run wild. I tried to be reasonable... with limited success.

I was a wee bit anxious over what could possibly have gone wrong. And I was not happy about the prospect of Dr Old stabbing me in a vain attempt to draw more blood. (A pun? I pun unintentionally.) I am not at all afraid of needles - I get blood drawn regularly without the slightest flinch. But this man left my arm looking like a Jackson Pollack. And we're in short-sleeve weather now.

Well, I finally saw him yesterday afternoon. And of course it turned out to be nothing. I do need a blood test - but he sent me to a lab for it. Whew. The test itself is inconsequential, a function of some medication I'm on. Dr Old said Ottawa always manages to find something to ask about.

The lab will send the results to the doc, the doc will send them to Ottawa, and Ottawa will then send their recommendation to Buffalo. Onward.

Comments

  1. Expat30 March 2005 at 15:57

    Happy to hear that it is nothing serious. I am sure that your mind went crazy thinking about all of the possibilities until you had the mystery of the envelope solved!

    ReplyDelete
  2. laura k31 March 2005 at 04:32

    Oh yeah, the imagination can be very potent...! Thanks for your good wishes.

    Love that waving maple leaf. :)

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

sharia

This morning I see that Dalton McGuinty, Premier of Ontario, is banning the Muslim religious court known as sharia . This ends months of debate about whether sharia would be legal and binding in Ontario. I'm quoting at length from the story in today's Toronto Star because many US readers are likely not up on this. In a surprise announcement that caught both supporters and opponents of sharia law off guard, Premier Dalton McGuinty says he will move quickly to ban all religious arbitration in the province. McGuinty made the announcement in a telephone interview with The Canadian Press yesterday after months of debate and controversy surrounding use of Islamic sharia law in family arbitration. "I've come to the conclusion that the debate has gone on long enough," the premier told the news agency. "There will be no sharia law in Ontario. There will be no religious arbitration in Ontario. There will be one law for all Ontarians." The announcement prompted t...
Read more

can of worms

I'm opening a sticky subject here, my need to understand causing me to throw caution to the wind. It's about Alberta. Alberta vs. the rest of the Canada. The Globe And Mail runs something about Alberta's gripes every day, and I try to follow along. If it weren't for wmtc's resident Albertan , and the ensuing arguments in comments, I would've had no warning. It's not something Americans know about. As is, observing for more than a year, I have only the smallest of clues. Here's what I know. Please pardon my ignorance and oversimplification, but I have to start somewhere. The province of Alberta is rich, because it has oil. The province of Alberta is conservative, relative to the rest of Canada. Hmm. Funny how those two go together. Because of its great oil wealth, Alberta revenue helps fund services in the rest of Canada. (These are transfer payments?) Apparently many Albertans resent this. They want to keep Alberta's money in Alberta. They don't...
Read more

low confidence

I'm excited about today's no-confidence vote . Only three months after moving here, we'll get to see a government fall, a campaign, and an election, in a system very different from what we're accustomed to. Even the expression "the government will fall" strikes us as oddly dramatic and revolutionary. My sense of current Canadian politics, for what it's worth, tells me that very little will change from the upcoming election. I'd be surprised if the Liberals didn't win. So it's kind of cool to see this happening without a lot at stake. On a semi-tangential note, have I mentioned I'm completely down with "Corner Gas"? Excellent show; I love the deadpan humour. (Great website, too; check it out .) So was that really Finance Minister Ralph Goodale ragging on Brent Butt's camera last Saturday night?
Read more