Bitten

This has been a pretty fucked up week. I was sick all week, had a sore throat, swollen lymph nodes, fever, muscles and joints aching... Sucks, right? Then I got bitten by a spider just in front of my ear. First there was a red, itchy bump. Then the bump got bigger and turned mustard yellow in the middle, then brown, then the middle fell off and now I have an itchy scab about the size of a penny. Pretty annoying... Anyway, the aching and pain in my throat wouldn't go away, so my friend Nikki took me to the Sainte-Adele clinic. When we got there, we found a note on the door saying that the clinic was closed today only. Sucks. So we were going to return the next day, but unfortunately Nikki's car got towed away during the night for being parked in a bad place. Before she got it back it was already past five and the clinic had closed again. So we decided to go to a clinic in Laval instead. We got there, only to find a similar note on the door, saying that the place was closed today only. So we went to a third clinic, but that one was full. We went to Nikki's place and went to sleep. The next day we went back to the clinic that had been full. According to the sign, we were well within opening hours, but the doors were locked. What the fuck, man? So we went back to the other clinic, but that one was closing in ten minutes. Starting to get seriously pissed, now. Five clinics and we hadn't gotten to see a doctor yet. Why would a clinic close at 2 pm in the afternoon? Are people only allowed to be sick during banking hours in Canada? So we went to a clinic we hadn't tried yet. Finally we got to get a number and start waiting to see a doctor. About three hours later I got to see this doctor. He walks in the room with a sour look on his face and goes "pourquoi?" I tell him I don't speak French very well. He tells me he doesn't speak English. Seriously, I can get the thing about why official documents and signs and all that have to be in French in Quebec and all that. The province wants to be francophone. Fine. No problem with that. But what the FUCK is up with doctors not even having the most basic skills in English? I am absolutely sure that I am not the only person in the province who doesn't speak French... This particular doctor was pretty rude, and didn't exactly give an impression of being very competent either. He stuck a thermometer in my mouth, squeezed my throat, and then decided it was tonsillitis and prescribed me antibiotics. Now, I know for a fact that there is a crapload of things that can cause tonsillitis, and only about 15-30 % of those things are bacteria that are treatable by antibiotics. So to just prescribe me antibiotics without taking a blood test or doing a bacterial culture swab to find out what the cause is seems pretty dumb to me. And that I had to go to a clinic six times before I got to see a doctor? Seriously... So far Quebec health care is really not very impressive.