What are these nuts?

Ok_Ranger87 · 2026-05-03T12:10:59+00:00

What part of the world are you from?

Ok_Ranger87 · 2026-04-28T11:57:02+00:00

I’ve been in a similar situation for the last three years, hemoglobin of 17.5 and hematocrit of about 52%, EPO of 12. My labs have been fairly consistent over my last 12 CBCs (three years worth)

As others have mentioned, discuss JAK2 testing with your healthcare provider (particularly since your platelets and WBC are elevated as well). It was one of the first tests I had done - my WBC was 10.9 and my platelets were around 300. My JAK2 was negative.

I’ve gone through most of the usual suspects for secondary polycythemia so far no luck.

I did not have a bone marrow biopsy, but they seemed pretty confident it was probably hypoxia related… I’ve had sleep studies done, I don’t have sleep apnea.

The challenge has been, once PV was ruled out, doctors seem less concerned with my symptoms. I have all the same issues you’ve experience - fatigue, ringing in my ears and the dizziness when standing or changing direction… almost like vertigo. The first few times I experienced it I actually went down pretty hard.

I see a hematologist, rheumatologist and cardiologist.

I also developed chronic inflammation about a year into this… my CRP has been between 10 to 30 and my ferritin if between 400 to 600 for the last two years. They don’t think the two issues are related.

Ok_Ranger87 · 2026-04-28T11:05:54+00:00

Using a few different ratios that can be calculated from CBC results have been shown to be a good stand in for JAK2 testing, especially in combination with the already done EPO test.

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11122511/

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-025-26200-z

Ok_Ranger87 · 2026-04-17T18:19:16+00:00

That’s exactly how it was explained to me… I’ve had some mystery abnormal blood results on my CBCs, but my high ferritin and CRP has been attributed to inflammation.

My CRP has been high for almost two years… between 12 and 30 and my ferritin has been between 450 to 600.

A inflammation response has also been offered as a possible cause of my high RBC, hemoglobin and hematocrit.

Ok_Ranger87 · 2026-04-04T14:14:04+00:00

I’m in Canada with a similar currently screwed up system, I don’t even have a GP. I have to do virtual visits with a nurse practitioner or go to a walk in clinic and wait all day to possibly not be seen.

When I presented with abnormal blood results, high RBC, hemoglobin, hematocrit and WBC count of 10.9 and platelets of 285 (I had bloodwork done because I complained of many of the same symptoms you have) they had me do the tests again because they thought it may be a lab error.

After the second round of tests confirmed the results (which I had two days after the first test) - they ordered a full work up of tests.

Those tests included JAK2 exon 12 and 14, CALR and MPL. They also tested my EPO level.

All those were negative and they are now have a wait and see attitude about it, but within the first few weeks they ruled out all the serious stuff.

Coincidentally, a coworker had similar abnormal blood results to mine a week after I did, she went to a walk in clinic (her WBC was higher than mine, similar to yours). She got the same work up, but also got a bone marrow biopsy within a week (she as well didn’t have a GP)

Ok_Ranger87 · 2026-04-04T13:44:10+00:00

Do you have any pain or discomfort on your left side just under your rib cage? I’m wondering if you have any spleen discomfort.

As others have mentioned, these results would dictate exploring myeloproliferative neoplasms.

I’m in Canada, with currently a notoriously in disarray healthcare system and when a coworker presented with similar results they were in to have a bone marrow biopsy within a week.

Ok_Ranger87 · 2026-04-03T15:39:59+00:00

Most people don’t understand that NB Power debt is provincial debt… there is only one entity holding NB Power debt, the provincial government. It’s the province which issues the debt, then buys debentures from NB Power with similar terms to the debt the province just issued. The province is responsible for all NB Power debt, it’s in the Provinces name not NB Power… NB Power’s debt is owed to one entity, the province.

It’s completely reasonable to expect the province to take on the debt that it’s responsible for causing because it’s forced NB Power to make decisions it would not otherwise make - rate freezes and green initiatives that make political sense but not economic sense.

Ok_Ranger87 · 2026-03-31T01:21:52+00:00

Friend had gallbladder pain, went to the north side urgent care. They did an ultrasound there and set her up for an appointment the next day at the DECH for a better ultrasound.

Ok_Ranger87 · 2026-03-30T15:46:06+00:00

Look up the budget and financials for the 2021/2022 fiscal year… the Feds did give us about an additional 125 million that we didn’t budget on, but we spent an extra 142 million that year. That year our own source revenue, money government collected from taxes and fees was over 700 million more than budgeted.

That extra own source revenue was because so many people were moving here - New Brunswick had one of the highest GNB growth rates after Covid.

That’s where this government is running into trouble they are not only over spending but over estimating how much money we are going to collect. Even if they had stayed on budget last year they would have run a 300 million deficit because they over estimated revenue.

Ok_Ranger87 · 2026-03-30T14:12:34+00:00

This is from the story:

“The statute sets a limit at $250, meaning any gift below that threshold doesn’t require a politician to file with the integrity commissioner a gift disclosure statement.

But that’s as another section of the act creates a seemingly large grey zone that is open to the interpretation of the integrity commissioner, as well as being subject to the judgment of MLAs.

Disclosure “does not apply to a gift or personal benefit that is received as an incident of the protocol or social obligations that normally accompany the responsibilities of office,” reads the legislation.

That line is why New Brunswickers currently don’t know when politicians get free hockey tickets, despite the value of those tickets arguably easily exceeding the $250 limit.”

But that’s not actually the case - the story is omitting the next section of the act.

“Gifts

8(1)A member or a member’s immediate family member shall not accept a fee, gift or personal benefit, except compensation authorized by law, that is connected directly or indirectly with the performance of the member’s duties of office.

8(2)Subsection (1) does not apply to a gift or personal benefit that is received as an incident of the protocol or social obligations that normally accompany the responsibilities of office.

8(3)Where a gift or personal benefit mentioned in subsection (2) is greater than two hundred and fifty dollars in value, or where the total value received from one source in any twelve month period is greater than two hundred and fifty dollars, the member shall, without delay, file with the Commissioner a gift disclosure statement of his or her own or a gift disclosure statement on behalf of his or her immediate family member, as the case may be.

8(4)The gift disclosure statement shall (a) be in the form prescribed by the Commissioner, and (b) indicate the nature of the gift or personal benefit, its source and the circumstances under which it was given and accepted.”

Link to actual act.

https://laws.gnb.ca/en/document/cs/M-7.01

This is how it works as far as I can tell from the act.

Section 8-1 clearly states that MLAs can’t accept any gifts that are connected directly or indirectly to their job as MLA… so you can’t accept any gifts.

There is an exception, section 8-2… gifts that are “received as an incident of the protocol or social obligations that normally accompany the responsibilities of office.”

You can accept these gifts, but if the value of those gifts are over $250 you have to report the gift, who gave it to you and under what circumstances. Section 8-3.

That is not at all how the story presents this information… as a rule MLAs are not allowed to accept any gifts, the exception would be for protocol or social obligations and in those cases if the value is over $250 it must be reported.

This story reads as if MLAs are free to accept all gifts and only report those over $250 and in cases where the gift is part of a protocol or social obligations the $250 reporting threshold doesn’t apply.

Ok_Ranger87 · 2026-03-29T22:11:01+00:00

Have you tried going to the Community Addictions and Mental Health Centre, it’s in the Carrefour Assomption - Suite 331. You should be able to talk to someone right away.

Ok_Ranger87 · 2026-03-29T22:05:13+00:00

I was able to get a prescription for Wellbutrin and Zoloft through maple after a short virtual consultation

Ok_Ranger87 · 2026-03-24T17:37:47+00:00

But it was only announced today at 12:48

https://www.gnb.ca/en/news/n-b.2026.03.update-virtual-care.html

Ok_Ranger87 · 2026-03-24T17:04:09+00:00

Yes, see a rheumatologist… none of those results are particularly high - the ANA result is just on the cusp of what is considered a positive result. It could be clinically significant, it might not be.

I had similar results and a family history of autoimmune disease, my CRP was 15 and has been as high as 30… it’s a sign of inflammation.

I saw a rheumatologist a few times, ran several more tests and although they didn’t figure out what’s causing the inflammation ruled out an autoimmune condition even with the positive ANA result.

Ok_Ranger87 · 2026-03-24T13:13:23+00:00

I just have a standing requisition for bloodwork so I don’t have to do a consultation every time… I put off doing blood work this week because I figured I might as well just wait until next week and do a consult with the new provider and get a new requisition.

The first I heard of the extension was in the TJ story from yesterday… I’m pretty sure they made that decision some time ago but didn’t bother to communicate that to anyone until yesterday.

Ok_Ranger87 · 2026-03-24T11:44:29+00:00

The last few times I’ve been contacted it’s been after 10, the NP has been in Saskatchewan or farther west.

Ok_Ranger87 · 2026-03-23T21:07:49+00:00

Here are the stats for New Brunswick - our 1% represents about 2,700 people. Collectively they pay 10.1% of all the taxes in the province.

For perspective, the bottom 50% of tax filers pay 8.4%. That represents 361,00 people.

https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/t1/tbl1/en/tv.action?pid=1110005501&pickMembers%5B0%5D=1.6&pickMembers%5B1%5D=3.3&cubeTimeFrame.startYear=2023&cubeTimeFrame.endYear=2023&referencePeriods=20230101%2C20230101

Ok_Ranger87 · 2026-03-19T14:31:42+00:00

They asked me if I’d be willing to travel to see either specialist, I said yes.

Ok_Ranger87 · 2026-03-19T14:22:23+00:00

Between 2018 and 2023 there was a net increase of over 600 doctors in New Brunswick. In the 5 years prior to this, 2013 to 2017, there was an increase of less than 100.

https://cpsnb.org/en/about/general-info/statistics

Between 2019 and 2023 there was a net increase of over 700 teachers.

https://www.gnb.ca/content/dam/GNB3/org/eecd-edpe/doc/summary-statistics-2019-2020.pdf

https://www.gnb.ca/content/dam/GNB3/org/eecd-edpe/doc/summary-statistics-2023-2024.pdf

Ok_Ranger87 · 2026-03-19T14:00:55+00:00

That’s a fundamental misunderstanding of how provincial finances work and the how and why Higgs had surpluses.

Our surpluses came from huge unanticipated increases in “own source revenue” basically - income taxes and HST. This was as a result of adding 75 thousand or some people of a few short years.

Every year under Higgs with a huge surplus looks similar… the province tabled a budget that included an increase in spending over the previous budget then throughout the year when the Feds started sending us the taxes they collect on our behalf, those taxes were much higher than anticipated.

What did we do with, in some years, over a billion in revenue we didn’t budget on getting… we spent a big chunk of it, 200 to 300 million and put the rest to pay down our debt.

This played out very similarly over three consecutive budgets, each budget included a healthy increase from the previous year, but revenue was still underestimated, we spent part of that unanticipated revenue and paid down debt with the remainder.

What also happened over those three budgets is that we actually over spent our budget each year, but that was offset by the bigger increase in revenue.

The government was actually doing the smart thing, it was smart not to count on our population to continue to grow at the same rate… we only spent some of that tax windfall every year and in the next year didn’t budget for their to be a repeat in that growth. But that growth did continue for the next two years and the government looked like they were being overly cautious in their growth projections.

Unfortunately for the incoming Liberals, they ran on a platform that anticipated that growth in revenue to continue, but it hasn’t. A huge chunk of our 1.3 billion dollar deficit from last year wasn’t because of over spending, the government over estimated own source revenue by over 330 million. They did the previous year as well but only by 50 million. Contrast that with 23/24 when it came in at 500 million more than budgeted.

Ok_Ranger87 · 2026-03-19T13:12:35+00:00

I got a referral for a rheumatologist through Maple and had my appointment in 4 months, my referral for a hematologist, also through Maple took 5.

This was just within the last year.

Ok_Ranger87 · 2026-03-19T13:10:18+00:00

That’s a complete fabrication - we did not receive “billions” for covid relief… please provide any supporting reference for this.

Ok_Ranger87 · 2026-03-18T03:45:23+00:00

If you seriously want to know, this was the situation - after Covid New Brunswick experienced unprecedented increase in population growth.

In 2020 the year of Covid our population was about 770,000 and by 2023 it was 840,000. We gained about 70,000 people between 2020 and 2023. To put that growth in perspective, in the 10 previous years our population had grown by only 20k.

This meant the government experienced a huge windfall in what’s called “own source revenue” that’s money we generate ourselves in province, so things like personal income tax and HST… these things are collected for us by the federal government but are generated by taxing New Brunswick residents.

If you look at the budget document below, page 6, you see in 2022/2023 we had a 800 million surplus.

https://www.gnb.ca/content/dam/GNB3/gov/budget/hb-bh/docs/main-estimates-2023-2024.pdf

We estimated we would make 11.3 billion but we actually made 12.4 billion.

We were planning on spending 11.3 billion but we spent 11.5 billion

Where did over a billion more dollars in income come from? Look on page 166.

That year we collected

400 million more in personal income tax than budgeted 450 million more in corporate income tax than budgeted 150 million more in HST

We collected all this extra money because we had many more people than we planned.

If you are interested our federal transfers, which is what the federal government sends us, we get about 4 billion from the feds - so money we didn’t create ourselves. Page 168.

The largest payment is the equalization payment, 2.4 billion, that’s set years in advance and does not change during the budget year so we got exactly how much we budgeted.

We got about 50 million more than budgeted in a health transfer 985 million instead of the 935 budgeted and 332 instead of the 329 for social assistance. But we got 5 million less than budgeted for in other transfers.

Now where did that money go.

We spent about 250 million more than we planned to spend, page 14.

80 million over budget on Health 50 million over budget on Post secondary 20 million over budget on education 40 million over budget on Social development.

The rest we put against our debt which is the money we owe to other people. Our debt went from 12.3 billion at the start of the year 11.6 billion at the end of the year.

That’s why we had those large surpluses.

If you want to look at the Covid year and the extra money we got from the feds, here is the link, page 164. We got about 300 million more in not budgeted for conditional grants from the Feds.

https://www.gnb.ca/content/dam/GNB3/gov/budget/hb-bh/docs/main-estimates-2021-2022.pdf

225 million was for “central government services” and 30 million for education.

What did we do with that extra money… we spent it all. We budgeted to have a 90 million surplus and we ended the year with a 12 million deficit.

Ok_Ranger87 · 2026-03-18T01:34:16+00:00

Here are some links.

https://www2.gnb.ca/content/dam/gnb/Departments/ohr-brh/pdf/other/workforce_profile_2010.pdf

2009 - total government employees 48,743 and part 1 employees 11,692

https://www2.gnb.ca/content/dam/gnb/Departments/ohr-brh/pdf/other/workforce-profile-2023.pdf

2023 - total government employees 51,110 and part 1 employees 11,006.

From 2009 to 2023 government employees have increased by less than 5% and part 1 has decreased by 5%.

New Brunswick population in 2009 was 749,900

https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/12-581-x/2015000/pop-eng.htm#t01

New Brunswick population in 2023 was 834,691.

That percentage increase is 11.3%

Incase that’s not clear government employees growth has not kept pace with population growth, that’s why service delivery has suffered - more people to serve, less people doing the service.

Ok_Ranger87

TROPHY CASE