Town bylaw officer threatens to financially ruin me with penalties and fines for the crime of Medical Need

  There is a subject that I seldom write about because it deals with the subject matter that cuts deep into my psyche, just as it does for many other severely injured and disabled workers, and that is the subject of stress. When you have been severely disabled, my own doctor has warned me of the dangers of stress. That is how I became a patient of Dr. Adebayo. He was deeply worried about the stress that I had been suffering as a result of being denied medical care and medications at the hands of the WCB of Alberta.

Since the days when I first met Dr. Adebayo, when I entered his office suffering from dangerous and life threatening levels of high blood pressure, he had warned me of the dangers of stress. He warned me that I must avoid confrontation that could lead to exceedingly high levels of blood pressure. By the time I had met Dr. Adebayo approx. 13 years ago or so, since being cut-off of my pain medications and I was not on any blood thinners or blood pressure pills.

I had never before in my life had a real Family Physician. I did briefly have a doctor for a couple of months at the Callingwood Medical Clinic, I still remember the day the doctor informed me that he could no longer treat me because the Workers Compensation Board had completely cut me off of benefits. I was devastated and left the clinic and as I hobbled to my truck with no medication, and no hope of getting further treatment I climbed in and sobbed for a half an hour. I cried because instinctively I knew that I was embarking on a life of horror and horrible insufferable pain. I had been cut-off benefits from WCB because I had missed a physiotherapy appointment because the therapist at Remed in the west end had reported me delinquent from my therapy.

I missed my appointment because 1 of their physiotherapists Jay Dunn had engaged in what he called "Deep Massage" on my back. As a patient with a Spinal Injury that was barely 6 months post surgery and I still had the steel bars in my back from Spinal Fusion. So naturally as a direct result of Jay Dunn's callous and obvious lack of training Jay sent me into a downward spiral of mind bending pain as I could not arise from bed the next day. I was cut off because of his lack of training, and decision to dig his thumbs into my back right at my injury site where my vertebrae shattered. This was the beginning of 12 years battling the Workers Compensation Board.

I had never had a family doctor before my accident because I as a general rule did not get sick other than the odd cold. So when you become seriously injured the very first thing you need is a family doctor, this was what the Medicenter doctors told me. Back in those days for the first year for sure I would have to wait in the waiting rooms of Medicenters for 3 or more hours to see a doctor. Quite often this would NOT result in me getting the medications I required as most physicians absolutely flat out refuse to treat any patients that are suffering with Chronic Pain.

I searched for over a year for a doctor that would take me on as a patient, and I had probably at that time visited at least 40 different Dr. offices in the capital region. No doctors would take me as a patient. I went for weeks without medications and would end up in the Emergency dept. of the hospital, and the doctors would help but would always scold me to get a family doctor.

In the early days of my injury I suffered long bouts of depression because of lack of medical treatment and a doctor. The physical effects of no medication along with WCB denial of payment for ANY treatments had lasting physical and elevated mental effects on my health. 

This is how I ended up in Dr. Adebayo's office experiencing extreme high blood pressure from the massive stress that being imposed on my body. I was experiencing something called autonomic hyperreflexia which is a problem with circulatory control and is a potentially life-threatening rise in blood pressure from my Spinal Injury.

Dr. Adebayo really saved my life back in those days because I was would regularly go weeks without any medication at all. My lack of medication was killing me, and quickly because of the enormous physical stress my body was being subjected to.

This post was written as a background piece to in order to give clarity to my condition and how we arrived at this critical moment in time, because time is not something that I have surplus amounts left in my life.

I explained every part of my medical condition in the many conversation the bylaw officer so that she could have a better comprehension and understanding of what I am experiencing in real time. She had told me she used to be an EMT, so naturally I thought that she would have reserved a small space in her heart for empathy and compassion for a human that she should naturally understand that I was bending under the stress that I was experiencing mentally and physically in real time.