Where do people go for the best health care?

You already know the answer, of course.  But this story of a Canadian mother of two with a rare bone cancer highlights a number of fun little things, both mentioned and not by ABC news.

First, there’s the misdiagnosis by the Canadian Department of Awesome Medical Care (or whatever it’s called).

The first warning sign for Ollson was severe back pain that came on during her first pregnancy that made it impossible for her to work by the end of her pregnancy. The pain lessened after her daughter was born but started up again years later when she became pregnant with her son.

Doctors found nothing wrong with her and although she was desperate for relief, there was nothing more that could be done, or so she was told.

“I went back home feeling very alone and misunderstood,” she told the Winnipeg Free Press. “I didn’t think people believed me. I knew it was a whole lot worse than anyone thought.”

In February 2007, after months of suffering with no relief, Ollson had had enough. She had her husband, Daryl, take her to the hospital where she was diagnosed with pregnancy sciatica, a form of back pain caused by pressure on the sciatic nerve.

Now, the ABC story doesn’t go in to detail about how many years she went without a diagnosis, but it looks like it took months to get the MRI.  Maybe had the cancer been diagnosed earlier, she wouldn’t have needed to come to the United States for treatment.

The article does go on to insinuate this cancer is very hard to diagnose, but then the Doc they interview lays this out there:

Rapp did not treat Ollson, but notes that of the patients he has seen with chondrosarcoma, none has had such a large area affected by the cancer.

Again, making me wonder if Canadian free health care is all that great.  So of course, she had experimental surgery in the hotbed of medical innovation… wait.  Did the Mayo Clinic move?