Shopping For Health

I have waded through oceans of bureaucratese, medical goofs, misinformation, lies, propaganda and just plain crap and concluded that I need as much protection against the virus and politicians as I can get.

I have a bullseye stapled to my chest and most of the world seems poised to use me as target practise.

So I went to get another shot. I already have two boosters but I seemed to match the most vulnerable among the old farts just floating along trying to avoid the latest stupidness of man. And doctors seemed to think it was a smart idea.

Shoppers didn't. Despite a vacant office, and I mean space not their minds, I was turned away in my wheelchair and told to talk to my GP.

Bernie Gosevitz may be the best family doctor          in the world so now I will intrude into his incredible sked and waste a lot of my time, and his time, and family time just to try to stay alive for the next pandemic to come along.

My medical profile is terrible. I do like waking up because it is such a surprise. And I certainly match the profile of someone reading obits for pleasure at all those I have survived... for now

I am 86 and have been a diabetic for a million needles. My pacemaker has been doing an admirable job with my atrial filibration. The five specialists who grunt at me regularly give me nine prescriptions and four vitamins and mysterious capsules to go with the two insulins.

I walk like a drunk when I am not falling out of my wheelchair and breaking ribs and decorating my forehead with stitches.

I came home in a medical plane from my last U.S. trip and the insurance refused to pay until my specialists grunted at them for a change.

Thanks to Mark, my son, who thank heavens took some cooking courses at George Brown to go along with his two degrees, I have actually survived at home despite two stays in three hospitals over a decade.

So I didn't expect any trouble when I showed up at the Shoppers at Six Points along with my 87-year-old wife also in a wheelchair pushed by another stalwart son Brett. She takes as much medicine as I do and Mark and Brett are the size of the Argo line and prob ably can play better than them too.

We were greeted with the sort of reception that you get when the clerks don't know wotinhell they're doing.

From above I heard a sympathetic groan from my old friend, Murray Koffler, the founder of Shoppers, and the wonderful renaissance guru that was such a magical force in culture, education and just about any nook in Toronto that mattered.

Koffler and I were in at the start of the outdoor art show in Nathan Phillips Square and with his money and smarts and my civic bluster we managed to intimidate officials long enough to make the show a success.

No wonder I had no trouble as head of the city advisory committe giving Koffler the top civic honour. He certainly knew how to deal with bureaucrats and heaven knows they certainly know how to screw up when given the slightest chance with our health and with our money. 

I am a big  believer in shots. When I was on the Runnymede Health Centre board, I moved that any staffer who didn't get a shot during a flu epidemic not have a job. My father had a huge family practise in the east end and he moved my two sisters and I into the same bedroom during mumps and measles and other outbreaks to make sure we got sick before we became adults.

He also was a big booster of doing things like that when he was chairman of the Toronto school board. He certainly didn't tolerate nonsense like ambulance staff and paramedics not getting protected by shots.

When Dad died and my uncle took over the practise, he had the same approach.

Thank heavens for the sensible approach of the old family doctor who didn't like populist renegades who thought BS equalled science. The anti-vaxxers were treated with the contempt they deserved.

They decided in my first year of university that I had had TB the year before. My uncle considered my last year of high school when I played 60 minutes of football in the championship game at Varsity and was active in other activities like the school play, puffed on his pipe and said it was nonsense for me to go to the Weston sanitarium. 

He considered all the evidence and decided not to put  my life on hold for a year.

Common sense was what he used. If only there was more of that when we fight pandemics.