You may remember an article I did a while back called Life's Curves. Well here is a little update on the happenings with my friend Dale....

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After his last bout with seizures a number of tests found that he was allergic to the seizure prevention medication he was taking. This medication is the one routinely given and is classified as the safest with minimal side effects. Well he just so happens to be the one in thousands that does react to this medication. Now after the first seizure they hyper-pumped his system with this medication to control any future seizures and now came the hell trying to bleed this medication from his system. At this point they still had not figured out what had caused his seizures in the first place. For this reason and because of his reaction to the "safest" medication it was decided to leave him off any medication and see how things went. He still had a battery of tests to go and at this point were no closer to finding the cause.

Finally his insurance company stepped up to the plate and he started receiving disability pay which went to relieving a modicum of his income woes. Retraining was now the route to go as his career as a long haul driver or commercial driver of any sort for all intense and purposes was over.

The Canadian medical system which we Canadians like to hold as a monument to care giving and a system that should be in place world over is not all it is cracked up to be -- in fact the truth be known it is exceedingly expensive, highly ineffective and inefficient at getting timely results to medical questions. One must wait horrendous amounts of time to get access to any prescribed test as the waiting lists for those tests are so long. Then if the results are not satisfactory then you sit in another line waiting for still other testing. If you luck out and the tests you have had do result in an answer then the medication you will need is either not covered under your health plan or only limitedly covered. Unless you have third party coverage by another private health plan that is and even then that is no guarantee and the costs for medication can be ridiculously expensive.

So after the results from the tests he has had came back negative and the scheduling for another battery became necessary, postulating was done to try to determine the cause of his affliction until confirmed answers could be arrived at from the results of the new tests. They now think he may be suffering from M.S. (Multiple Sclerosis) caused by a virus picked up in the hospital while he was being treated for pneumonia.

So what does this mean -- well first he has started suffering from intermittent vision loss -- next he can no longer hold a drivers license of any sort so his mobility has been severely restricted, in and of itself a bad blow but add to this the fact that he lives out of town and this takes on a whole new set of ramifications. Retraining is done at centers which he must now take a rural bus to which adds to the cost. Doctor and testing appointments must also be accessed via the same mode of transportation. For those living in the city hopping on a bus for the commute from place to place can be aggravating enough now take this and put it on the time schedule of a rural commuter where the busses run at nowhere near the frequency of the urban transit and you can see the difficulties arising. He must now look at selling his home -- one he has sunk a lot of time and money into to move -- where closer to his doctors in the city to the south of him or to his retraining center to the city to the north of him. His wife works and her job takes her all over the place so the possibility of having her to fall back on as a means of getting from place to place is not there and it can't be expected that she would give up there only real source of income. Booking days off to take him to the testing facilities may be an option but how many days can be booked before it begins to jeopardize her employment.

Also there is the fact of their daughter and if they move in one direction she stays in the school she is in where if they move in the other she will have to find a new school.

So once again for all of you out there who are going from day to day without a care in the world think long and hard about a backup plan if the unthinkable should arrise and you to should find yourself in the unenviable position of my friend Dale and his family ... for things like this not only affect you but those around you as well.

For any of you giving thought to an alternative income generation there are a number of possibilities -- publishing on the web could be an avenue to look at. To get ideas and help in your search for business opportunities on the internet visit Home 4 Success

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