Nicole's Notes

My parents are coming to visit this weekend. They arrive this afternoon at about 3pm. They finally get to meet Penny the Chemo Kitty (although she really isn't a chemo kitty anymore, since I'm done (someone stick a fork in me, I'm done!)). It's supposed to be sunny, but not particularly warm. Our house was frigid this morning and I'm nervous that there's something seriously going on with the heating system. Good thing Dad's coming this weekend. He'll glue it until it's better! ;)

I've been working this week to set up an appointment with a genetic counsellor at Beth Israel Hospital. Most places, you call, talk to a receptionist, pick a time, and you're good to go. Not here. First you call and then it takes a week of telephone tag to get ahold of the person booking the appointments. Then she says that since I've never been to Beth Israel Hospital, I need to get a patient record number, by calling admitting. That'll speed the appointment process.

Admitting doesn't answer their phones. After two days of multiple calls (and messages, I finally catch someone there and she says call back in 1/2 an hour. I call back, she asks if she can call me back in 5 minutes. At this point it's 5pm and I'm going home. So I tell her to call back in 20 and to my home number. Which she does, predictably when I'm using the... uh, facilities. Then I call back and leave a message then she calls back and finally takes my info. She didn't ask for my insurance card info, just my address and date of birth and employer. Tell me I couldn't have just left that on the machine.

And her computer gives her grief when I won't answer the "what's your religion?" question. They don't have the United Church of Canada here and besides I think the last time I was in one was more than 5 years ago for Shelley's Wedding. Finally she just puts "Other". And I confuse her when I state my race to be caucasian. She says, "your choices are white, black, hispanic, native american, native alaskan..." etc., etc. Apparently she doesn't realize that Caucasian generally means white. But I finally got a record number and left it on the voicemail of the appointment lady. We'll see how many eons pass before she calls me back.

My good deed this week was to donate a pair of my old glasses (really ugly) to a missionary outbound to Nicaraugua. I don't know his religion, but what the heck, maybe he can find someone who can use them.