Up, Down, Left, Right

I crossed the US border about a week ago for the purpose of seeking a second opinion on a chronic health problem. The date was November 4th. As anti-politics as I generally am it was not lost on me that this was Election Day. I also feel that this was not lost on the border cops who decided to hold me there for questioning for almost forty minutes.
Before I get into the assumptions I’ve already made about my brief oppressors I should say, in their defense, that there was more than one reason to question me. First of all I wasn’t driving a vehicle registered in my name. The car was my aunt’s, which because of certain circumstances she had to leave behind on a recent visit. Then there’s my passport. It always tends to raise an eyebrow going into the States because it shows my place of birth as Malden, Massachusetts. The eyebrow often leads to the question of whether or not I’ve renounced my US citizenship. Not to my knowledge I always respond and have gotten used to that being enough. Perhaps the particular (literally) blue-collar that stopped me that day was altruistic enough to not want to see an undeserved ballot cast. More likely, I figured judging by the pride with which he rested his chubby digits on his sidearm, he was a card carrying Republican who saw me as a bearded Canadian socialist potentially armed with a vote for a black man.
After the initial questions it began to seem like the cop was ready let me go. I felt especially confident of my release when I started to feign interest in his pointing out that if I hadn’t renounced my US citizenship I would be allowed to find work while I got the medical help I was looking for. I’ve worked in America before in many different states a number of different times. In fact, I have a valid social security number. The only reason I don’t tell border cops about it is my fear that their confusion of how to punch my particulars into their system might begin some international incident between Canada, the United States, and the sovereign country of Al.
To be completely honest, citizenship aside, there was probably still a hint of nervousness about me, which, at least internally, intensified when the cop told me he would have to search the vehicle. They rifled through nearly everything including my sealed medical records. After a few tense moments the young gut bounced back into the office and told me I could go. I happily reunited myself with the vehicle to see the half eaten peanut butter and jelly sandwich containing two joints snuggly wrapped in plastic that I had laid conspicuously on the passengers seat remained intact.
So finally I was able to continue into the great state of Maine. It only took me a few minutes on the road to find a reasonably secluded grove of trees. I retrieved one of the soggy bats, unwrapped the thin layer of plastic and lit it up with a grin. I would spend the rest of the day winding causally down the state’s scenic costal Route 1 reflecting on some of my own personal conflicts predictably content with never coming to a conclusion.
The only buzz kill was the reality of my situation. For the past year I have been plagued severely by a health problem that has effected me on and off for over a decade. Basically, to put a name on it, the problem is Gastro-Esophageal Reflux Disease (GERD) caused by a hiatal hernia kindly donated to me by my genome at birth and lovingly aggravated by a lifetime of a hearty Irish Catholic diet. It’s likely that my drinking habits and pot smoking habits haven’t help either so I’m not exactly an innocent victim in that respect. But what I started to think on was whether or not I am a victim of a possibly idealistic health care system.
The doctors I had seen at home flip-flopped and flopped again over what was actually causing my problems. The symptoms had grown unbearable enough to cause me to lose as much as twenty needed pounds. I was told that I may or may not have developed a pre-cancerous condition called Barrett’s Esophagus that is usually not seen in anyone under the age of fifty. The fact that I am (only) twenty-eight was barely mentioned. The final diagnosis was, and I quote, “This is probably just your lot in life.”
In less than a week south of the border I have had my appointment with the specialist/surgeon I came to see, scheduled an upper endoscopy and, a couple of days later, had the test carried out. The total cost out-of-pocket was less than $2000. Considering the amount of money I lost in Canada while I was unable to work and waiting for tests (whose results were, as mentioned, inconclusive) the $2000 would have been a huge savings had I made the decision to come down here a year ago.
I should clarify that it is not exactly my intention to criticize Canadian doctors (though I would like to punch at least one in the face). There are two major disparities between the two systems in question that I noticed immediately, both of which I am certain hinder our hard working medical professionals. The first is a combination between time and numbers. I believe it safe to say that if you get more than ten minutes alone with a doctor in Newfoundland it is likely that you are either their child, their spouse or their mistress/extra-marital lover. It’s a situation that simple math, if I cared to do any, would show cannot work. Without getting into the causes (fat people and anxious old people) there are just too many patients and not enough doctors.
The other difference is equipment.
A large part of diagnosing Barrett’s Esophagus requires the attending doctor to make a judgment on the coloration of the inside of a patient’s throat. The scope that the patient swallows has a camera that sends a live feed to a monitor. Obviously this is not too new of an idea. If one cared to do any research they would likely find out that the procedure has been done this way for a number of years, maybe even decades. To compare, the one used in Newfoundland reminded me of the television at my great aunt’s that my brother and I were forced to watch Transformers on after school. On a good day it was somewhere in between black and white and colour with a picture that was about as sharply defined as the starlight above Boston’s city glow. The monitor for my most recent test was exactly like the flat screen televisions that I can only wish to someday afford. To use a similar metaphor, it was like looking at the stars above Newfoundland on a crisp, cloudless summer’s eve whilst consuming some of the local fungus.
The conclusion the doctor using this monitor came too was light years ahead of the above “lot in life” diagnosis I previously received. Not only was I given a more definitive response, I was also immediately handed two copies of a four page report that included six full color images of my inner workings. Best of all it came with some hope for a solution to my medical misery.
The funny or perhaps ironic part here, if you haven’t figured it out yet, is that I am a bearded Canadian dope-smoking socialist who, if registered, would have happily put a vote down for Obama. The twist is that smiley Barak is much more likely to push for a new socialized medicare than old gummy McCain.
After putting a few moments of thought together I realized quickly that my true views, if I can indeed say I have any at all, would place me somewhere perhaps in between the two (former) candidates. For example, I do kind of see the sense in what white collars refer to lovingly as the free market but more to the point I agree with the right’s ideals of less government interference. The conflict I have is that I just can’t see myself not supporting things like gay marriage or more specifically, not not supporting it. And I’m definitely pro-choice, pro-cannabis and pro fuck-off-with-all-the-god-bullshit. But what if hypothetically voting for Obama would mean I supported a possible loss of ability to pre-empt a socialist system that cares but also does not care for all of us and none of equally? What if it means that in the future more young people like myself will lose important years of their life to diagnosable and treatable illnesses?
Well, the truth is I don’t actually care so long as I get my problems fixed first. But for a moment, my apathy aside, where do my political views place me? The center probably but wouldn’t the hypothetical person (who definitely exists) that is pro-life but also pro government involvement be counted in the middle too? At the root of it all it sounds to me like a question of black, white and grey with a rainbow of possibilities. And the truth is that gay analogy is the closest I can come to figuring it out.
There’s a part of me in all this that feels like trying to figure it out, to attempt to reconcile . . . something. Perhaps I could try reading some Time or MacLean’s or even a newspaper for once. Then again, part of me just wishes I had of had a giant Texas omelet for breakfast on November 4th so that I could have taken a quarter or more across. That way I could still get stoned, forget about the doctors, the politicians, and just take a stroll to gaze at all the pretty pretty city lights.