Starting a game, finally! (West End Toronto)

[Fiffergrund]

I have two players that have signed on for a jaunt in my homebrew (the one in Crusader). It kicks off Saturday. The long drought ends!

[Go0gleplex]

I have two players that have signed on for a jaunt in my homebrew (the one in Crusader). It kicks off Saturday. The long drought ends!

Huzzah! Enjoy the carnage dude.

[Omote]

I plead da FIFF!

~O

[Breakdaddy]

Very nice, dude. Hope it lasts a long time!

[Willy Rat]

Go get 'em Fiffer!
Crusading keeps the howling winter at bay, at least it does here on the prairies.

[serleran]

Too much Pet Shop Boys...

But, srsly, congrats on the game.

[Fiffergrund]

Go get 'em Fiffer!
Crusading keeps the howling winter at bay, at least it does here on the prairies.

I seriously hope so. I can't even imagine what you guys must be dealing with.

[Fiffergrund]

Too much Pet Shop Boys...

But, srsly, congrats on the game.

LOL. That took me a minute. Well played.

[Tadhg]

Excellent, Fiff!!

Hope it goes well . . and ~

I saw in another post about some life changes and such, and I see that you have moved.

So - all the best and let us know how the game goes.

[And now I need to get my group back together . . we only played once last year]

Game on!!

[Fiffergrund]

Yep, I'm in Toronto now. Closer to the in-laws for health reasons. And that proximity has proved important as my f-in-law is in the hospital yet again.

I'm not at all impressed with any of the doctors I've seen here in Toronto. With only two exceptions (a walk-in doctor and a specialist), every doctor I've encountered here is a lazy, pass-the-buck bureaucrat with little to no interest in whether their patients actually improve. They just want them out of their office. Several times, we've had to get into a doctor's face and tell him or her to do their job and quit treating real people like numbers and worrying about OHIP's budget.

I'd go on but I'd be breaking my own rule about political posts.

In any case, we had our game yesterday. It was a solo session since one of our players was sick and another couldn't attend at the last minute. I think it went well but I am extremely rusty and need to get my sea legs with rules, flow, and preparation again.

It was nice to be playing, though.

[garydee]

Yep, I'm in Toronto now. Closer to the in-laws for health reasons. And that proximity has proved important as my f-in-law is in the hospital yet again.

I'm not at all impressed with any of the doctors I've seen here in Toronto. With only two exceptions (a walk-in doctor and a specialist), every doctor I've encountered here is a lazy, pass-the-buck bureaucrat with little to no interest in whether their patients actually improve. They just want them out of their office. Several times, we've had to get into a doctor's face and tell him or her to do their job and quit treating real people like numbers and worrying about OHIP's budget.

I'd go on but I'd be breaking my own rule about political posts.

In any case, we had our game yesterday. It was a solo session since one of our players was sick and another couldn't attend at the last minute. I think it went well but I am extremely rusty and need to get my sea legs with rules, flow, and preparation again.

It was nice to be playing, though.

Is there anyway to get him to an American hospital?

[Fiffergrund]

Yep, I'm in Toronto now. Closer to the in-laws for health reasons. And that proximity has proved important as my f-in-law is in the hospital yet again.

I'm not at all impressed with any of the doctors I've seen here in Toronto. With only two exceptions (a walk-in doctor and a specialist), every doctor I've encountered here is a lazy, pass-the-buck bureaucrat with little to no interest in whether their patients actually improve. They just want them out of their office. Several times, we've had to get into a doctor's face and tell him or her to do their job and quit treating real people like numbers and worrying about OHIP's budget.

I'd go on but I'd be breaking my own rule about political posts.

In any case, we had our game yesterday. It was a solo session since one of our players was sick and another couldn't attend at the last minute. I think it went well but I am extremely rusty and need to get my sea legs with rules, flow, and preparation again.

It was nice to be playing, though.

Is there anyway to get him to an American hospital?

Not really. In any case, he's not covered in the States anyway. If he tried to get travel insurance at this point, there'd be "pre-existing condition" written all over it, and the carrier probably wouldn't cover it. And rightfully so.

Nope, he's stuck. He's been in a semi-ER room since Thursday, they finally got him to an actual room just today. Not only are the usual hospital bureaucrats involved, but the doctors have become bureaucrats as well. My wife practically had to scream at the attending doctor not to release her dad because the man couldn't walk, and he was going to send him home with antibiotics. This is his 3rd case of pneumonia in less than 6 months.

Anyway, I didn't mean to digress. It's been a trying weekend. Perhaps it provides a little food for thought. There are pencil pushers and bureaucrats everywhere, but luckily in the US, it hasn't yet regressed to the state where doctors themselves are part of the problem.

[Kos]

So let me get this straight Fiff, you're criticizing our medical system while admitting your father wouldn't be covered back in the states because due to pre-existing condition? Sounds like you already broke your own rules...

But I digress, what I meant to tell you is that a hospitals are not made equal in Toronto, so you could have drawn one of the less than great ones and your dissatisfaction is probably totally justified. Also some of the poor hospitals are the ones people are most often directed to, which is probably why they're so f---ed up.

From (a lot of) experience:
The GOOD: Sunnyside, Mount Sinai, Women's College
The BAD: Western, St. Michael's (once literally dumped me back onto the street with internal bleeding, broken bones and concussion from getting struck by a car, I wandered around in shock until getting treated at a private clinic that I apparently wandered into)

Sorry for my initial bluntness but it's essential for you to be critical of the hospital as opposed to OHIP in general. Medicare is just the insurance arrangement in Canada (the hospitals are private), and while sometimes flawed is often serriously misrepresented in US media (eg. as 'communist'). I hope your father gets better and can find a hospital that will provide the quality of care he deserves.

Cheers,
Kos.

[old school gamer]

Yeah, that kind of problem I think is all over. I live here in Miami Florida and there are hospitals that are really great and ones that I will never go to again. One in particular prescribed my wife not only the wrong medicine but double the dosage she was supposed to take if it had been the right one. But then I have developed a rather negative opinion of most western medicine today as the seem to only want to pump you full of drugs.

However that is just me.

[Lord Dynel]

Hope everything is okay, Fiff, and hope you can get some good gaming in as well!

[Fiffergrund]

So let me get this straight Fiff, you're criticizing our medical system while admitting your father wouldn't be covered back in the states because due to pre-existing condition? Sounds like you already broke your own rules...

But I digress, what I meant to tell you is that a hospitals are not made equal in Toronto, so you could have drawn one of the less than great ones and your dissatisfaction is probably totally justified. Also some of the poor hospitals are the ones people are most often directed to, which is probably why they're so f---ed up.

From (a lot of) experience:
The GOOD: Sunnyside, Mount Sinai, Women's College
The BAD: Western, St. Michael's (once literally dumped me back onto the street with internal bleeding, broken bones and concussion from getting struck by a car, I wandered around in shock until getting treated at a private clinic that I apparently wandered into)

Sorry for my initial bluntness but it's essential for you to be critical of the hospital as opposed to OHIP in general. Medicare is just the insurance arrangement in Canada (the hospitals are private), and while sometimes flawed is often serriously misrepresented in US media (eg. as 'communist'). I hope your father gets better and can find a hospital that will provide the quality of care he deserves.

Cheers,
Kos.

Things are fine, and the game is good so far, I'm getting my sea-legs under me.

My father-in-law is doing better now - he finally saw a doctor that wasn't overwhelmed and phoning it in.

I'm in a fairly good position to compare medical systems in the US and Canada, since I've dealt with the good and bad aspects of both. It just so happens that primary care is a massive weakness in Canada, in my experience. Hospital and urgent care isn't nearly as bad as primary care, in my experience, once you get in. The quality of the medical expertise and the equipment is fairly equal. The problem is almost entirely with a pervasive lack of responsiveness and attention to the patient.

Case in point: It's easier to use a walk-in, at higher expense to OHIP (and the taxpayer) than to see one's primary doctor, most of the time. And when you do get to see the primary, they are so overwhelmed (due to the shortage of primaries) that you barely get four words out before they write a prescription and shuffle you out the door.

Are there exceptions? Absolutely. I've seen a few. But my experiences finding a truly engaged and positive primary physician in the US and Canada couldn't be more different. Our doctor in Canada is the best one we've found here (out of about a dozen attempts) and yet he would only be mediocre compared to ALL of the doctors I ever used in the US. I saw him to follow up on a prior specialist visit, and the visit was literally 1 minute in length before I was herded out the door. If I had other questions, and I did, I couldn't ask them because the guy was on to the next patient in a very long line.

As an aside, my father-in-law would have had no insurance in the US, as he's Canadian, and travel insurance would not have covered the pre-existing condition, and rightfully so.

Fortunately, we were able to make enough noise that the real problem was finally uncovered and he was able to bounce back. The original problem with the primary doctors is what made the problem so much worse than it ever had to be, and in the end, cost OHIP (taxpayers) way more money than it should have.

[Kos]

I hear ya, it can be a real pain in the but to navigate the health system here, especially in some regions of the country. It gets a little surreal in the variety of quality by facility/doctor/ect. Glad you (and your f-n-l) found a decent doctor and are getting better.

[old school gamer]

So what game are you starting? How many players have you got?