According to their site:

“The Health Link Alberta is a 24 hour a day, 7 day a week nurse telephone advice and health information service. Registered nurses give advice and information about health symptoms and concerns.

Health Link nurses and information and referral specialists can also help you find services to meet your health care needs.”

They can be contacted at:

403-943-LINK (5465)
Toll-Free 1-866-408-LINK (5465)

Certainly a good number to keep around.

The Dr prescribed some anti-inflamatory and I have to confess that I did not take them as my stomach does not tolerate that well and I thought the pain woulg go away if left alone.

The bad news is that the pain did not go away. I decided them to go see a chiropractor (had never tried one before) who after running me through some tests prescribed eighteen sessions.

Well, after 18 chiropractor sessions and two massages the pain was pretty much the same and the chiropractor told me I sgould try physiotherapy.

I decided to go to the Dr first and after confessing my sins he prescribed anti-inflamatory once more which I took.

Well, after finishing the anti-inflamatory box and seeing no improvement at alI I went back to the Dr and he told me to go do some physiotherapy.

The folks from the physiotherapy office tried everything from exercises to acupuncture and after 6 sessions they told me that they could not figure out what the problem was and sent me back to my Dr who then prescribed X-ray and ultrasound.

The X-ray and ultrasound could not detect anything wrong and I went back to the Dr office once more.

The Dr requested a MRI and I am booked for end of September.

In the meantime I spoke with my health and safety advisor at the office who arranged for an ergonomic assessment.

I have sinced then changed chairs, moved the monitor poistion, etc.

The pain has improved dramatically but I am looking forward to go through the MRI to hopefully find ou what’s the root cause.

Things you should know:

1. If you have been to Mexico within the last two weeks and start to have flu like symptoms, call your doctor and get medical advice. Don’t go to the hospital automatically. You run the risk of spreading the virus to sick people. Your doctor may want to keep you and treat you at home.

2. If you are planning to travel to Mexico in the near future, be prepared to head to an alternate location. The Canadian health agency is warning against travel to Mexico unless absolutely necessary.

3. Keep yourself informed, both about this particular outbreak, and influenza in general. Here are some web pages that may be useful:

http://www.cbc.ca/health/story/2009/04/24/health-flu-mexico090424.html

http://www.phac-aspc.gc.ca/alert-alerte/swine_200904-eng.php

http://www.fightflu.ca/index-eng.html

http://www.who.int/csr/disease/swineflu/en/index.html

The City of Calgary is operating anti-flu vaccination clinics until December 5 2008.

You won’t have to pay anything if one of the following apply to you:
-Individuals 50 years and older
-Individuals aged 2 to 64 years with lung heart or kidney disease, weak immune system or diabetes
-All children aged 6 to 59 months
-All pregnant and breastfeeding women
-Health care workers
-Household contacts for some of the above.

If you don’t fall on any of the categories above then you will have to pay $25 in cash or cheque for the vaccine.

My family and myself have been taking the vaccine for the last couple of years and we have been ok.

The Influenza vaccination drop-in clinics are offered at:

NORTH SITE
Sunridge Professional Building
Suite 306
2675 36 Street NE

CENTRAL SITE
Child Development Centre
Main Level
3820 24 Avenue NW
(West end of University of Calgary campus across from the Alberta Children’s Hospital)

SOUTH SITE
Comfort Inn & Suites South
Manchester Room
Lower Level
4611 Macleod Trail South

CLINIC HOURS:
They are open 7 days a week to Friday, December 5/08.
Monday to Thursday, 10:30 am to 8 pm
Friday, Saturday and Sunday, 10:30 am to 5:30 pm
No appointments – drop-in only

For more information on influenza vaccination, visit Calgary Health Region or call Health Link Alberta at 403-943-5465 or toll-free 1-866-408-5465.

This last week a drunk driver killed a woman in Calgary while she was walking with her son and a friend on a sidewalk.

The driver ran away without helping his victims.

We have to help stop this from helping to other people.

Please help the MADD (Mothers Against Drunk Driving) deliver their message.

They also run a web site dedicated to help the youth.

Don’t drink and drive!

I have been coughing for one month now and I took some Tylenol and thought was getting better but last Monday things really went downhill and it was a pretty tough week for me. I have not felt this bad in a few years and energy levels were pretty low during the whole week.

I finally managed to book an appointment with my Family Doctor for Friday afternoon and he got me into antibiotics and prescribed an inhalation aerosol. I have been taking the pills for a couple of days now and I feel a little better but far from being 100% recovered. I had to go out for some family activities yesterday and it was not very easy as I am still feeling very tired. The antibiotics are now upsetting the stomach and I am really anxious to get better as I am tired of this stuff already.

Yes, I took my Flu shots and I had no issues in the season but this cold (or whatever it is) hit me hard.

As this was not fun enough, I woke up (assuming I had any sleep) on Thursday with no hot water in the house and when I went to the basement I found that a copper pipe on top of my water tank had a little hole on it and I had a small “shower” going on in the basement. Good thing the basement is not developed yet.

I called the plumbers who came in a couple of hours and charged me $ 280 to fix the problem. It likely took them less than 1 hour to replace the copper pipe with a new one.

I hope this coming week will be much better than last week.
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