I left for Dr.Fieldings office on Monday, April 25th 2005. I had an appointment for my Gyne diagnosis. In order to make my 4:45 pm appointment in Toronto I had to be at the Vancouver airport at 5 am, this means sneaking out of my house at 3:30 am, trying not to wake my roommates. I was so fucking nervous that I didn’t get a wink of sleep all night. I just tossed and turned and sweat (It’s also 17c at night in Vancouver right now). First of all: I have always wanted to see Toronto; now I have this grand adventure before me, with two flights across the damn country in one day! Yeah, I did this in one hell-of a day. Funny, I made it back into Vancouver at 9:30 pm, pacific; and I haven’t slept more than an hour in 21 hours now. You think I could sleep on that plane? It was one of those scary little planes, not the cool 747’s that feel like a mother’s womb. This thing shook like a rattle every time we went through turbulence. I was so shook up by the concept of sneaking off across the country to meet Dr.Fielding to get an operation that would change my life on my first time in Toronto with only 2 hours of free time.
Anyway, I’ll get to Dr. Fielding.
His office is not hard to find. I won’t draw you a map, but from Pearsons it’ll it’s a short bus trip down the freeway and a ten minute subway ride to his office at Blane station. It actually takes exactly 1 hour by transit to get from the airport to the downtown core at Young st.(If you choose to go downtown). But damn it was fun, the Toronto subway is so ancient and huge compared to our little shytrain. I totally felt like I was in this gritty movie set in New York. The people there seemed a little….bummed. It was much colder today in To, only 4 C. There are way more black people, hehe. Vancouver has many more Chinese people….. whatever. Downtown is awesome, it’s huge.
Dr.Fieldings office is very modest. It was a very busy day and there were many people there from all different walks of life. None of the other patients appeared rich or snobby. I never felt embarrassed because nobody there cared, they are all just probably getting some deformity fixed, that’s it. But it just felt like a low fi Dr’s Office. Dr Fielding is a very nice, very modest guy. I brought up the Gyno forums and he told me he would never come here because it is our space, not his. I told him he came highly recommended and he was pleased but very modest. He spoke about how gyno is still not that well understood in medical circles as in they are still learning much about what exactly causes it and what the best treatment techniques are.
He got me to take my shirt off and took a couple measurements with his ruler. He seemed really sensitive in that I might be embarrassed, but not really. He’s very professional and a very likeable guy.
I do have gyne, (like I didn’t know). He’s charging me $1248.00. I asked him about price differences between patients but he said his price is pretty standard now.
The receptionist is also very nice. I even think they paid special attention to me because I flew so far to see them. He’s never had a patient come from farther than Alberta. She told me that my health care would probably pay for my airfare! That would be amazing cause I don’t know how I’m going to afford a hotel for 5 nights, which I plan on staying in Toronto, I really, really just want to check that amazing city out more.
My roommates don’t even know I left. I feel kinda dumb for keeping such a cool story secret because I’m embarrassed. Well, I’m feeling less embarrassed about the concept everyday.
Then I flew back on a 747 which was so surreal. Flying in those giant beasts, 40,000 feet in the air, at 700 miles per hour. Wow, all in one day, total adventure. Maybe I should sleep.
I can’t wait to go back!
My op is set for June 22. Two months wait now!
Wow, all in one day.