Lori's Escape to Canada

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March update

Big news! I got a permanent full time job at the hospital on the bone marrow transplant unit! I’m very excited because its a permanent position, but also I think I’ll really like the patient population. I’ll be doing pre-transplant assessments as well as supporting folks when they’re in the hospital. People are in the hospital for a long time after transplant, like up to 3 months, so I’ll get to spend more time with folks than what I’m typically used to. I start in three weeks and will provide more updates then; until then I’ll still be on the acute medicine unit.

I had a great birthday and got to see lots of folks. Miriam and EJ came up for a ski trip at Cyprus mountain (I only fell once!) and then Robin and Becca came up for the Just For Laughs comedy festival and we saw Patton Oswalt. Then on my actual birthday I got to see Hannah Gadsby with Adena and Jenn. The shows were both really great and the Hannah Gadsby show will be on Netflix soon! I highly recommend it.

Those are my big updates, I know this is kind of a short post but I don’t have much more to share. Thank you to everyone who came to visit and who celebrated my birthday with me. More to follow!

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Happy New Year!

Wow, it’s 2020! That doesn’t sound like a real year to me yet but I’m sure I’ll get used to it eventually. Since it is a new year it seemed like a good time for a new post, although things are pretty much the same with me. I’m still working on the acute medicine unit at VGH, still in the same apartment and still spending time with the same friends. I had a good holiday season with everyone in Vancouver and even went skiing for the first time in 13 years! At the end of January I’ll be visiting my mom in Hawaii, which I’m very excited about, and I have some other fun trips planned for this year including a visit to St. Louis this spring to meet the lovely baby Junie (and also see her parents Michelle and John) and my yearly beach trip in Maryland which will include a visit to Baltimore. One new thing for this year is I’m in the process of starting my own private practice. My goal is to work one night a week with one or two clients, nothing too strenuous. Still working on finding office space and putting together a website, but once that’s all taken care of I will start looking for clients. So hopefully that will be a successful adventure in 2020, stay tuned for more details. While the 2010s might not have been a great decade for the world (although it wasn’t the worst, let’s be honest) it was a pretty great decade for me personally. I graduated college, started my working life, got a masters degree, started my career as a social worker, made lots of new friends and moved from Atlanta to DC to Baltimore to all the way to Vancouver Canada! Thank you to everyone who has been a part of my life these last ten years, I hope you have a fantastic new year and new decade.

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It’s fall!

Happy Fall everyone! We are having beautiful fall weather here in Vancouver, at least right this minute. The trees are all gold and red and it isn’t raining! Its almost time for Halloween, which means I would normally be eating a bag of candy corn but as I think I mentioned last year they don’t have that up here. I know, its shocking.

But enough about candy, let’s talk about the election! That’s right, Canada had an election! You know what the best part was? Well the best part was that the Conservatives lost, but what I was going to say was IT WAS SO SHORT! You guys, there is no reason the US has to have a two year build up to an election, its crazy! Think of your favorite candidate. Now think of how much more you’d like them if they hadn’t been screaming for the last year and weren’t going to be screaming for yet another year. Wouldn’t that be better? Yes, it would.

The Canadian election was actually pretty cool. Trudeau won a minority government, which means he has the most seats in Parliament but not a majority. He hasn’t formed a coalition government with the NDP or the Green Party, which means that he hasn’t entered into a formal agreement with either party on how they will vote (probably because neither party will agree to build Trans Mountain pipeline and he seems pretty determined to go forward with that), so each vote will be up in the air which means that Jodi, the MP from my riding who Trudeau kicked out of the Liberal party as retribution over her testimony about the SNC Lavalin affair, is going to be a key player. Also Max Bernier lost his seat and his stupid party, the People’s Party, is effectively dead, and a consulting firm just all but admitted that Andrew Scheer, the head of the Conservatives, hired them to “seek and destroy” Bernier and the People’s Party, which is super shady but I also really wish the Republican’s had done that to Trump, but they have no moral compass and would literally let America burn to the ground so long as they got to be in charge of the ashes and could decide if the ashes could have an abortion (that metaphor got away from me a bit). It turns out I like talking Canadian politics almost as much as I like talking American politics, who could have guessed? Canadian friends, please let me know if I got any of the above wrong, I’m still figuring out the whole parliamentary system. 

On the job front I am now working on one of the acute medicine units and I’ll be there until September 4th. I’m took a position covering someone on maternity leave, so I’m no longer a float. Its nice to be on one unit instead of moving all the time; I can actually get to know the people I work with. And so far I like all of them, except the resident who stole my chair on my first day and he’s not on rotation anymore (and I also don’t remember his name or what he looks like so I probably won’t be able to effectively hold a grudge). Its nice to be back in acute medicine; I’m pretty comfortable with the population. We have a bulletin board on one of the walls that says Reducing Falls and Violence where we track how many falls and violent patient outbursts have occurred on the unit. You know, acute medicine stuff! Actually I haven’t witnessed any falls or violent outbursts, but I’ve only been there two weeks. But seriously, I am really liking the new unit and think its going to be a good fit for me this year. And then next fall it will be on to something else!

Now on to a slightly serious note. Last post I posted about how much better HIV care is here vs in the US. You know what’s not better? Cervical cancer rates in Indigenous women. Indigenous women have a 92% higher incidence of cervical cancer compared to the general population in Canada. Native American’s have an elevated rate in the US as well, but not nearly that high. This disparity is almost entirely related to access and utilization of screening tools like pap smears. In fact, the only cancers where there is a significant difference in incident rates between the general population and Indigenous people in Canada is cervical cancer and colon cancer, the two cancers with the best early detection tools. This is unacceptable and should be able to be addressed in a country with universal health coverage. So lets get on that Canada!

To end on a happy note I had a great time with my mom and Fran Weick, who came to visit over Canadian Thanksgiving. And yesterday I went to the Vancouver House Rabbit Society’s rabbit festival which was absolutely as adorable as it sounds.

Have a great fall and a Happy Halloween everyone!

Me and Mom at Lynn Canyon

Rabbit festival

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Canadanniversary!

Happy Labor Day everyone! Yesterday was my one year anniversary of arriving in Canada, so one whole year of writing this blog! I’ve been rather sporadic in my posts, and that is unlikely to change, but I want to reflect on the year I’ve had. I had a party with my new Canadian friends last night and they asked me what my favorite and least favorite parts of Canada have been so far. That seems as good a way to reflect as any, so here they are. Lets start with least favorite so we end on a good note.

Least Favorite

1) No Target or Trader Joe’s

Since the majority of my shopping was done at one of these two stores back in the states its been a bit of an adjustment to lose both. And I will say there is no sufficient replacement for either. Sorry guys, but the Canadian Super Store just isn’t Target, no matter how much it might want to be. What blows my mind is that Canada actually did have Target for a while and they went out of business up here. How is that possible?! Anyway, one learns to adapt and I still go to Trader Joe’s to stock up every time I’m in Seattle. I can’t do the same with Target because the whole purpose of a Target is to go at 8pm on a Tuesday when you realized you’re out of trash bags and then you come home with six bags of candy and a mini whiteboard for your desk that you’ll never use.

2) Paper charts

This wouldn’t be a big deal to most folks moving to the Great White North, but as someone working in a hospital let me tell you this is insane. And its really a British Columbia thing, not a Canada thing; apparently the other Provinces joined the 21st century back at the beginning of the century, but here in Vancouver we’re still trying to decipher doctors handwriting and having our notes disappear into the ether that is Medical Records. I could go on and on about how inefficient, unsafe and just generally difficult paper charting is (what’s that? the case manager left for the day and locked her office with Mr. Smith’s chart inside? Better find the unit master key before anyone needs to read anything about his medical history or document his care plan!) but I’ll spare you all that. Just know that this is probably the worst and most disorienting thing about moving to Vancouver.

3) Amazon Prime and Netflix

So they have Amazon Prime and Netflix up here, but the selection isn’t as good. And you can’t rent videos through Amazon! This is mildly irritating, but really all its meant is that I use Google Play more. The biggest impact is that I only just finished watching Better Call Saul season 4 because I finally broke down and bought it over Google Play, but other than that it hasn’t been that big of a deal. Plus I discovered Schitt’s Creek, which is awesome!

Ok, moving on to the good things

1) Unions

Especially on Labor Day its nice to appreciate everything that unions have given us. And getting to be a part of one is great! I’m happy to send them my $120/month in exchange for the benefits I get at my job. Maternity leave, vacation days, sick leave, health benefits, a pension; its all thanks to the union. So that’s been pretty great.

2) More compassionate healthcare

Again, this is mostly just a work thing but seeing the impact of a healthcare system not structured around profits is pretty amazing. Its not a perfect system and there are some major issues that are going to need to be addressed as the population ages (specifically how are they going to increase capacity at long term care facilities), but the system is just kinder. For example, when IV drug users need a course of IV antibiotics here in Vancouver they go to a center run by a non-profit called the Portland Hotel Society, where they get their meds and meals and a place to stay, but its not a shitty nursing home, its an actual nice place with staff that care about them. And if that facility doesn’t have available beds then they stay in the hospital. Combine that compassionate care with the harm reduction approach that’s been so embraced by the Province and you have such better outcomes for folks. Some of you may have been getting my hysterical texts on HIV stats here versus in the US, which I will spare all of you, but the bottom line is that people are dying from AIDS at 4 times the rate in the US than in Canada. Yes, the death rate has dropped significantly in both countries, but still. 4 times the rate. Its unacceptable. It is possible to have a healthcare system that is more equitable than in the US and outcomes for everyone improve when the system as a whole improves.

3) No mass shootings, less murder

I was going to google how many mass shootings there have been in the US since I moved to Vancouver, but I decided that statistic would be too depressing. Suffice to say there have been far far too many. And while we did have a pretty high profile murder spree by two teens this summer they ultimately killed three people, not 20. After the El Paso shooting I had a friend at work cancel her planned road trip with her sister down to San Francisco. I tried to say that actually they shouldn’t be freaked out because its statistically very unlikely that they would be killed by a gunman, to which she countered that there had been two shootings in two days and one man was specifically targeting people who look like her. Its really sad to think that that’s the impression the US leaves on the rest of the world. And its nice living somewhere where people don’t think that’s normal.

4) Smarties

I didn’t want to end with the shooting thing, so lets talk about Smarties. They’re like M&Ms but bigger and with a slightly thicker shell so they’re crunchier. And there are purple and pink ones! Amazing. Pick yourself up a box at the Canadian Super Store next time you come up.

Finally I’d like to say thank you to all my Canadian friends who have helped make this transition a success. Thank you for hanging out with me even when I start talking about hospice and healthcare inequality. And thank you for celebrating with me last night. And to my non-Canadian friends, come visit!

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Happy Canada Day!

Well this past week I got to celebrate my first Canada Day. Instead of going downtown where I knew it would be crazy crowded I went out to Steveston in Richmond. Steveston used to be one of the largest salmon canning communities in the area and they have held a salmon festival on Canada Day since 1945. They even used to crown a salmon queen! Sadly that’s no longer a thing, but the terrifying salmon mascot still is! He got his own float in the parade and everything. Fun fact, they don’t play John Philip Sousa marches in Canada Day parades. But there are lots of bagpipes to make up for it. Overall it was a great time and I had some really good salmon.

I realize it was also 4th of July this past week. I refuse to acknowledge the military spectacle Trump put on in DC but I have really been enjoying the #revolutionarywarairportstories tweets. If you haven’t already I recommend checking them out, But given what’s been going on at the boarder (and everywhere else in the country) its really hard to celebrate America right now. Speaking of which, not that the national holocaust museum asked my opinion but as someone who had family members who were sent to concentration camps I think it is absolutely appropriate to call the detention centers concentration camps. It is appalling what the country is doing and I strongly feel that the Jewish community has an extra responsibility to call out what is happening.

Anyway, want to know something weird? They measure stuff differently up here! Specifically medical tests. Everything that is measured as milligrams per deciliters in the US is measured as micromoles per liter here. So a normal creatinine level is between 60 and 110 (versus 0.7-1.2 in the US) and a normal blood glucose is between 3.9 and 7.1 (versus 70-130 in the US). So I’ve been going around thinking everyone has crazy high creatinine and crazy low blood sugar. I’m still not sure why there’s a difference, but as least I’ve figured it out now instead of thinking all the patients are dying.

In other news I’ve started my float position, so I’m moving to lots of different units now. So far I’ve been on spine, burns and trauma and geri psych. I’m going back to the hospitalist service for the next 2 weeks and then going to neuro for a month. I’ve really liked getting to try different units out. So far my favorite has actually been geri psych, which I was not expecting to like! I also found out that they have daily tea service on the burns and trauma unit, which was fun for a week but its still not where I’d like to end up permanently.

I had a great trip back to Maryland a few weeks ago. It was so fun getting to see everyone and the beach was fantastic. One thing they don’t have out here is the Atlantic ocean. I’m still enjoying my salt water taffy and missing the sunshine.

I’ve got some cool stuff planned for the rest of my summer, including an outdoor concert by the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra and the International Fireworks Festival. Plus I’m sure there will be some outdoor movies and another trip to Steveston. I’ll be sure to tell you all about it!

Take care!

Steveston Salmon mascot

Canadian flag jugglers

Enjoying the Atlantic Ocean

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The Queen’s Birthday

Happy Victoria Day, the day celebrating Queen Victoria’s birthday. Did you know they don’t have Memorial Day in Canada? That’s because it was originally a memorial to the Civil War, so it’s only celebrated in the US. The things you Google when you move to another country. But they do like the idea of having a long weekend in May in Canada, so we have Victoria Day instead. See, it all works out.

Speaking of work, I’m getting a new job at the end of the month! I’m going to be a float at the hospital instead of a casual. It’s pretty much exactly the same except I’ll be a full time employee with benefits and guaranteed hours and I should hopefully rotate units more often, which is what I’m looking for. Not that the unit I’ve been working on hasn’t been good, but I’d like some variety. Its only temporary until October, so I’ll need to find another full time position by then, but there have been lots of openings within the Vancouver Coastal Health system so I’m hopeful that come October something will be available that I’m interested in.

The best thing about the new job is that I’ll be a full time employee with benefits under the collective bargaining agreement. Have you guys heard of unions? They’re fucking awesome! Our collective bargaining agreement is insane; we get free healthcare. Free! Vancouver Coastal pays our MSP premiums (that’s the provincial heath plan) plus pays our premiums for our extended health coverage which covers all the stuff not covered by MSP, like prescription meds and physical therapy and out-of-province coverage. So I will be paying $0/month for health insurance. I keep getting super excited about this and telling everyone and they all respond with “yeah, that’s pretty standard”, but I’m still shocked. And that’s not all! When I want to have a baby eventually guess how many weeks of maternity leave I get? Seventeen! At 85% of my salary! And that can be extended to an additional thirty five weeks unpaid! You can take a year off when you have a kid and they gaurentee you your job back! And that’s just getting started, you can earn up to four weeks vacation leave a year, we get a pension plan with matching contributions, there’s overtime pay, its amazing! Now yes, I’m paying $130/month in union dues, but I used to pay $140 just in health insurance premiums. I know, Delta Airlines, I could be buying a lot of video games every month with all that money I’m sending to the union, but I’ll take the collective bargaining thank you very much.

Now that I’m done bragging its time to get serious. The new abortion bans in Alabama, Georgia, Missouri and Ohio (as of the writing of this post) are absolutely terrifying. I cannot believe this is happening in 21st century America. And I haven’t been saying a whole lot about it on facebook, unlike many of my awesome friends, because honestly I don’t know what to say. It’s unreal. What I will say here is this. Making abortion illegal doesn’t prevent abortion. Birth control and education prevent abortion. Making abortion illegal doesn’t protect children. Welfare and health insurance and schools protect children. Making abortion illegal does one thing: it maintains power and control over the poor and people of color. And the people pursing this type of legislation know that. Just like the war on drugs wasn’t accidentally designed to be racist, abortion bans don’t accidentally maintain generational poverty. That’s the whole point. So don’t talk to me about the right to life and every child being a blessing, that’s not what this is about. Its certainly not what the people making these laws think its about. It about power and control over women’s bodies and the lives of the disenfranchised.

I don’t have much other news to report. In June I’ll be heading back to Maryland for 10 days to see folks and enjoy the lovely Atlantic ocean. I loved the season finale of Game of Thrones and think the writers were very true to all their characters to the end and would love to talk to you more about that, and I’m still really loving my apartment despite the fact that its very hot now that the weather has gotten nice. No pictures, sorry, but I did post several from my Easter trip to the Sunshine coast, which was awesome. I hope you are all doing well, more updates to come.

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Week One on the Job

I’ve finished my first week at the new job! I’m working on a hospitalist geriatric unit at Vancouver General Hospital. Its a locked unit and most of the patients have some degree of dementia. I’m a causal worker, which means I only work on an as-needed basis but I’ve got this job for the whole month of March. I share an office with two other women and the three of us all work together on discharge planning. The other two women both have nursing backgrounds and they handle setting up all the outpatient care, home care and facility placements (of which there are much fewer, I’ll get into that in a minute), my role is mostly assessing patients and families to see how they’re coping both in and out of the hospital and identifying resource needs. Its a lot less time on the phone than at Hopkins and I haven’t had to talk to any insurance reps, which I don’t miss at all, but its different working primarily with dementia patients. A lot of the patients (not all) have had long, happy, relatively healthy lives and are now just at the end of their life. Its different than working with patients who have been sick for much of their life, or have had very difficult lives, or all of the above. Of course there are still some patients like that as well, but much fewer than what I’m used to.

Ok, now for the nitty gritty social work stuff. Social work friends, this is for you! First of all, APS and guardianship cases are a whole different ballgame up here. I still don’t totally understand everything but basically there’s something called the Adult Guardianship Act that allows a person to be brought to and held in the hospital if they are being abused, neglected or self neglecting and are deemed to be unable to seek support and assistance on their own. There’s a similar act called the Mental Health Act that allows for someone with a mental illness to be brought and held in the hospital in order to prevent “substantial mental or physical deterioration”; they don’t have to be considered a danger to themselves or others. Basically its easier to hold people against their will in the hospital if they aren’t taking care of themselves. Also there are no APS workers like in the US, the social workers at the hospital do the investigation and determine if there is abuse, neglect, or self neglect and arrange for follow-up community care. So there’s no sitting on the phone for an hour and a half describing the extend of an 80lb patient’s wounds to try to get someone to fucking show up and start an investigation. They still have capacity assessments, which are pretty much the same as in the US, and if a person lacks capacity than a decision maker has to be appointed and if there is no surrogate decision maker the court will appoint a public guardian, so that’s all the same, but its interesting to see a system that allows for a lot more power on the part of the healthcare professionals to determine what is best for the patient. There was a recent case in BC where a woman was held against her will in the hospital for a year due to suspicions by the hospital staff that the woman, who was intellectually disabled, was being sexually abused. In that case the hospital also didn’t disclose to the patients family that she was being held in the hospital, so they didn’t know where she was (which is legal) and the hospital denied the patient access to a lawyer (which is not legal). So that’s a pretty bad example of the system over reaching, but on the other hand you don’t have to wait for APS to get around to investigating cases and if someone is self neglecting to the point of nearly killing themselves you can more easily try to intervene. I’ll have to see it in action more before I decide if I think its a better system or not. As someone who leans pretty heavily on the side of patient autonomy I’m a bit suspicious, but I’ll see.

But its not all guardianship and neglect cases, thank god, there’s also your regular discharges. Remember when I said there aren’t a lot of facility placements? Yeah, there really aren’t! They will keep people in the hospital for a few days or even a week in order for them to get enough PT to go home, and you can get WAY more home care services. Like four times a day! And not just PT/OT and nursing, you can also get home care aids. They do pretty much everything short of 24 hour care to keep people out of facilities. Of course that means its hard to qualify for a facility and when you do qualify you often have to sit on a waitlist for several months (unless you can pay privately to go to a non-subsidized facility, its still a two tiered system) but how many times did I have someone tell me they’d literally rather die than go to a nursing home? And there’s no sending people to facilities for IV antibiotics either, they do the treatment in the hospital if they can’t go home with a line. Not surprisingly this all means that length of stay is longer, though I don’t have the actual numbers to quote. But people being in the hospital for a few weeks isn’t a big deal and on a 30 bed unit its considered a busy day when six people get discharged.

Now about those 30 beds. Capacity is a problem. My first day on the unit we had 37 people on what should be a 30 bed unit. They have two to three people in a room unless someone is on isolation precautions. That’s not every unit of course, their palliative unit for example is all private rooms, but it definitely seems like things are more crowded.

The biggest difference, though, is a shocker. Like my jaw almost dropped. Someone had briefly mentioned it in my interview but it was so unbelievable that I didn’t even process the sound. Two words: paper charts. They have paper fucking charts. There are HANDWRITTEN NOTES! Just how impractical is this? Well, only one person can read notes on a patient at a time, and if someone locks a chart in their office on accident no one can read that patients notes or add more notes to the record. Plus, again, some of the notes are hand written, which for all practical purposes means they might as well not be written at all since they are completely illegible (I type all my notes because I’ve seen my handwriting and even I can’t read it and lets not even get started on my spelling). And do you want to find the social work assessment note from three admissions ago? Have fun finding that in medical record! Its truly insane, like going back in time. I’ve been told an electronic system is coming next year, but wow. I have no words.

One more super nerdy social work thing and then I promise I’ll end this post. Folks might remember that one of my favorite things to do at Hopkins was to tell the residents what a Medicaid spenddown is and then watch the horror wash over their faces. They don’t do that here! When you go to a nursing facility you do have to pay a portion of the cost, but the portion you pay is based on your INCOME not your ASSETS. So you don’t have to burn through all your savings when you go to a facility, you just have to pay a percentage (and I think its a pretty high percentage, like 80%) of your earned income, and if that would be considered a financial hardship you can apply for a reduced rate. So people aren’t signing over their whole social security checks to assisted living facilities either. This all applies to government subsidized facilities, of course. Like I said above you can pay privately for services and I’m sure private pay services are often better, but the point is that people who can’t afford to do that aren’t left with nothing. Its pretty great.

Those paper charts though...

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All the good news!

Its been an exciting week! I finally got my PR card, which allowed me to get a social insurance number, which allowed me to accept my position with Vancouver Coastal Health. I will begin working as a floating social worker between the three main hospitals in Vancouver as soon as someone calls out and all the other floaters are busy. So any day now! ;) I’m can’t wait to see the ins and outs of the Canadian health system and all the similarities and differences to the US system. Updates to follow!

Additionally I have begun volunteering at the Dr. Peter Center, a really great HIV service center here in Vancouver that I think I talked about before. Its been great so far, the other day taught some folks how to cross stitch, because I’m actually 90 years old, and there was a discussion about the differences between coming off of heroin vs crystal meth, so everyone learned something! Its a really great place and I’m glad to be getting the opportunity to be there.

Of course it is also Valentines Day today, and the city of Vancouver would like to celebrate with you. They even provided these nifty pamphlets in the subway stations! Enjoy and happy Valentines Day.

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Happy New Year!

Hello all! Happy new year! I started out my new year moving into a new apartment, which is exciting but also a lot of work. Everything is pretty much moved in now, save a few things I’ll be bringing up from Portland in March, and I’m very glad to be finished moving for the foreseeable future. I was in Portland over Christmas and got the chance to see my pseudo-nephew Isaac. He continues to be the best baby in the world. And he’s almost walking! Portland was great and I got to catch up with lots of folks, not just Isaac, but he was the highlight. I don’t have any other big Canadian revelations right now. I’m looking forward to 2019 and to continuing to settle in to my new home. I’ll provide more updates as the year progresses.

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December musings

Well I’ll start out with the bad news. There’s been another set-back in me receiving my permanent residency card, which I need in order to get my social insurance number, which I need in order to work. So it looks like it will be two more months of waiting before all that gets resolved. All good thoughts and crossed fingers are appreciated. But moving on, healthcare! I am finally eligible for MSP (medical service plan), the provincial health insurance program. Since I know there’s always debate over is the Canadian healthcare system really cheaper than in the US I thought I’d share my numbers. First of all, Canada has universal coverage, not free healthcare; those are two different things. Everyone is eligible for coverage and everyone is required to be covered. Monthly enrollment costs in MSP are $37.50 for an individual. Comparatively I was having $140/month deducted from my pay check at Hopkins to cover my healthcare and that was through an employee plan, not a plan purchased on the exchange, which would have been more expensive. So yes, MSP is cheaper. But of course its not that simple. I take medication and in the US on my employee health plan I had prescription coverage which meant that I only paid $10/month for my meds. MSP does not include prescription coverage, people either pay out of pocket, get coverage from their employer or enroll in the provincial pharma program. I am not employed right now and not able to enroll in the provincial pharma program because I don’t have a SIN number (see above) so I am paying out of pocket. Here my medications cost $118/month. So when you add that to my monthly MSP cost it equals out to almost the same as what I was paying in the US ($5 more a month, actually, but also those numbers are in Canadian dollars). However, I will almost certainly get prescription coverage in the near future either through my employer or through the provincial pharma program and while that will cost me something it will likely be less than what I’m currently paying, so I will most likely wind up spending less on healthcare than I was in the US. This doesn’t even get into the savings seen when you actually wind up using health services (there aren’t any copays to see primary care providers and the amount that doctors and hospitals can charge for things like x-rays and blood work is regulated) so yes, healthcare is less expensive. And before anyone says the words wait times let me just say that we do have wait times for healthcare services in the US, we just call it “being too poor to be able to see a doctor/get treatment and waiting until you die”. The healthcare system here isn’t perfect (birth control isn’t free, for example, which I find pretty appalling, and IUDs are not covered by MSP) but its way better. It just objectively is. And the numbers show that too; life expectancy is higher in Canada than the US and the discrepancy in life expectancy between rich and poor is significantly less (its an 8 year discrepancy between high and low income earners in Canada vs 14 in the US, nearly double). So there’s the info on that.

You know what else is bad for your health? Murder! And Canada is better at addressing that issue as well. There was a recent news report here about how the national murder rate is at a 10 year high. That sounds pretty bad! How many murders is that, you might be asking. 660. That’s it. 660 murders for the whole country this year. In contrast Baltimore has had over 300 this year and that’s just one American city (albeit a city with a very high murder rate). But the population is so much lower, you might be saying. Yes it is, but the numbers are still lower even when looked at proportionally. In Canada the murder rate is 1.8 per 100,00 people. In the US the national average is 5.3, which is almost three times higher. And the biggest single thing that can be attributed to this difference is gun control. So yes, it really does reduce the murder rate when its harder to buy a gun, and no, that doesn’t mean no one in Canada has a gun. People have guns, people use guns, they just have a lot less of them and use them less to murder other people.

In terms of what I’m doing with my time, I recently toured the Dr. Peter Center, a local HIV/AIDS community care center and was completely blown away by the services offered there. They have a day center and a walk-in nurses station, two free meals a day, art therapy, music therapy, counseling, temporary and long term housing (12 short term beds, 12 long term beds) and a safe injection site and that’s just scratching the surface. Its truly amazing. I’m trying to secure a volunteer position with them so stay tuned for more info. Also my dad came to visit at the end of November and we went to a Canucks game, so I have officially been to a hockey game now. I’m pretty sure that’s a requirement should I ever apply for citizenship. Other than that I’ve been watching a lot of movies and listening to lots of podcasts. My new favorite podcast is This Podcast Will Kill You; its all about diseases and epidemics and is totally awesome.

That pretty much sums things up for me right now. I’m going to Portland the 22nd through the 29th to see folks and then I’m moving into my new apartment on Jan 1st (oh yeah, I found an apartment!) Photos to follow once I’m moved in. Until then enjoy this pic I took at the hockey game. Thanks for reading!

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Happy Thanksgiving!

Its not technically Thanksgiving up here in Canada, but fun fact, you can still watch the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade on TV and since I’m still not working I have the day off. Sadly I still haven’t gotten my documentation resolved. Its very frustrating and I’m starting to go a bit stir crazy, but other than that I’m very thankful for the fact that my move has gone very well so far. Moving 3,000 miles to another country is kind of a big deal even if I am only a 6 hr drive from where I grew up, so I’m very thankful for the fact that things have gone smoothly. Now here’s hoping everything else will resolve itself in the next week or two and I can actually start working!

I’ve been trying to think of how best to put the following, so here it goes. For a lot of people the thing they are most thankful for today is that they are able to be in the United States. America is a great country despite all its flaws and most of us who are critical of it are critical for that very reason. We want America to be the country of freedom, equality and opportunity that people around the world dream about. That’s why we’re angry; not because we hate America but because America isn’t living up to how amazing we know she is. So to quote The Godfather, I believe in America (I’ve been watching a lot of old movies recently, but seriously I do). I believe America can do better. Its just a matter of if we as Americans want it to. 

No new pictures, sorry. Enjoy the rest of the day hopefully with family and/or friends!

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Fall fun

Well I’m still waiting on my documentation so I’m still not working, very disappointing, but since I have lots of time on my hands I’ve had lots of time to have fun with visitors. I’ve now been to the anthropology museum at UBC, the museum of Vancouver, the Vancouver arts museum and the aquarium. The aquarium was a bit special because it was an after hours Halloween event so we went in costume. All the exhibits were open and we got to see a sea lion show and meet a penguin! In addition to the aquarium I also went to the Van Dusen botanical gardens with a meetup group to see their Halloween display. it was fun if a bit cold and crowded.

One thing I’ve noticed with all my resent museum going is that there is a lot of focus on Indigenous people in Canada. Every museum I went to had exhibits of Indigenous history, art and culture, including the aquarium. I know Canada has a sordid history with First Nations people but as an American its really impressive that Indigenous peoples are even acknowledged given that in the US its so rare. Canada has a long way to go with the reconciliation process but at least they’re making an effort.

Speaking of political things that upset people, I’m really looking forward to midterms being over. Yes, even in Canada its being covered constantly. I’m mildly hopeful that Trump will be slightly less horrible after the election since it seems like he’s doing a lot of fear mongering just to get his supporters to the polls but I’m doubtful this will be the case. The recent news is so terrible that I can’t keep up with feeling bad about things; from the shooting in Pittsburgh to the talk of ending birthright citizenship to sending troops to the boarder to the other things I’m surely forgetting about now because there are just too many awful things I can’t really deal with it all, so if I haven’t been vocal enough about stuff that’s why. I do care, I am outraged and I did vote. We’ll see what happens Tuesday.

And now for a random aside. I got an ad in my facebook feed today telling me that a mans skin is different than mine and that’s why Dove has engineered soap for both me and my man. First of all my man has been pretty MIA lately, so Dove if you’ve seen him please let me know where he is. But secondly, no! Men’s skin is not different, skin is skin, you just want couples to buy twice as much body wash instead of sharing! Stop lying to me! The really annoying thing is that I like Dove soap. I’ve used Dove soap pretty much exclusively since middle school and its not because they know the difference between men’s and women’s skin (there is no difference!!) its much weirder than that. So Dove, I have a new advertising campaign for you. “Buy Dove soap, because we have the same name as that character in that movie you like”. Is it a stupid campaign? Maybe, but not nearly as stupid as trying to tell me men need special body wash for their special man skin. Your welcome Dove, I expect a check. (Also bonus points to you if you know what movie and character I’m talking about, you’ve known me too well for too long and I will split my Dove royalty check with you to make up for it).

That’s about all I have to report for now. More news to come once I get my documentation settled.

A Guo Pei dress at the Vancouver Art Gallery

Jellies!

Penguin ambassador!

Van Dusen botanical gardens 

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Exciting news!

Exciting news everyone! I got a job! Its a floater position with Vancouver Coastal Health at their three major hospitals. Unfortunately I can’t start right away because I still can’t get a social insurance number (don’t ask) and they don’t guarantee any hours but I think it will be a good place to start. So hopefully by November I’ll be able to start taking jobs!

And now for pictures creepy statues.

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Little differences

Notice anything in the picture below?

It say Reese, not Reese’s! It took me until just this week to notice this little difference and of course I had to look up why. According to Wikipedia (and when has Wikipedia ever been wrong) Reese’s are called Reese in Canada because they are manufactured by the Reese candy plant, which is a subsidiary of Hershey, but in the US Reese’s are manufactured in Hershey plants. So there you go!

The Vancouver International Film Festival was just this past week and I saw a really good documentary about violence against Indigenous women in Canada. Some things don’t change, I still like depressing documentaries. I’ve also been watching The Great Canadian Baking Show, though, which is just adorable so that counters the depressingness pretty well.

We are still having some really nice sunny days here which is great, so I’ve still been going out and exploring the city. No new pictures this week though, other than the candy counter above, sorry. I’m meeting people as well and am even going to a party next week!

I haven’t been getting very political on this blog but since I’ve been asked, yes the Kavanaugh hearing was big news up here and yes the result is very disappointing. Also the latest news from North Dakota is horrible. If you can only get elected by suppressing the vote maybe that’s a sign you shouldn’t be in office If you haven’t already go register to vote! I’ve already mailed in my absentee ballot so now I’m just anxiously awaiting results.

That’s all for now, I hope everyone is doing well and enjoying fall. I’ll be sure to update the blog as soon as I make another candy related discovery. 

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Its October, that means candy corn season

Well its October and that means Halloween is coming and candy corn season has begun! Unfortunately I haven’t been able to find any candy corn up here but my dad brought me some from the states. Yay for high fructose corn syrup!

While my dad was visiting we went to the Royal BC Museum in Victoria and saw the First Peoples gallery. They have some really cool artifacts and also have a whole exhibit on preserving the First Nations languages (Dr. Dermont would really have liked it Cait). We also went to Miniature World! I posted a lot of pics of that on facebook already so I’m not posting them here, but it was awesome. Most of the displays were in much smaller scale than 1:12, which is what I work on, but it was very cool to see the amount of detail possible at that smaller scale.

Other than that not much else is new. I’m going to a contra dance on Saturday so hopefully I’ll meet some folks there. I had an interview today for a floater position with one of the major healthcare providers here, fingers crossed! Still looking for recipes to try, if anyone has any suggestions just message me on facebook or leave a comment (can you leave comments on here?). I’ll try to think of something super interesting for next weeks post.

Parliament in Victoria

At the First Nations gallery in the Royal BC Museum

Hedge sculpture outside the Empress Hotel in Victoria

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My new friend

i seem to have acquired a roommate of sorts.

He stares at me while I watch TV, pecks at the window and I’m pretty sure he’s plotting to kill me in my sleep since I refuse to feed him. So the second worst roommate I’ve ever had (shout out to the girls in Santa Barbara I spent the summer with in 2008). I guess I’ll be reenacting The Birds for Halloween this year. Better start working on my Tippi Hedren costume.

I heard that Michael Moore has said he’s moving to Canada. Beat you to it Michael, ha! I’m such the trend setter.

We’ve had some really nice days this past week and I’ve been out walking a lot, but now the rain seems to have set in; its been pretty much non stop since Thursday. Other than exploring the city some more I’ve also been crafting, cooking, and continuing to look for work. I actually have an interview for a floater position coming up on Oct. 3. Fingers crossed! I don’t understand those people who want to retire at 40; besides the whole not making money thing (kind of a big thing) being unemployed is boring. There aren’t enough Pinterest projects in the world and there’s only so much Netflix binging you can do in a day, although you can do a lot. In other news I’ve finished the new season of BoJack Horseman, its really good, you should go watch it. Still 90% existential crisis, 10% puns, a pretty good combination if you ask me.

That’s pretty much been my whole week other than some fun times on hold with immigration. The bureaucracy never ends. Next weekend my dad is coming to visit and we’r going to go to Victoria, so stay tuned.

Totem pole in Stanley Park

Steam clock in Gastown

Giant bird in Olympic Park. Almost as terrifying as the bird at my window.

False Creek