Ken has had a mild cold for the past few days. He only had a sore throat and fatigue, and I thought he might bounce back pretty quickly, but unfortunately it has moved down into his chest. When Ken gets a chest cold it triggers his normally dormant asthma.
When Ken's asthma comes on it can do so quickly and with a vengeance. I have spent all morning listening to his coughing fits with close attention, trying to determine whether he's catching his breath again or whether I should dash to the phone to call 911.
Of course I called the pharmacy as soon as Ken's coughing fits started sounding like a drowning sea lion. We had been careful to ensure that he had repeats left on both of his asthma medications. Hey guess what! He's been healthy and asthma-free for too long! Since his remaining prescriptions were first written in 2009, the pharmacist can't fill them! For the love of...
Given the choice between taking a cab to the closest urgent care centre (an Ontario government invention which is halfway between a walk-in clinic and an emergency room) or calling the MedVisit house call service, Ken elected to stay at home. So now we wait for a travelling family doctor who will come by to assess Ken anytime between 1 pm and 10 pm. I'm really hoping it's sooner rather than later.
It's pretty cool, and heaven knows I'm grateful that all these services, including the house call, are covered by OHIP (the Ontario Health Insurance Plan). I just hate hearing Ken struggle to breathe. It's so frightening. Stupid College of Pharmacist regulations - why can't they just sell me a damn inhaler?
UPDATE: Big shout-out to the travelling Dr. Rabindranath and our local pharmacist. Ken is now medicated and feeling much better. :-)
12 comments:
Being asthmatic myself, I can sympathize with poor Ken. I know how panicked I am now that my OTC rescue inhaler has been outlawed. And the ones I have to get from a doctor require that I ... well, see a doctor, and hope he'll listen to my request for a non-steroidal one, and...
...well. I can go on and on about that. So I'll suffice to offer a prayer for Ken's quick recovery.
A home visit? Now that's awesome! (Not the reason for it, of course). Can you have a home visit for any old ailment? Sucking the awesome out? A 9-HOUR WINDOW!!!! HUH?!?! I guess they assume if you're sick, you're stuck?? What if sicky can't answer the door? Tis bad. Feel better, Ken!
DarcKnyt: Thanks! Your prayers are powerful. He's already feeling much better. :-) (He got his puffer.) The doctor had better listen to you or you can give me his phone number and I'll tell him off.
Jameil: So far I haven't run into any restrictions when calling MedVisit, but I haven't had to call them all that often. The receptionist does ask what the problem is, but I think that might be to ensure that you shouldn't be heading straight to an emergency room, or calling 911. And yes, the 9-hour window is a bit of a pain in the arse, if only because I wasn't looking forward to the idea of walking to the 24-hour pharmacy by myself after 10 pm. Fortunately the doc showed up at 3:30 pm. We were lucky.
Scary ordeal. Glad to hear positive outcome for Ken and for you.
Glad Ken is medicated... but a Dr making house calls??? What is this some crazy dream?
I haven't heard of a doctor making housecalls, but I live in America so might be the reason.
Thanks, Granny Annie!
Ron: I KNOW! It's a super service. Interesting fact: The doctor-businessman who founded MedVisit is one of my mother's many cousins.
Hi Adam! This is a relatively new service to Toronto. I'm not sure if any other Canadian cities have an equivalent service available.
Hmmm - what other country could maybe take a look at a health care plan like that???
I hope he is better now! Scary.
I'm so happy your husband is feeling better! That's great to hear. :)
I know how scary asthma can be, also being married to someone who has it. We just got good news today about a replacement OTC med for the one he was using, so that's a relief.
How awesome to have a home visit! More Drs should do it, frankly. I'm so glad you had that option! And how neat that it was a relative who started it. :)
Prayers headed your way! *hugs*
In response to Adam who said he never heard of medical house calls beacause he lives in America. I too live in America and was treated by doctor visits in our home until about the age of 10. At that time I never heard of going to the doctor's office. I'm not even sure our doctor had an office.
Now another question. Who is Adam? He is showing up on a lot of our blogs and I'm wondering how he picked us?
And another thing, thanks for giving up word verification. Hope it works well for you.
Glad to hear that Ken is on the rebound.
Can totally sympathize as I'm an ashmatic as well.
Got mine under control, but sometimes a good laughing fit or some overy spicy condiment will set it off.
My partner is a serious asthmatic, so I know all about the horrible feeling you experienced when Ken couldn't breath. It's vey scary. I'm glad he is okay now. :)
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