In which Canadian healthcare wins me back

Three weeks before we moved up here I ended up in the emergency with a ridiculous amount of pain. We had gone to the beach to visit my fiance's mother and by the time we got back I felt like I was dying.  I delayed going to the ER until the next morning and only went because I could not sit still the pain was so intense.  I am very stupid for waiting.




Long story short, I had an anorectal fistula.  Not a fun time.  They pumped me full of antibiotics and painkillers and then I went into surgery to drain it.  The surgeon put a seton in the fistula to keep it draining, but they couldn't fix the fistula at that time. My doctor told me to find a surgeon up here ASAP to talk about fixing the fistula.  I had my GI doctor fax in a referral to the clinic here, but I never heard anything about it after that.  I finally called them and it turns out they had made me an appointment but they just never told me about it.  The appointment was also four months out. At this point I was pretty annoyed with how the healthcare system was run.  My other doctor experience up here only compounded the irritation.  It was so easy for me to go see and specialist and make appointments when I lived in Washington.

Today was my appointment with the specialist and oh man was it worth the wait.  The surgeon is fantastic.  We talked about getting the fistula fixed, but he said that wasn't really his top priority. He is concerned that it may be an indicator of full blown Crohn's Disease.  He also doesn't think that my j-pouch is functioning the way that it should. We talked for awhile and he told me that he is going to get all my GI records all the way back to my original surgery.  Once he can piece together the whole picture of why my previous surgeon made my j-pouch the way he did, we can discuss my options.  We might be able to fix the problems associated with my j-pouch rather than just addressing the symptoms.

So, yay Canada!  If this is how my doctor is going to be, I will gladly wait.