Less Than Impressed

Again, I find myself less than impressed by health care in this province.

As I type, I am listening to Sontoo coughing, sniffling . . . not feeling all that well.

I took him to the clinic here in town yesterday. We waited about an hour (not bad) to be seen. The doctor looked at the spots on his chest very carefully. Given that Sontoo was vaccinated for chicken pox, the doctor could not decide whether or not it was a mild case. Fair enough.

“Keep him home from school until Monday, just to be safe,” I was told.

He then looked in Sontoo’s ears and throat and decided to take a swab to test for strep throat. Good.

Strep test came back positive. Prescription for amoxycillin and we were on our way.

Now, I know what you’re thinking . . . so what’s the problem??

The problem, my friends, is that we were at that self-same clinic two days prior, with the same symptoms, the same concerns. And I do mean the same. If anything, the symptoms were slightly less pronounced on the second visit.

And, on the first visit, we received a cursory exam, a similar may-or-may-not-be-chicken-pox diagnosis, no test for strep in spite of our expressed concerns about that precise disease, no prescription, a pat on the head and a push out the door.

The kicker? I’d take this all up with my family doctor, but he skipped town without telling any of his patients. I’m told the wait for an appointment with one of the two docs taking new patients in town is about 2 months.

Less than impressed.

Candy!

So . . . where were we?

(Checks back at blog . . .)

Good lord, the last time I posted was in 2013, December. Time flies.

So, quick update. Still a stay at home dad, still have two energetic sons (Sonwun and Sontoo), still have a lovely wife and am still coming back to my creative outlet once in a while when I the need to write rears its ugly head. (I think it was a review on Urban Spoon this morning that sparked the need to write again.)

I guess the most significant change of late has been the introduction of Sunny’s Treehouse Candy . . . my first real run at doing something to earn a little cash to add to the family stash. It started a couple of Christmases back when the wife and I decided to make candy for our family members who live in other provinces and countries. We wanted to do something different. So we did.

And just this last Christmas, the wife’s sister, who works in Toronto, asked us if we could pull off 5 $200 corporate gift baskets. We had no idea. But I’d read Richard Branson on Twitter say something like, “If someone asks if you can do something, say yes. Then figure out how and do it.”

So we did.

And then in January, we started hitting Farmer’s Markets here in town and in Winnipeg. We’re not yet profitable, but we’re getting there.

I gotta say, I really enjoy making the candy. We’re up to about 18 different flavours of Hard Candy, four flavours of Salt Water Taffy, Sweet and Salty Peanuts, Sponge Toffee and three different kinds of Brittle (peanut, chocolate peanut and almond).

We’ve designed a logo, labels and packaging in keeping with our Treehouse theme. (Mostly the wife there, she’s really good at this stuff!) We’ve sourced inexpensive suppliers for candy ingredients as well as packaging. It’s been an education and, in a couple of months, we might even be profitable!

So that’s what’s kept us sane over the winter. More later, I hope.