It does not pay to procrastinate, to think that “I’ll do that (whatever it is) later when I’m not so busy.” Or to shrug and say, “I don’t really want to do that (whatever it is) so I’ll smile pleasantly and just ignore the suggestions to get ‘er done right now.
A member of our family pointed out months ago that in order to keep up to date and current on our health records, we should get ourselves an e-health account so we could simply log in and find out what, if anything, ails us.
We didn’t take her advice, thinking it would be unlikely that such an account would be necessary in our lives, that if we wanted to know about our health, we could simply visit our doctor.
And although we didn’t say it aloud, and speaking for myself, I was unsure I wanted my health record to be on a system that could be hacked by anyone who wanted to know the status of my blood and how much damage was done to my body in that car accident. Not that anyone would be interested in my blood and bones, but there are creepy people out there who might want to check it out.
Thus, we continued to ignore her suggestions and are now admitting, in this public forum, that she was absolutely correct in her pleasant nagging. We should have gotten ourselves some e-health accounts a long time ago. If we had done so, we wouldn’t have wasted so many precious hours on trying to set up accounts to allow us to prove to the world that we are vaccinated against COVID-19.
I sat down with confidence one afternoon, thinking I could go through the process of registering at my own convenience and without any of the mishaps I had overheard others discussing. “How hard could this be?” was my arrogantly naive thought.
That first effort was fruitless, me being kicked off because the e-mail I entered was not an individual address, it being shared with Housemate. I dashed off an inquiry as directed and received a lovely and polite response, that no, I could not get away with using the shared e-mail but rather would have to get myself one all of my own.
So I did.
The next attempt stumped me at the driver’s licence numbers where someone observing my useless efforts kept telling me I had goofed. I hadn’t but having an argument with an unseen robot was a waste of time. Again I sent off an inquiry and was advised to be especially careful about doing names and numbers exactly as printed.
So I tried again and then had to make THE CALL, that call to get myself one of those PIN things that would make me more unique than ever. I called and it rang and rang and rang and rang some more until finally a friendly voice apologized for the delay, but gently hinted I should call again another day.
It took many tries but finally I got through to a real person who quickly gave me a series of letters and numbers that became my PIN. “Thank you so much for your help,” I gushed.
With PIN entered appropriately, I waited then got shut out again and again. Each time I tried to access the site, an apology came across the screen. Then came the hammer and screwdriver symbols saying the site was shut down for repairs.
When I finally was advised that I had successfully created myself an e-health account, I was awash with excitement. That excitement was short-lived. When I opened the account to check on my health, it was to view an absolutely blank space.
That’s exactly how I feel some days!!!!
But after showing amazing patience, I now have my vaccination results and am proudly showing them off to anyone who cares to ask for them. Now if I could figure out what all those symbols mean in my lab results. A discovery for another day.
Joyce Walter can be reached at ronjoy@sasktel.net
The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author, and do not necessarily reflect the position of this publication.
