The skies here are grey.

The kind of grey that makes you feel the gloom. It settles against the windows, stretches across the rooftops, and seems to find its way inside.

That is where I feel I have been these last few weeks.

In a gloom.

This morning, I stood awkwardly at the sink, trying to finish a load of dishes. Fighting the pinching, crushing feeling in my back and the yank of my right foot, I breathed the way you are taught in Lamaze classes.

Slowly. Deeply. Trying to get through even one household task.

A plate. A cup. Another breath.

As I stood there, I noticed the neighbours’ old oak trees.

The leaves had completely fallen.

Their bare branches were no longer inviting. They looked almost menacing against the gloom.

I had missed it.

The graceful turning of yellow and crimson. The quiet beauty of autumn before everything lets go.

I missed almost the whole summer, and now another season has slipped through my fingers.

I missed the campfires.

The s’mores. The warmth. The enjoyment of so many things that once belonged quite naturally to my life.

My home does not feel the way it used to.

There is a difference between returning home after work and remaining here because your body makes leaving difficult. Once, I came through the door and found solace. I put down the weight of the day and settled into a place that felt like mine.

Now it often feels confining.

Sometimes foreign.

Through the windows, the world continues changing. Inside, I keep asking the same question.

How am I still struggling to get help to get better?

I live in a country where we speak with pride about publicly funded healthcare. Yet even when there is no bill for the appointment itself, waiting can cost a person more than they ever imagined.

Injury reaches far beyond the physical.

The pain is a huge part of it. So are the tremors, the changes in how I walk, and the movements I can no longer trust.

But there are quieter losses too.

I miss the ease of being caught up in a moment.

Listening to a story without shifting to find relief. Sitting beside my husband with my attention on him, rather than on the pain gathering in my back. Laughing without that small, familiar interruption from somewhere in my body.

Even when I am there, part of me is occupied elsewhere.

I hear the conversation. I want to settle into it, to forget myself for a little while. But the pain keeps drawing my attention back, and afterwards I sometimes realize how much of the moment I spent trying simply to remain in it.

I miss being able to give the people I love my whole attention.

Over time, those interruptions begin to shape your life. They become part of what you expect from a day.

I never wanted to become accustomed to that.

I miss working.

Some people might wonder who would miss going to work.

I would.

When you care about what you do, there is something meaningful in knowing your presence can make a positive difference in someone else’s life.

My work belonged to me. It gave me purpose, income, and a place in the world beyond my own front door.

As a Personal Support Worker, I helped people with their activities of daily living. But I also tried to help them carry some of the negativity that had gathered around their circumstances.

Sometimes I could help someone see something brighter.

A little humour. A conversation. A moment when they felt heard instead of hurried.

Now I am humbled in a different way.

I understand more deeply how limitations create barriers. How difficult optimism becomes when there is something continually preventing you from enjoying the life in front of you.

I hate being in pain.

I hate the tremors. I hate the way I walk now. I hate feeling confined.

And I hate knowing I still have skills worth something while struggling to find someone willing to consider them.

I was more than my ability to perform physical care.

I could write. Communicate. Organize information. Think through problems. Learn. Contribute in ways that did not depend entirely on what my body could lift, carry, or endure.

When I tried to explain that, I felt shut down.

I did not fit the particular niche in which I had been placed. What I could still offer seemed to matter less than the boundaries of that category.

That makes me angry.

Furious, even.

I am trying to preserve a place for myself in a world that keeps moving. I am trying to find out what remains possible while living with abilities that have not meaningfully improved.

I need a fair chance to explore that.

I also need help.

I am not getting better, and I am still trying to understand why the path to treatment has been so difficult to find.

One person recommends a specialist.

Another recommends a program.

The expert opinion appears in a report, but the recommendation does not become a referral.

Without that referral, I cannot simply arrive at a clinic and expect to receive care.

Someone must take the next step.

Someone must send the request, follow it through, and make sure the person waiting understands what is happening.

Instead, I have felt passed from one person to the next, with no meaningful solution within reach.

How can I be held responsible for failing to reach a destination when I cannot open the doors required to get there?

I am the patient.

I am not the clinician. I cannot do the work of a specialist or create access to a program that requires a medical referral.

I can explain. Ask. Follow up. Try again.

But the expert opinion is already there.

Where is the follow-through?

Healthcare has become highly specialized. The population grows, needs become more complex, and patients may require help across several disciplines.

I recognize that doctors are facing enormous demands. I do not expect one physician to have every answer or personally repair an entire system.

But there still needs to be a clear path to treatment.

A patient should be able to understand who is responsible for the next step, whether it has happened, and what support is available while they wait.

The pressures on clinicians cannot become a permanent explanation for leaving patients stranded.

Those pressures are themselves part of what needs to be addressed.

And that responsibility cannot simply be handed back to the person who is injured.

This is where I look towards government.

Towards those who make policy, allocate resources, establish priorities, and hold responsibility for the structures we are expected to rely upon.

I find it difficult to fathom how practical solutions can remain under the noses of people with the authority to pursue them while families continue falling through the same gaps.

Help someone obtain appropriate treatment.

Support their recovery.

Protect enough stability in their life that they can participate in that recovery.

These should be fundamental considerations in a system intended to help people regain their health and, where possible, their ability to work.

Instead, too often, the person waiting is left feeling as though their future has become a game of Russian roulette.

Will the referral happen?

Will treatment arrive?

Will income support remain long enough?

Will the next decision bring help—or remove what little security is left?

A household cannot build a future around that uncertainty.

When one system fails, the need does not disappear.

The burden passes to the next system.

And the next.

And the next.

A worker who cannot access treatment may remain unable to work. A household without sufficient income may turn to charitable assistance or other public supports. Financial fear can deepen emotional distress. Housing becomes less secure.

By then, the original problem has acquired several others.

There are more demands on services, more paperwork, more people trying to respond to circumstances that have become increasingly difficult.

The taxpayer does not escape those consequences because responsibility has changed hands.

Neither does the family.

This is what I mean when I say we need to look at the foundations.

A foundation that is not strong enough to hold the structure will eventually crumble.

We cannot keep placing more weight upon it and acting surprised by the damage.

Our systems can feel like a house of cards.

Each part depends upon another remaining steady. One decision, one missed step, one failure to provide the right support can unsettle everything around it.

Then it topples.

The next group arrives to gather the cards, deal with the consequences, and attempt to rebuild.

But if we keep rebuilding upon the same unstable foundation, what have we changed?

The arrangement?

The name of the program?

The office responsible for answering the telephone?

The people living beneath that structure need something sturdier.

It is time to break the cycle.

Government must be willing to examine where its systems are failing together, rather than treating every consequence as a separate problem belonging to a different department.

People do not live their lives in departments.

Healthcare, workplace insurance, employment, housing, and mental health meet inside the same home.

They meet at the kitchen table.

They meet when a bill arrives and there is nothing left to move from one account to another.

They meet when someone is too unwell to work but still has to spend the day trying to prove why.

They meet when a spouse realizes there may be no time to rest because the household cannot survive another season without income.

When support fails early, other services may be left carrying needs that have grown more urgent and more costly to address.

We should be asking whether timely treatment, coordinated care, and adequate income support could have prevented some of that hardship.

We should be asking why it takes a crisis to make a person’s circumstances visible.

And we should expect those with authority to answer.

I am tired of watching practical concerns become tangled in processes until the human being at the centre is almost impossible to see.

I am tired of hearing about responsibility while so much of it is placed upon people who have the least power to change what is happening.

And I am angry at the possibility that greed, self-interest, or the protection of an institution’s reputation can take the reins while people suffer the consequences.

Where corruption exists, it must be confronted.

Where financial priorities displace human need, those priorities must be challenged.

Where evidence of harm is repeatedly brought forward, deliberate blindness cannot be accepted as leadership.

I cannot claim to know every motive behind every decision. But I can insist that decisions be examined, that their consequences be acknowledged, and that those responsible be accountable.

Selective hearing only fuels the fires.

Listening to the convenient parts while turning away from the suffering leaves those fires to spread through households and communities.

At some point, looking away becomes a choice.

So does deciding to act.

Support injured workers.

Support their recovery, even when it takes longer than expected.

An anticipated healing time is not a command the body can obey. Every human being is different. The route to improvement may be complicated, and the next appropriate treatment may require reassessment.

Investigate what is preventing progress.

Make sure the recommended care has actually been made accessible.

A worker who cannot receive treatment has not been given a fair opportunity to discover what that treatment might help them regain.

How is it reasonable to place another barrier in their way because they have not improved?

Help them access care.

Then assess what happens.

Support their mental health while they navigate those rough seas.

The loss of physical ability is already frightening. The uncertainty about work is already heavy.

Adding fear about food, housing, and basic necessities makes that journey harder still.

Distress and depression do not exist separately from those circumstances. Nor should a person have to reach another crisis before their need for support is taken seriously.

We should be working to prevent people from falling further.

Meaningful support could help protect households from poverty and housing instability. It could give people a better chance to participate in treatment and explore what work, if any, they can sustainably manage.

And where someone cannot recover enough to return to work, the supports intended for that circumstance must be accessible and adequate.

They need a path forward too.

A person’s worth does not end where their working capacity changes.

None of this requires pretending that every condition can be cured or every problem can be solved immediately.

It requires paying attention.

It requires following through.

It requires recognizing that a delay which looks manageable inside an office may be devastating inside a home.

And it requires government to accept that maintaining a system is not enough if the people it was created to serve cannot reliably reach the help within it.

A stable foundation must be measured by what it can hold.

Can it hold a family steady while an injured worker receives treatment?

Can it provide clear next steps?

Can it respond when recovery takes an unexpected route?

Can it prevent an interruption in earning from becoming the loss of a home?

Those are questions worth building around.

The oak trees are bare now.

That is the part for which there is no reconsideration.

A lost summer cannot be restored by a later decision.

Neither can the assembly at my granddaughter’s school, where she received an award for gratitude. Neither can the moments with friends and family that I could not take part in.

Today is Halloween.

Christmas will follow, and I wonder whether dinner will be cut short for me because the pain outweighs what I can continue enduring.

I think about the leaves turning red, orange, and yellow without me noticing until they were gone.

These are pieces of a life.

Small enough to be overlooked by someone reading a file. Large enough to leave an ache in the person who has lost them.

Time will not stand still while someone heals.

The timekeeper does not pause the seasons because an appointment has not arrived or a report remains outstanding.

Summer becomes autumn.

The branches empty.

Winter approaches.

But meaningful support can make the passing of that time less cruel. It can offer stability, a little room to breathe, and a path towards whatever healing may be possible.

We cannot return the seasons already lost.

Those with the power to change these systems can help determine how many more are lost to waiting.

The solutions deserve more than a passing glance.

The people deserve more than selective hearing.

And I would like to meet the next season with more than a window between us.

Fairwinds Lovelies,

Always Ambrose Fider