Tobias Buckell had some heart issues a while back, and the stress of Worldcon aggravated things a bit:
By Sunday morning, I was feeling completely sapped, and not getting enough sleep. I tried to nap before the pre-Hugo ceremony, but felt like I’d hit a brick wall by the time I’d walked over. I had to duck out of the Hugo ceremony briefly to lay down. By the end of the night my pulse was racing a bit, so I went back to the hotel to sleep. When I woke up my pulse was even higher.
After checking it several times, I decided it was high enough that I would follow standing orders to check into an ER when this sort of thing happened. I took a metaprolol a bit early and told Emily we needed to pack and go.
I was a bit nervous, and asked for an ER, but mentioned needing it for my heart. I was taken to the Clinique de Cardiologie de Montreal by a taxi driver.
Thus began a trip into the horror-show of Canadian health care, as Toby describes in detail. Luckily, the impersonal bureaucrats of the Quebecois Death Board were in a good mood, and all he got was quality medical care followed by a single bill, rather than mandatory euthanasia. Thank God we don’t have socialized medicine here in the US– no American should have to face that.
(I really hope the sarcasm in the above is obvious enough, but experience with the Internet suggests that it’s probably not. So, if you’ve clicked through to the full entry to post an irate comment about how I’m misrepresenting the reality of Canadian health care, do us both a favor and smack yourself in the face with your keyboard. Thank you.)