It began on March 31st, simple and innocuous: my Grandpa woke up and noticed a strange pain between one of his toes.

Somehow, he had cut himself, and the cut was turning towards infection. Since it was Easter Sunday and my parents were hosting a family party, my parents tried their best to get him help before the party, forced to leave the hospital because the wait time was excruciatingly long.

My grandpa being my grandpa, a stubborn old man with diabetes at the age of 86, was hardly about waiting around in an uncomfortable chair in a hospital for a scratch, infection, or no.

He was more than fine waiting, he assured.

The next morning, the wound had begun to blacken. This time, he offered fewer complaints and was rushed to the hospital. He returned home hours later, armed with nuclear-strength antibiotics to turn the approaching tides.

Almost two months since then, he's been in and out of the hospital, his condition fluctuating wildly, has a daily dose of intravenous fluids, and his toe has turned fully necrotic — I've stolen unfortunate glances, it makes me feel sick.

Extended periods of crying out in agony are a daily occurrence, and the pain meds losing their effectiveness. Sometimes he can barely walk, able to manage a whisper and little else. He needs an amputation, and, at this point, he'll be losing multiple toes, if not his entire foot.

And the longer we wait, the worse it gets.

My grandpa was a trucker in his prime

He crisscrossed Canada and America again and again, long hauls that would see him on the road for up to a week or two. He only quit when, after arriving home one early morning, he had a quick stop in the bathroom and found himself pissing blood.

Cancer — which he beat. Then cancer cropped up twice more — again, it raised the white flag. And somewhere along the way, he developed diabetes.

By the time I was born, he was settling into his crochety old man years. I had to deal with him nearly every day of my life as he lived with my parents after leaving my grandma.

I'm told he was far more mellow by his sixties. Regardless, he still had a booming voice, was often direct, and could get easily frustrated if I did something wrong, like forgetting to turn off a light when leaving a room.

To an anxious, introverted younger me, he was brash and unknowable. I used to think I was perhaps a touch scared of him. In retrospect, I realize this was intimidation, having no idea how to talk or approach him.

He never meant any harm, and he does love his children and grandchildren — he merely has a strong personality. Despite this, he's had zero issues accepting my gender identity, calling me by my chosen name often (though he sometimes forgets, his memory a bit spotty).

He should be a textbook example under the dictionary definition of aging gracefully: a full head of white hair, relatively healthy despite his medical issues (bar recent developments), and stubbornly independent.

Sure, his body has gotten a touch wearier, but he's over 85 years old — who wouldn't be?

Frankly, given his history, I took his living at least another decade for granted. I thought this man was made of iron, and he was coming undone because of a random infection.

And our healthcare system is doing jack-all. In fact, it's increasingly looking like they actively want him to die. Yes, this sounds extreme, but the ineptitude and incapability of it all are veering into dark comedy now.

For starters, he's only just gone to speak with the surgeon who's supposed to (maybe) be doing his amputation sometime (hopefully) in the next few weeks.

All we can do is wait.

A few days prior, he went to go get a stent put in his leg to help relieve pressure on his arteries. After fiddling around with him on the table for a while, they decided they couldn't find a way to safely get it in.

Ok, I get it. He's old, his health is waning — these are precarious surgeries for a man in his position.

Moments after getting off the table after the failed stent, he fell and hit his head on the ground in the operating room, surrounded by nurses. His needing assistance to stand and walk was no secret — where was the assistance?

One CT scan later and they're quite sure the fall wasn't anything serious — glad to see he's maintaining some of his steel-like qualities, if nothing else.

Let's not mince words: he literally could have died right then and there. He's tough, his aged body stalemating in a brawl with necrosis — strength doesn't mean invincibility. Everybody dies eventually, and he's already in a state where once things go wrong, they go wrong quickly.

Realistically, I understand, life is cruel, but why must he be failed at every bend?

Before heading off to see the surgeon, he didn't hold back with my mom: "They better cut this thing off or I'm done."

I can't blame him. I'd give up, too, if the system meant to save my life seemed to be almost conspiring against me.

Health care used to be one of the first things that came to mind when people talked about Canada. It being public and "free" was blathered about endlessly, lauded for how it's not like the mess down south.

Meanwhile, hop across the pond, and we're laughably inefficient compared to the offerings of some countries. These problems are Canada-wide, highly exacerbated by the onset of Covid. Our staff shortages and lack of properly allocated funding led to our system getting mangled and chewed up.

And there's been little recovery

My grandpa is merely one of many at the mercy of the system currently, liable to worsen to the point where it's much too late by the time before anyone helps him.

Thankfully, there was a recent influx of funding for Ontario to the tune of $3.1 billion courtesy of our federal government earlier this year. I think this is amazing and desperately needed — it also solves little in the immediate.

The current reality is that emergency room closures have become normalized, unable to function due to a lack of workers. And if they are open, they're often overcrowded with wait times reaching double-digit hours.

When my grandpa first went in, first thing in the morning, his blackened toe earmarked him for priority care. He still waited around six hours to leave the waiting room.

When finally called in, he yelled out, "About damn time."

Working in healthcare is one of the most exhausting things there is, unquestionably. It doesn't help when people like my grandpa make such comments, vindicated as they may be, their patience frayed.

I understand why many chose to leave the profession during Covid and continue to do so — I don't blame them.

It's especially hard when men like Doug Ford, Ontario's Premier, are doing their darnedest to privatize Healthcare in the vein of our cousins to the south. Yes, they are right to identify our system is failing, yet they refused to invest more in the public system until the federal government twisted their arm with $3.1 billion.

Prior, they were letting the public system fail so it could serve as a perfect example to point at and say, "See? We need to privatize now!"

I won't confess to knowing the best option — likely, a mix of public and private can work so long as there is proper regulation. Is the very man who let the public system flounder the one to implement those regulations?

Nope.

The gall it takes to let a public, widely available service rot and decay at the expense of life, all to fleece money from the public — it burns at my blood.

Yes, change is coming — after four years of continued and clear demonstrable failure. People have died from the lack of action up until now, will continue to die from it, and are in the process of dying from it.

I only hope one of those people is not my grandpa.