The 2 Last Week Events

It was a tough week last week. Or at least it was for me anyway.

First, I had a session set up with the people who look after my furnace/air-conditioning and water systems to make sure they are working properly. I have to admit that I was hoping that everything was fine considering all of the miseries I had in the past with one of their subcontractors who put in my new systems when we moved to our new home. With all of the problems that we had, it took a very long time with lots of discussions before everything was resolved including payments given to them and what we owed to them. So it seemed anyway.

Secondly, I had a meeting set up on the same day with the group who looked after me physically for the difficulties that I had as I recovered from the terrible illness that I suffered over 2 years ago. Yes, over 2 years.

I had trouble understanding about my illness then because an illness such as this one has never affected me to such a degree. It was so scary for a person like me because not many people in this area have ever suffered from the disease that I did so that very few doctors here know anything about it and what to do about it.  In addition, death could have been a possibility of occurring right away. Moreover, I was troubled by some of the actions being proposed by the people who were looking after me because, as far as I was concerned, what was being suggested made no sense at all and I felt would cause me a great deal of difficulty.

Of course, there were news stories that I had just read and about which I wanted to comment in an article on my website.  It would just be difficult for me to do that in this web story because of the concerns that I had on the personal matters that I knew that I would have to deal with first.

Let me try and do an article now on the first 2 items and then add in some comments about other news stories. I will take the latter steps if I don't use up too much space talking about the other ones. If I do have a lot to say about the first 2, I will do a separate article on the news items. I don't want to give you, dear reader, too much to read!

The first matter---checking over some recently installed internal home equipment---was supposed to be a positive one I was hoping. After all, I did have a firm put in new equipment when we purchased our condominium townhouse home. If you remember what I posted on here, that operation by their subcontractor was a horrific mess that caused us one huge difficulty after another right after installation for quite a period of time. It was so bad…well, I really don't want to repeat it because I am sure that you should remember all the gory details that I posted about on here. In the end, I dealt with a number of the senior people in the area who had a number of their employees fix everything up.

All that I was going to do now was have the Company do their annual examination of my equipment to make sure that everything was fine now that the cold winter weather was just about finished and that everything would be fine with the equipment now that the hot weather was about to hit. I really could not face more problems similar to the ones that we had experienced in the past.

Fortunately for my wife and I, we had established a great relationship with one of their service people who had been involved in the past fixing up the messes that we were involved in and was making sure that everything was working properly subsequently. He had been involved in previous equipment examinations and I hoped that he could be involved again to make sure everything was working properly. What I did was call up one of the more senior managers in the firm to help set up such an appointment rather than doing it through the normal telephone service. The gentleman I contacted was relatively newly hired and I had spoken with him several  times in the past but had not yet met with him personally. I wanted to do that also so that he would know the miseries I had suffered so that I could continue to receive the excellent assistance that was now being provided to me whenever I ever called in.  Just in passing, the Company had given me access to their very special head office service to contact if I ever had a problem rather than calling up their local branch. However, because this seemed to be a normal operation, I figured I would contact the local office.

I was amazed when I made the phone call to the local gentleman! He remembered exactly who I was and what my problems were that he helped solve.  I asked him to set up the session and he promised to do so immediately. In addition, I asked, if he was available, whether we could meet just so that I could form a relationship with one of the senior managers in the area. I was surprised. While he could not promise to do so, he told me that he would try and come over at the same time that the service employee was here so that we could talk but more importantly, so that he could confirm that everything was working perfectly.

The annual maintenance meeting time came. The specific service person that I wanted came, checked over everything and was able to confirm that we had no difficulties and that everything would work extremely well.  Oh sure, that is what I hoped we would get and what my wife and I did get. However, I was somewhat disappointed because the more senior manager had not confirmed that he could come. Until I heard the doorbell ring! He had arrived and wanted to speak with us to make sure that everything was just perfect. He made sure that he had solved all of the other issues that he was dealing with first so that he had sufficient time to meet with me and my wife who really bought our house.

We had a great time together, speaking for over an hour about many of the matters that we were experiencing in our home with his firm's equipment, the service we were receiving from his excellent technicians and all of the miseries that we suffered before he joined the firm.  It was just so wonderful speaking with a person whom I believed to be an excellent person and with whom my wife and I would be dealing if we had any problems.

Let me talk about the 2nd issue now, the one dealing with my physical health.

As you know, I have been quite fortunate in not dying right away once I had picked up my illness. That is something that happens to very many people in quite a short time after their body absorbs it or, if they recover, they are not in a good health position afterward. I believe that I entered the Hospital Emergency Department literally a few days before my death would otherwise have happened if I had not done so. Moreover, I was very fortunate that one of the doctors there believed that he knew what my problem was and started treating for it immediately.  He was right and received confirmation several days later that I had the illness.  Few doctors anywhere know about that illness or how to treat it.

Let me leap forward to the weeks in May that just took place. I won't go into all the ridiculous details about what happened starting May 1 but will talk to you about the mess I had with Government people with respect to the very serious illness difficulties that I have been trying to overcome.

Without going into the matters that took place and why, I just need to tell you that I was told that my treatments were going to be reduced from 3 per week to 2 starting in the beginning of May and then from 2 treatments to 1 starting on May 29. This was something that apparently I knew about and had agreed to previously. As far as I was concerned, this was entirely incorrect and I was flabbergasted by it since I was certain that I had never spoken to anyone about this at all.

Eventually, I was so upset that I contacted an official in the Ministry in this Area and complained about what was happening. One of the civil servants who deals with people like me in a situation such as this spoke with me for almost one hour over the telephone and was going to get back to me quickly once she had examined everything.

I never heard another word from her!

I waited for about another week or so and then got fed up. One of my alternatives was to commence an appeal at the most senior level about what had happened to me. I would be ignoring the appeal system for people in my area by doing so. Initially, I thought about doing that because I was so upset about how I had been treated. However, in the end, I contacted the Head of the group in our region and spoke with her about the problem I had and how concerned I was about it. She immediately had another senior person in the area call me to discuss this matter and to try to resolve it.

The official came to my house right away and we talked about what was going on for about 2 hours. It was in that much detail. I presented her with information that I believe convinced her immediately that I was right in what I was saying. She wanted a copy of the note that I had that supported what I said. We agreed that another employee in the Department involved would come and interview me and then there would be another meeting shortly thereafter to discuss the results and to decide what happens next.

Another employee came out to talk to me for some time about what went on again so that he could come up with a solution to what my problem was. Another meeting was set out subsequently and I agreed again to meet with the 2 new Ministry people involved.

This new meeting was a very good one to be direct about it. It lasted for about 45 minutes. The conversation that we had was quite forthright as far as I was concerned. There was no fooling around but we were all trying to come up with a solution that worked for both sides based on the exchange of information that we had.

Gratefully, both sides agreed to a solution that makes sense for both of us. That is exactly what I wanted and was happy to achieve it with the people in my area.

To be direct, I was feeling so much better and did believe that my arrangement with the Government Department would end sooner but not in the time period or in the matter that was imposed on me. Frankly, what had happened caused me difficulties and hurt the positive position that I was in at the time. I went backwards in how I felt.

I can only say now how pleased I am in what was achieved as a result of the positive steps taken by the Governmental people that I met. I do believe that my recovery will take longer because of what happened but I also believe that what we agreed to will still help me to do so relatively quickly. After all, I always told the Government people that it was my desire to end our relationship as quickly as possible because that meant that I was now living in a satisfactory fashion all over again.

Hmmm.  My stories went on for quite a bit of space in giving you the information about what happened to me. I do not think that there is any space left for me to write about other matters about which I wanted to do some news articles. Oh well, that means that I will have to do some writing for a new Blog that I will have to post ASAP. I better start doing that right away.

Thanks for coming by again.