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i had my second appointment with Dr. Beard at the Credit Valley Hospital today at 920 AM. he is an ENT specialist and my family doctor had arranged an appointment with him to get my sinuses checked and see if there can be another solution for my allergies other than Claritin. last time i saw him was on december 9th last year and he gave me a prescription for a nasal spray called Flunisolide. i had to use it twice daily in the morning and at night before going to bed. i don’t really know if it is better than Flonase since during winter my allergies are virtually nonexistant. summer/spring is when the allergy season starts and i start suffering.

the doctor injected some solution into my nostrils (oww oww) and then nasally probed me with some weird piped instrument that was pushed into my nostril far more than i ever though possible. apparently the nasal cavity is huge and the doctor needs to take a good look inside to see whats going on in there. the inspection seemed to last for an eternity and was a bit painful but not as much as it would’ve been without the solution that has numbed everything in there. in any case, i found out that my nose really is unusual. i sort of already knew that but this was official confirmation from a specialist.

the nasal cavity has three turbinates on each side. these turbinate are big folds that protrude from the sidewalls of the nose. they are shaped as folds and are actually quite important. they warm inhaled air before it enters our lungs and they also filter and clean the air from pollutants that might be dangerous if they enter our lungs. this is accomplished by the millions of tiny cilia, very small hairs, that are spread all over the turbinates. these turbinates change their size periodically depending on a number of factors. during a cold, infection, or allergic reactions, they enlarge because of the blood that flows to the region to fight the infection via white blood cells.

usually the turbinate that is in front of the nose is the one that gets enlarged and swollen for people suffering from allergies. in my case it is the farthest most one that is swollen. that is unusual and that is why the doctor put me on the spray for a month to see what happens instead of following “normal procedure” and operating on the closest turbinate to ease air flow and breathing. however, after a month’s use the problem still persists. now i have an option to either choose surgery or just keep on using claritin and the new spray each year like the past 7, 8 years. i chose surgery.

since dr. beard is an ENT, an ear-nose-throat specialist, last time i was at his office i asked him to take a look at my left ear because i had had a funny hollowy underwater kind of sensation in it for about a week. i had assumed that it would go away automatically but it hadn’t. when the doctor took a look at it he had told me that my ear drum seems to have excess fluid behind it which is giving me that undewater feeling. however, it should fix itself soon enough and there isn’t much to worry about.

it hadn’t fixed itself during the course of the month so the doctor took a closer and more detailed look. he asked me if i had had any ear disease during childhooh and i replied with a negative before i corrected myself and told him about the repeatedly ear cleaning appointments me and my older brother used to have at an ENT in saudia in 1988 or 1989. i don’t remember how it started but i remember going to the ENT more than a couple of times and during each session he would use a very loud and very powerful suction ear vaccum that he would put in each ear to suck out lots of mucus. ugh. it was extremely painful and i would cry really loudly every single time.

apparently i had an ear disease back then and it has physically caused damage to my left ear. a bone, called the incus, is missing in my ear. a bone that virtually every human being has in his ear is missing in my left year… *cries* but it is not something to be really upset about. “you won’t loose any more hearing than you have already” … omfg.. what ? the doctor asked me which ear i can hear better out of. i told him that i’ve never felt a difference. he then used a tuning fork and placed it near my left ear and then my right ear and wow, i felt a huge difference between the two. over the past twenty something years my body and adapted itself to cope with this hearing disability and i just never noticed it. now i know why i suck at counterstrike.. i just can’t hear the enemy crouching up on me from my left :P

so, since i am scheduled for surgery on march 30th anyways, the doctor decided to operate on my ear at the same time. the excess fluid, i’ve no idea what kind of fluid, behind my ear drum is causing the ear drum to stick to the fluid and is also blocking a small tiny tube that goes from the ear to my nasal cavity. this tube is called the eustachian tube and it lets air through the nose to the ears to equalize the pressure between the middle ear and the atmosphere. because of the excess fluid, this tube is blocked and no air is passing through. the doctor will drill a small hole in my ear and put a tiny cylindrical object with a hole in its middle in my ear. this will ensure easy and continuous passage of air in my ear and fix the problem. this tiny object will stay in my ear for about a year and then automatically fall out. if the hole collapses after that, then the doctor will put something permanent inside.

all this seems so scary. both operations are quite delicate so the doctor recommended general anesthesia instead of local.. meaning i will be sleeping while they operate. it will be easier for both the doctor and the patient but it means i will have to go to the hospital two hours in advance and then stay there two hours after surgery. the op itself might take an hour at most but the doctor said it basically takes away the entire day and i should make sure i have nothing to do that day except rest and relax.

he assured me that i have nothing to worry about and if i want i can cancel both operations and just continue as is. keep using nasal sprays and leave my hearing as is. neither is any sort of threat to my general health, however, the surgeries would definitely help and i chose surgery. my allergies are worsening each season and any sort of relief would be more than welcome.

i had taken half the day off work and later in the afternoon i went to pick up skid from the airport. he was arriving from vancouver by air canada. he has a flight to moscow on the 12th from toronto but on the way back, 24th, he’s going directly back to vancouver which is a bit sad. i would’ve preferred he come back to toronto first and then to vancouver but the tickets were already booked and couldn’t be changed or updated.

i really do wish this trip does him some good. i can’t imagine how hard it would be for him but i’m sure it is something he must do to get some sense of closure. i don’t really know what to do.. if i should talk to him or wait until he wants to talk or maybe he doesnt want to talk about it and bring up memories and what not. sigh, such a sad tragedy and i wish i can help in any way i can. time heals all.. i hope it does its work soon enough.

i was living and studying in ottawa during the 2004 canadian federal election. i had never had the privilege to vote in an election so i was pretty excited that as a candian citizen i now have the right to vote and i was looking forward to doing so.

unfortunately when i called Elections Canada to ask for information about voting, the representative told me that my permanent residence is mississauga so i am not allowed to vote in ottawa. it was too late to ask for a special absentee ballot so the only way i could participate would be to physically go to mississauga on election day. since i was a poor student i decided it wasn’t worthwhile to travel 500 km there and then 500 km back just to cast a single vote. i patiently waited for the next federal elections.

now in 2006 the federal elections will be taking place on January 23rd and i have been following the election campaigns of all the major parties; Liberal, Conservatives, Bloc Quebecois, and the NDP.

paul martin is the current prime minister and is running for re-election as the Liberal party leader. the liberals are the oldest political party in canada and their policies are in the middle of the political spectrum. the last two prime ministers have been liberal as well. the current government stole a lot of money while martin was a finance minister. the gomery report exonerated him of any direct wrong doing but he is still held liable for the waste of millions of dollars since he is the current leader of his party. his government has also wasted billions on the gun registry program which doesn’t seem to be doing a whole lot of good for Toronto. martin, if elected, promises to give $5.1 billion to aboriginals, ban handguns, hire more rcmp officers, adopt tougher sentences for gun crime, allocate $13 billion for 5000 new canadian troops, forgive debts owed by foreign government, pay half of the tuition for 1st and last year of all college and university students, cut green house gases, decriminalize small amounts of marijuana, pledge $805 million over 5 years for direct federal health funding, spend $9 billion on a National Waiting Times Reduction Strategy, give $810 million to research hospitals, and cut corporate income taxes by $30 billion in the next 5 years. what i like about the liberal government is how it is willing to say NO to the US and is actively going after canada’s interests regardless of whether they match US interests. his government said no to joining the stupid missile shield program and said no to sending troops to Iraq and is actively working to get back the billions of dollars US owes canada over the softwood lumber dispute. good to see someone having the backbone to say no to US hegemony.

stephen harper is the conservative party leader and a robot. they were 2nd place in the 2004 election and forced a minority liberal government and also called the No Confidence vote which toppled the current government and led to an election. the conservative party is an amalgamation of the Progressive Conservative Party and the Canadian Alliance Party.. and they are on the right of the political spectrum. they believe in individual rights and want to run businesses with little interference fro the government. the liberal party is portraying harper as a george bush junior and some of the quotes from stephen harper that the liberals show in their political ads are pretty disturbing. in any case, harper wants mandatory minimum sentences for all drug crimes, a sex offender registry, raise the age of sexual consent from 14 to 16 year of age, support NORAD and improve relations with the US, create a veterans Bill of Rights, introduce elections for senate vacancies instead of appointments, make scholarships tax free, make univerity textbooks tax deductible, give tax credits to transit users, introduce Clear Air Act, cancel the Kyoto Accord, promote alternative fuel research, get rid of the gun registry, support 3 year prohibition on stem cell research, cut back hospital waiting lists, not legalize marijuana, reduce GST by 1% right away and later another 1%, reduce small business tax rate, and give $1200 per year for child-care. my main problem with harper is that he would’ve joined the stupid missile shield program and would’ve sent canadian troops to iraq. i am a big supporter of the UN and what it stands for and i would not have been pleased to see canadian troops dispatched to Iraq. also, harper is a robot with artificial eyes and that is scary too.

gilles duceppe is the leader of the Bloc quebecois party which is a left wing social party that only concerns itself with issues relating to quebec’s interests. his party’s ultimate goal is the separation of canada and creation of quebec as its own country… selfish fuck. quebec even has its own National Assembly and the liberal scandal that toppled martin’s government was about a government sponsorship program in the province of quebec to raise canadian patriortic sentiments and promote national unity. it really angers me to see an entire province wanting to separate from canada. we’ve had two referrendums, once in 1980 and once in 1995 about quebec separation and both times the ‘No’ side won. if it happens again you can be sure i’m going to go and vote No. in any case, ducceppe wants to uphold the Kyoto accord, increase education funding and ban Canadian forces from entering a war declared illegal by the UN. thats good but this crazy idea of making quebec a country is nothing but crazy. you’ve failed twice… give it up and plz be part of canada kthnx.

jack layton and his moustache are the leaders of the New Democratic Party. it is a left wing party and advocates social democracy. however, they have never formed a government and have only a handfull of members of parliament. they are portraying themselves as the third choice and as the party for the “working families” of canada. i like him and i like the way he talks, argues and debates. i would gladly vote for him but i know he will not win enough votes to form a government and i worry that his plans might actually require a tax increase for working families to pay for all the program he wants to start. in any case, layton and his moustache want to create aboriginal-only seats in parliament, create national sex offender registry, create a national victims’ bill of rights, launch anti-gun and anti-drugs ad campaigns and programs for the misguided youth, increase pay for armed forces, create replacements for NATO and NORAD, scarp anti-terrorism act, oppose missile defense, make it law for a parliament vote before canadian troops are sent abroad, cancel agreements for american soldiers to enter canada during an emergency, abolish the senate, lower voting age to 16, reduce tuition fees by 10%, allocate $4 billion for post secondary education, reduce greenhouse emissions, sell the government’s share of Petro Canada, build wind turbines, allow gst rebates on environmentaly friendly cars, stop flow of public money into private health care, allocate $1 billion/year transfer to provinces for home-care services, remove gst from family essential like children’s clothing and medicine, school supplies, books, magazines, etc, and ensure that all canadians who make less than $15,000 do not have to pay federal income tax. good plans but how will he pay for all of this ? he seems like the most likeable person from these four candidates so i would like to vote NDP.

the general consensus seems to be that everyone is sick of 12 years of liberal rule and liberal corruption and scandals. the conservatives seem to be on track for winning this thing and i really dont want harper to be the next pm. so i will probably vote liberal just to make sure the conservatives stay out :(

there are five people running for election in my riding. canada is divided into 308 ridings that cover the entire country with each riding representing one member of parliament. whoever gets the most votes in a riding becomes the member of parliament. whichever party has the most members of parliament wins the election and that party’s leader becomes the next prime minister. my riding has Wajid Khan from the liberal party, Raminder Gill from conservative party, Jim Caron from NDP, Otto Casanova from the Green Party, and Peter Creighton from the Progressive Canadian Party. this riding is full of indian and pakistani families and i am sure either khan or gill will win the riding. khan is the current MP and is running for re-election.

election day is 23rd January 2006. lots of time to make up my mind and figure out who i will vote for. don’t forget to vote!!