This afternoon, my husband had an appointment with a new doctor.  For a GP, we don’t need to find someone in The City, so he booked one in the nearest town with a medical centre.  It took about 15 minutes for him to input the list of medications, which my husband handily keeps up to date on his phone.  The process has been started to get his files transferred over from his old doctor.  We will have to apply for new medical numbers, which we have 3 months to do (by mid-February), though the earlier, the better.

I had forgotten something about this town.  The distinctive smell from the distillery, when the wind is right.  The smell of fermenting grains.  Like a giant bakery.  It smells delicious.

By the time we were done with his appointment, the winds had picked up like crazy.  A quick trip to the grocery store, then we took the highway home.  We were traveling West, with winds from the North, so my broken door immediately popped ajar.  I didn’t even try to fix it.

You could really tell the difference in where farmers had planted wind breaks!  Then, we got to our own driveway, and the winds were noticeably less.  Next to the house itself, there is a bit of an open area that North winds can blow through, so it’s pretty blustery outside our living room window, but nowhere near as much as out on the open road.

Today we were supposed to take more stuff, including furniture, to the shed.

Not going to happen.

There is no way we’re going to haul stuff in this weather.  Especially with the van making an awful noise.  It’s coming from the alternator, and is much worse when the engine is cold; by the time we got home, it was almost completely gone.  It may just be the belts don’t like the cold.  Either way, the less we drive, the better, until we can afford to get it checked.

Meanwhile…

The movers are supposed to come tomorrow.  We were supposed to get a call from the driver today, to give us a time frame, but that hasn’t happened yet.  My husband, however, will need to go into The City.  One of the renewed prescriptions he got – just enough to last until his file is transferred and they can go over his complete record – has to be turned in to a pharmacy within 3 days.  Including today.  Unlike our previous province, the doctor cannot fax it in.  It can only be done in person.

Since tomorrow the weather is supposed to improve, then get worse on Sunday, there is no choice.  It’s either that or tonight, and there is no way we’re driving in this weather tonight!  At the same time, he hopes to get some money back from an insurance screw up; we paid the full price for some of his meds when we should have paid only 10%.  Part of it is fixed, but an error has him paying 30% instead of 10%.  That was supposed to be fixed a couple of weeks ago, and still hasn’t.  But even getting 70% back will help.

Also, once his file is transferred, they can start on getting him on the lists for specialists, all of which will be in The City.  At least there is a pain clinic, though we were warned the waiting list is very long.  We just need to get him ON the list, as soon as possible.  They may be able to flag his file as urgent and put him on the cancellation list, too.  So who knows.

So a regular doctor will be in the next town over.  Specialists will be in The City, as well the pharmacy (cheaper in The City than the nearest towns with pharmacies, even taking insurance coverage into account).  With a constant eye on the weather.

The new normal, for us.

The Re-farmer