Another Day, Another Doctor

I couldn't get off the couch when I woke up this morning.  My body wouldn't move.  This has happened a couple of times before and I'm now set up for it, with the heavy coffee table within reach and the cane handy.  I didn't get up easily, but I eventually got upright.

Today it was the neurologist. 

I managed to get myself in a panic because I did what one should never do:  I went internet surfing and checked out the symptoms for ALS, most of which I have.  So I went into the appointment halfway expecting him to start more extensive testing for ALS, but no, he agreed with my doctor that the cause is probably the bad interaction with the statin drug she prescribed last year sometime.

He also agreed with me that her follow up blood exam 2 days after stopping the drug was silly.  The normal creatnine level is under 20 UL; mine is 2,644 UL.  There was going to be little noticeable result in 2 days.

The bad thing about this condition is that when I'm sitting, I'm just fine.  Nothing hurts and I don't need to use any muscles, so I look just fine.  Everybody who passes through the room or writes to me asks how I'm feeling.  Well, ask me that when I'm struggling to get UP and then hobbling down the hall to the bathroom!  (I think of this every time I see the ad for fibromyalgia where the affected woman says "when most people look at me they see...most people, but inside I'm in great pain."  or words to that effect.)

The doctor also checked my CT scan and showed me my brain, telling me it "looked fine for a 75 year old woman."

He checked my reflexes by tapping my knees in several places, forgetting that I'd told him that I'd injured my right knee.  That tapping definitely caused a reflex as he hit the knee smack where it hurts the most.

He has ordered weekly blood tests for the next several months to see if my numbers begin to fall.  If not he will order some sort of nerve conduction study which he warned me several times that I don't want it because it hurts.  A lot.  And warned that "some ladies cry."  So I'm hoping, of course, that it won't be necessary.  I had a nerve conduction study many years ago for my numb fingers and I remember how innocently that started out and by the end of half an hour I was feeling that I was undergoing a long electrocution.  I don't think I cried but I certainly said a lot of not very polite words in my mind!

We drove back home to take our respective nap.  I had fired up the battery in the iPod so we could listen to the book we started some time ago.  I thought I had the right book, but it didn't sound familiar.  We listened to it for an hour, hoping to remember the plot.  When we got home, I checked the plot summary on Amazon and discovered that no, we had not been reading that book.

After our naps, Walt asked if I wanted him to cook dinner again.  What a guy!  The meatballs he made were delicious and, I have to admit it, better than mine.

We had a quiet evening watching TV and then Walt went off to bed.  I've decided that until this...whatever it is....passes, I'll be sleeping exclusively in the recliner.

Annual Tune-Up

Well, I'm ready to go for another year.

* I've had an OK exam from both of my eye doctors.

* I've gotten a clean bill of health from my dentist.

*And even my doctor had nothing but good things to say.

I can't remember when the last time that happened  I'm used to getting good feedback from the eye doctors, but no suggestions for how to do things better from my dentist and no warnings about things I should be doing from my doctor is new for me.

But then I should have expected it.  Maybe at 73 I'm starting to grow up.

Brushing and flossing regularly led to the good dental appointment.  Even the x-rays came out just fine.  Cindy didn't have to warn me about what dire consequences my teeth were in.

And then there is that "taking your medicines daily" business which I have resisted so effectively for such a long time.  But it's amazing when you actually take the damn pills.  Your body starts doing what the pills are designed to help you do.  Whoda thunk?

When the appointment ended, my doctor said she realized I hated to come in and I corrected her.  I said I didn't mind coming in when I had been doing all the things I was supposed to be doing.  I only hated to come in when I knew I had not been following her instructions.  I have no "white coat terror," hating to see a doctor (like my mother does).  If I did, I would not have worked in doctors' offices for most of my working life! I just hate getting scolded for not doing the things I know I should be doing.

Heck, I even got a clean bill of health from my therapist.  I had not seen Deb in a year.  I started gong to her to get over this block I had about taking the damn pills.  She pronounced me graduated after 3 or 4 months of seeing her, maybe less.  But I realized recently that I was sorely in need of another tune-up.  Not for pills this time, but for my mother.

We talked a lot about my mother and coping mechanisms a year ago but lately her dementia has me climbing the walls and I keep joking that she talks about getting to hunnert but she might not do that because I might kill her first.

There was nothing, of course, that Deb could offer me to make it better and definitely not to make it all go away, but I discovered as I talked to her that what I really needed was somewhere to say it all, to let it all out, to rant an rave in a safe, non-judgmental environment.  By the end of the hour, I felt better.  She reminded me that given my mother's robust good health otherwise there was a good chance that she had several more years ahead of her.  She offered me a follow-up appointment, but I realized I didn't need one.

I didn't come away with any plan to make it better for myself, but just having let out all the frustration helped and I'm starting with a clean slate again.

Now if I can just get my driver's license renewed this week, everything will be behind me for another year.  Last year when I went to renew, I had to take a behind the wheel test because I'm now over 70.  But it was more complicated because I had zero vision in my right eye and the tester told me from now on I would have to have my license renewed annually and always have a driving test.  Bummer.

But now I have vision again.  I probably can't get out of the driver's test this year, but I'm hoping that my newly restored vision will change that "yearly" status and I can get rid of the necessity of having a driving test every year.

By next week it will all be behind me.  I hope.

We're Havin' a Heat Wave

Today was the kind of day you wanted to hunker somewhere near a fan with a tall cool glass of ice water, crank up the air conditioning and not leave the house.  It was predicted to be the hottest day, perhaps of the month.

But, alas, this was also the day I was scheduled to have my eye measured in Sacramento for my upcoming cataract surgery (in November).  

The day actually started with reports of a magnitude 4 earthquake in the Bay Area.  Too small to be felt here, but one always wonders about precursors to "the big one."  This looked like it might have been on the Hayward fault...and I will be there tomorrow, going to book club a few miles down the road apiece.

Since I had to leave the house today anyway, I went to my mother's first to get her laundry, to be returned to her on Wednesday when I go for lunch.  We visited for a bit, and she insisted I had told her nothing about my lunch with my grammar school friends (sigh), but I let it go. 

The plan was to leave Atria and head for Sacramento, but there was a text message from Walt letting me know that I had left my cane at home.  I texted back that I'd be right there, but he didn't see that message because, bless him, he had hopped on his bike to come to Atria to let me know, in case I didn't see the message.  But I had, I drove home, got the cane and then headed to Sacramento.

It was 1 p.m. and this was the temperature as I started to back out of our driveway.

It is amazing to me that I have come to think of anything under 100 degrees as "not all that bad."

I drove to the eye clinic near Cal Expo and it was about 102 when I got there.  The appointment went quickly.  The woman doing the measuring had C.O. on her jacket, which I found out later is "certified orthoptist."  There were two patient chairs and four machines (one a computer) and she had to put my information into each machine in turn.  I had the eye measured in the first machine, and then the second, and then the third, then tlted backwards, like in a dental chair (but not as comfortable), where she put in drops (not to dilate) and then stuck an eye cup on the eye and washed it with water and took more pictures.

And then it was over.  I was back in the parking lot so quickly the ice in my diet coke was still icy and cold.

I saw that rush hour traffic was starting, so instead of going on the freeway I took the backroads to the Causeway, where it was still backed up, but I'd gotten around a lot of it.  

When I pulled into the driveway this was the temperature.

Thank goodness we were having leftovers that could be heated in the microwave for dinner.  Forecast for tomorrow seems to be less than 100, which isn't good by any means, but a heck of a lot better than 105.

Exhausting Day

Walt and i settled in to watch Jeopardy after the show I was reviewing at around 11 p.m.  I fell asleep before the show ended and really didn't wake up until 7.  A good night sleep, for sure.

The morning started with a trip to Kaiser.  My long-awaited appointment with the ophthalmologist was finally here.  I wanted two months for it.  No emergency, but I figured it was finally time to talk with her about removing  the cataract in my "bad" eye.  We have been discussing this for several years now.  My right eye is the eye I am conscious of never having used for vision.  When I was a kid I was diagnosed with lazy eye blindness but I was a little too old to do much about it.  I have mentioned here before that I never mentioned it to my parents because I just assumed that everybody had one good eye and one bad eye.

Several years ago I had the cataract in the other eye removed, a nearly effortless surgery which was actually kind of fun.  But the doctor then warned that removing the other cataract might be more problematic because there was a congenital defect in the eye that might make it a 2-3 surgery process.  Since I have never used the eye for vision, I decided to just let it go for awhile, which I have been doing for the past several years.  I have an annual eye exam and we discuss it every time, but the doctor hasn't pressured me to have it done.

However, in the past year the cataract has become much worse to the point where I am aware of this white cloud over the eye and it's been bothering me so I decided it was time to get it done.  The wait was forever.  I arrived early, so it was 15 minutes before I was seen by the nurse who did the initial exam and dilated my pupils.  

Then another 15-20 minutes in the exam room waiting for the doctor, whom I love.  She's obviously very popular, since I took her ONLY appointment slot when I called two months ago! We agreed that it's time to remove it and she again warned that it might take several surgeries to get it done, but, as I said, it's time.  I won't have it done until we return from Europe in November, since they don't want you to travel very far for a month after the surgery.  But I've made the first step and hopefully it will all get done, maybe by my next birthday!  It will be weird to have vision in that eye, perhaps for the first time ever.

Kaiser Sacramento is very close to the Red Lobster restaurant, which has been tantalizing me for weeks with ads for their "Crabfest."  Walt and I have talked about going, so I did feel a bit guilty about going without him, but we tend to do a lot of talking about this stuff and never actually doing it, so I decided to splurge.

I order the "crab lovers' dream" which was a plate of king crab legs, combined with some other crab I had not heard of before, but which is bigger and sweeter than snow crab and finally crab fetuccini.  I knew that was way more than I could eat, so I decided to get it and take the fetuccini home for Walt's dinner, thus easing my guilt.  (I almost regretted decision, since the fetuccini was so delicious!)

My plan was to stop by Atria and bring my mother her meds on the way home, but it was so late when I left the restaurant (3:30) and I was so sated with crab that all I wanted to do we sleep, so I did.  Shortly after I woke up, I turned on Rachel Maddow and, to my surprise, discovered that it was, instead, a one hour special called Jon Stewart has Left the Building, which was a great review of the phenomenon that was The Daily Show.  I wonder how many people did not see the show because it wasn't even listed by that name.

I skipped dinner because I was still full of crab and Walt loved the fetuccini, then we went off to Woodland to see an excellent production of Mary Poppins, which I will be reviewing for both The Davis Enterprise and Sacramento News and Review.  It was really a special way to end the day.

Health Stuff

Atria requires its residents to have an annual physical exam, which is good because without the requirement, my mother would never go to the doctor.  But it has now been done...and we don't have to do that again for another year.

I called her in the morning to let her know she had an appointment and that I would pick her up at 2.  I arrived at 2, just as she was leaving her apartment.  I asked where she was going, she said she was going to lunch.  I reminded her of her appointment and of course she didn't know anything about it.

She asked if I'd had lunch yet and suggested we get lunch before we left.  I told her we had to leave right then.

So we got her purse and did the usual "where is my Kaiser card" rigmarole.  I was smart this time, though.  I noticed she was wearing a blouse with a pocket and I suggested she put the card in her pocket, so every time she went looking for it, I just reminded her it was in her pocket and that simplified things immensely.

On the drive to Kaiser and while in the waiting room she asked countless times what we were there for and would she have to remove her clothes.  She hates removing her clothes.  I told her I didn't see any other way the doctor could perform a physical exam, so she grumbled, but she did it.

The exam was pretty uneventful but the doctor wanted labs, so we went to the lab to get blood drawn.  She is just so totally clueless and unable to understand anything.

Some time ago, I came across a marvelous animation that explains what happens in the Alzheimers brain.  It has been "the" most helpful thing I have seen since this all started.  I find that when I get frustrated with her, I can visualize what is happening in her brain and it helps give me patience.

The whole day took maybe 3 hours and left me mentally exhausted, but it's done and all is well for another year.

Then it was time for my own appointment with my therapist, Debbie.  When you arrive for a therapy appointment, you first fill out a form, each time, which assesses how you have been feeling in the last two weeks.  Rating, on a scale of 1 to 3, things like "little interest or pleasure in doing things; feeling down, depressed or hopeless; feeling tired or having little energy; feeling bad about yourself; having trouble concentrating, etc.

My scores on these items is usually low, but today it was zero.  Debbie was very pleased to see that.  I told her that since starting the antidepressant, I really was feeling very good and in control, I had been regularly taking my medicines (which was one reason I started going to see her...to understand why I was resisting taking them), and that really everything was going well.

I had sent her a link to the Alzheimers video and we talked about how helpful it was and we discussed how I'm coping with my mother these days (another reason I felt I needed some help when I started seeing her)

In the end, she asked if I felt I needed another appointment and, in truth, I did not, but I told her I'd like to come one more time, to show her my bald head.  She thought that would be a good idea, but I think I only have one more session with her, which I'm sorry about because I enjoy her, but I don't really feel I need her any more.

I came home to clear off my desk.

 My new computer is coming today and I figure that by this time tomorrow, I will either be delighted or unable to get my head shaved because I will have pulled out all my hair myself trying to learn the new operating system and trying to get everything set up.

This laptop will not be put away, yet...I suspect I may still need it during the "settling in" process!

Stallone and O's

I know that I've mentioned this before and I'll only mention this briefly, but last night must have been really bad.  I typed up my Golden Globes review and I swear that my right hand left out every single "o" that I thought I was typing.  I went back and put in a lot of them and then had to go back and replace more.  Even as I type this, the o's aren't typing, most of them.  So damn frustrating!

But the other thing is what is happening with this damn brain of mine.  When Stallone and Scharzenegger appeared on stage, I made a note to talk about it, but then I couldn't remember Stallone's name, nor could I remember the name of the Rocky pictures.  I finally did remember his name and typed it in, but when I re-read what I had typed it was something completely different.  I actually went back and corrected what I had originally typed and it was not until this morning, and a note from Harriet, who is very good about pointing out my errors, that I realized that instead of typing "Stallone" I had typed "Stallion."  Twice.  Once here on Funny the World and once on Airy Persiflage, which I corrected separately!

I also looked up the movie name Django and typed it in.   When I went back to re-read my entry, I had typed "Gong."  Someone also pointed out that I had typed DowntoWn Abbey instead of Downton Abbey, which makes me angry because I KNOW how to spell it, but apparently my fingers didn't. Stuff like this just gets me every time, especially since I am seeing these "lapses" more and more often.

---

So I went to the dentist today and spent 2 and a half hours with my mouth like this:

My dentist told me when I went in for my routine cleaning that there was decay under one crown and it would have to be replaced, but when she took x-rays today, she found that the tooth next to it was also bad and it would also need a crown, and maybe root canal.  Fun.

But I learned something interesting.  My cough has been intermittently very frustrating lately and so I mentioned to her that I might have to stop in the middle and take a cough lozenge, which was pretty effective.  She immediately asked if the lozenges were sugar-free and I told her I didn't know.  Well, it turns out that another patient of hers had developed four cavities in the space of a couple of months and they figured out it was from the cough lozenges she had been sucking on.   She said that sucking something with sugar in it is the worst thing you can do for your teeth.  She had me throw away my lozenges immediately and she gave me a bunch of sugar-free ones.

She also said that my mouth was very dry and has prescribed more Spry gum to chew...an over the counter thing that I got after my last appointment and like a lot, so it won't be a problem to chew it, though I have never been a big gum chewer in my life.

She asked if I were taking a certain cardiac medication, which I am.   She said that she takes that medication too, and that one of the side effects is coughing.  I remember long ago reading that, but had forgotten it.  The cough isn't consistently bad enough to try another medication, but it's at least nice to know why I'm coughing so much.

She got me all fixed up with all that equipment and started drilling away.  For a long time.  I absolutely love Cindy because with all the drilling she did, I can honesty say I didn't have so much as a twinge of pain.  She would occasionally take a break to go and attend to another patient for a few minutes.  I had brought my Kindle, so she would sit me up and I would just sit there, mouth in that awkward position, and read my book.

I finally had to giggle, though, when I realized that the book I was reading, which is our book club selection for this month, is called "The Floor of Heaven" by Howard Blum.  It is a book about three guys who are part of the gold rush to Alaska in the late 1800s, and the section I was reading during all this drilling in my mouth was about the guy who discovered the gold in the first place and I was reading the section about his digging out the gold...not drillling, exactly, this being the year that it was, but still I thought it ironic with all the drilling in my mouth and this guy digging for gold.

My jaw was very sore after being held open for so long, so I went for a soft dinner and actually fell asleep at 9 p.m.  Cindy had warned me to let her know if there was any pain in either tooth after the numbness ended, but so far nothing, so it may be that I won't need root canal after all.  And that is a good thing.

A Christmas Carol

I met my friend Kathy for lunch at Olive Garden today.  We had to meet early because she had a meeting to get to, and it was a good thing, because the place was jam packed with revelers all having their office holiday lunches.  The place opens at 11, I got there at 11:05 and the waiting area was already jammed and I had to wait.  Fortunately, Kathy wanted to eat at 11:15 so our timing was perfect.

I decided that it's time I find a new Christmas shirt.  The Santa sweatshirt that I've been wearing for the past 20 years is still fine, since I wear it so little, but as we sat across from the table, Kathy looked at me and said "That shirt has certainly served you well over the years, hasn't it!"

My plan had been to drive across the street to the big mall and spend some time at the fat lady's store to see if maybe I could find a new Christmas shirt there, but when we were wrapping up lunch, Kathy said "You have to get to work, right?"

Work!  I'd completely forgotten that our lunch day is also my day to work at Logos, so I am still wearing my 20 year old Santa shirt, which is still serving me well.

I decided before I even got to the book store that if the copy of "A Christmas Carol" that I saw on the display table was still there, I would choose that as my book for this week.  I mean...how silly is that!  I've seen the show three times this month.  But I just kind of decided I wanted to go back to basics and read it the way Charles Dickens actually wrote it.

Plays and movies can do a good job of bringing the story to life, but how much you miss by not reading the author's actual words.  What a beautiful portrait of Scrooge he paints!

But he was a tight-fisted hand at the grind- stone, Scrooge! a squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous, old sinner!  Hard and sharp as flint, from which no steel had ever struck out generous fire; secret, and self-contained, and solitary as an oyster.  The cold within him froze his old features, nipped his pointed nose, shriveled his cheek, stiffened his gait; made his eyes red, his thin lips blue and spoke out shrewdly in his grating voice.  A frosty rime was on his head, and on his eyebrows, and his wiry chin.  He carried his own low temperature always about with him; he iced his office in the dogdays; and didn't thaw it one degree at Christmas.

No doubt at all about the kind of person his anti-hero is going to be!
Or can a movie really paint the picture as colorfully as Dickens can, when describing the Cratchit family dinner:

The pudding was out of the copper. A smell like a washing-day. That was the cloth. A smell like an eating-house and a pastrycook's next door to each other, with a laundress's next door to that. That was the pudding. In half a minute Mrs Cratchit entered -- flushed, but smiling proudly -- with the pudding, like a speckled cannon-ball, so hard and firm, blazing in half of half-a-quartern of ignited brandy, and bedight with Christmas holly stuck into the top.
Oh, a wonderful pudding! Bob Cratchit said, and calmly too, that he regarded it as the greatest success achieved by Mrs Cratchit since their marriage. Mrs Cratchit said that now the weight was off her mind, she would confess she had had her doubts about the quantity of flour. Everybody had something to say about it, but nobody said or thought it was at all a small pudding for a large family. It would have been flat heresy to do so. Any Cratchit would have blushed to hint at such a thing.

I got Scrooge through his three ghosts and to his redemption and when he gleefully tells Bob Cratchit that he is raising his salary, giving him enough coal to keep warm, and will help his family, I sat there with tears running down my cheeks as if I were reading it all for the first time.  Such is the power of a well-written story!

But in the evening, it was TV all the way.  The season finale of Scandal was a rollercoaster ride from start to finish.  Still reeling from all of the twists and turns...and now we have to wait for the new season to begin!

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I am so pleased with this new glucose meter/computer interface.

There are more white blocks and fewer red blocks and whenever my sugar goes up, I know why and take steps to bring it back down again.  If I can only keep the enthusiasm for this going, this may finally be the key that keeps me on the straight and narrow.

I'd Make a Lousy Hypochondriac

I don't know how people can be hypochondriacs.  There is nothing more boring than spending essentially half of the day in doctors' offices!

I was pleased when I got up this morning and noted that I didn't seem to have Underdog Syndrome any more.  But I was supposed to get the blood work and Kaiser called to check if I was going to be seeing my doctor.  I said that I guessed so.

I got to Kaiser early.  The lab waiting room is frequently full.   The procedure is that you take a number, sit and when it's your turn, they call your number.  But since the waiting room was EMPTY I just went up to the desk and was told I had to take a number.  I said that since there was nobody else there, I thought I could bypass that. I was literally taken to the number machine, a few feet behind me, and shown how to pull down a number and how to put it in the basket.   I did.  I went to sit down and before my butt touched the couch, they called my number.

It was like something out of Candid Camera.

The clerk asked if I was fasting.  I said that I was not because the doctor had told me this was not a fasting test.  She said there was an order on file from last October for a fasting test and I should have fasted.  I said the doctor specifically told me not to.  She checked and saw that I had a fasting test in August and asked if she would remove the orders for October.  I said yes.

I got to the doctor's waiting room about 15 minutes early and sat down to read mybook.  They finally called my name about 25 minutes later.  They did all the usual things like take my temp (normal), oxygen (normal), weight (not horrible) and blood pressure (lowest it's been in years). 

The nurse seemed confused about why I was there.  She finally asked "was this supposed to be a telephone visit?"  I told her I'd talked to the doctor four times yesterday and she said I should come in.

So she let me stay, said the doctor would be right in.  40 minutes later I was almost going to leave a note saying that I felt OK and was tired of waiting, but the doctor finally came in.  I would have ben angry about the time in the exam room were it not that (a) I had lots of time to read and (b) I remembered those long-ago days working for Women's Health when one of our doctors was perennially late and the long-suffering staff had to placate the patients.  So I continued to wait.

She finally arrived and actually we had a better chat than we normally have.  I didn't tell her about "Underdog syndrome" by name, but we discussed what had happened, about the worrisome nausea, about my fears that Underdog syndrome might be cardiac related.

She agreed that the idea of cardiac involvement had occurred to her too, and suggested I get an EKG while I was there.  She also suggested some medication adjustments to try to nail down which one might be making me sick to my stomach.

She gave me a robe to put on for the EKG.  I giggled a lot about that while it was going on.  It's a gown that opens down the middle in the front and I guess is supposed to give you a feeling of modesty, but the first thing that happens when the nurse comes in is that you lie on your back, she opens up the gown and attaches the leads and you lie there with your nipples pointing up to the ceiling, so relieved that your back is modestly covered!

The doctor conferred with a cardiolgist and they agreed there was nothing worrisome on my EKG.  She suggested I get a treadmill test also, which is scheduled for some ungodly hour tomorrow morning.  I aced that sucker in 2009, to everyone's surprise and I had every confidence that I would do it again, but after I left the office (some 3 hours after I arrived), I was feeling slight Underdog syndrome again, with the weakness of spaghetti legs and slightly heavy breathing, though less serious than yesterday, and I'm wondering if I will have problems tomorrow.

I have such renewed sympathy for people who have serious medical problems that involve multiple doctors' appointments, and am so glad that this is not my situation.   But I know people who rush off to the doctor with every little twinge or imagined twinge.  How do they do it? I hate all these appointents, especially since I feel like a hypochondriac since my symptoms are so minor.

I guess I'll hear about the lab tests tomorrow and hopefully once I finish the treadmill test, this will be the end of things for awhile.

I am also cautiously optimistic that the change in medication the doctor suggested seems to be working.  I don't feel like I have morning sickness tonight.

I spent a pleasant afternoon at the book store, which included a nice visit with an old neighbor (from the days when our neighbors actually talked to me), then came home and cooked a chicken recipe out of a diabetic cookbook, gave part of mine to the dogs because I was too full (they love me) and now as soon as The Daily Show is over, it's off to bed for me.  I have to be on the road at the crack of dawn.

True Confessions

Oh this is hard.

Those of you who have been reading this journal for years will no doubt remember when I decided to go public with my weight loss journey.  I started some time in 2001, joined Weight Watchers, took up biking, and was very faithful about recording my progress through 85 lbs lost between when I started and about 2003.  So many of you were so encouraging and helped me stick with it.

Sadly, my good intentions, as they so often do, fell by the wayside and I gained it all back...and then some.  I hated myself for doing that.  In the past couple of years, I've dropped weight again, back to about 30 lbs higher than I was when I stopped dieting.  I've been stuck there for a long time, which is not surprising because I haven't been watching my food at all.

I don't remember when I was diagnosed with Diabetes II.  A long time ago. Maybe 10 years. For awhile I attended classes and started the program.  Dr. G, for whom I was working at the time, said that if he didn't know that I had started an exercise program and a diet, he would have put me on insulin right away.  But my Kaiser doctor has me on diabetes meds in pill form.

For all of my complaints about my mother and her excuses to avoid going to the doctor, she can't hold a candle to me.  (Anybody who spills the beans and tells her that is on my black list!).  I get calls to come in for blood tests, which I don't do because I know I haven't taken the meds or or done anything about my eating.

When I stop taking the meds it's because I don't like how they make me feel--mildly nauseous.  And I was going by my mother's irrational excuses -- kind of "I feel fine, so I don't need to go to the doctor."

Welllll.....something happened this week.

It actually started when I was at Community Meals.  I went to the bathroom and when I looked in the toilet, it was bright red.  Bright red.  That caught my attention.  But I didn't immediately call the doctor.   The next time I urinated, it wasn't quite as red, more pinkish.  And there has been no red since then.

I did some research on blood in the urine and discovered that it can be caused by many things, including brightly colored food (like beets).  Since I had been eating the very soft plums that couldn't be cut for the fruit salad, and which were a deep, deep, deep plum red, I hoped that was the cause.  I think that was it, since there hasn't been a hint of colored urine since then.

But the thing that did change about the same time was my frequency of urination.  I've always bragged about having an "iron bladder."  I can go all day without needing a bathroom.  The iron bladder started rusting a few years ago and while I could no longer go all day without a break, I now had what seemed like a more normal bladder.

But starting two days ago, I found I was going to the bathroom all the time.  And I do mean all the time.  I couldn't make it through an hour long TV program without needing to go the bathroom.  The dogs were very upset when I dropped everything in the middle of fixing their dinner for a rush to the bathroom.   It was worse than being pregnant. It was better at night. I made it through the last two nights with only one need for a bathroom trip.  I knew that this was a serious diabetes symptom and decided that it was time to start being an adult and start doing what my doctor has been trying to get me to do for years.

I got up this morning and took my glucose reading for the first time in about a year.  I won't say what it was (I may later, but for now I won't), but suffice to say that on my smart phone glucose tracker, the numbers showed up in the red.   I took my medications and had a "legal" breakfast (scrambled egg on wheat toast and half a glass of orange juice).  My reading before lunch was down more than 100 points -- still in the red, but looking better.

I was also racing to the bathroom so often that I downloaded a timer on my smart phone and started timing how often I had these uncontrollable urges.  All morning it was between 5 and 7 minutes.  

Walt found an article in the paper yesterday which talked about the new parking meters in San Francisco, which are $5.25 an hour and how if you were to try to pay with pennies, it would take so long to insert one penny and get another one out by the time you got the second one out, you would have used up the time that the first penny bought.  That's about the way I felt this morning.  It was hardly worth walking from the bathroom back to the family room or my office because as soon as I would sit down, I would have to rush back again.

The interval between trips got longer and by mid afternoon I was up to a bit over an hour before I had to go to the bathroom, and I was glad that I had leftover "pee pads" so I could wear one before we went off to the theater tonight.

I sent an e-mail to my doctor to (a) confess my transgressions and omissions, and (b) to let her know what was going on now, as well as record the glucosse numbers.  I had an answer by return e-mail, which made me think this must really be serious, but the e-mail was an automatic response which said only that she was out of the office until Monday.  So I have two more days to see what medication and diet will do to the numbers...and the urination.  

And then I have to take a big breath and admit to the world what I have and have not been doing all this time and finally get with the program.  And yes, I know a lot of you are dealing with this same problem very responsibly.   I hope that over the coming weeks I can finally be of your number.

Already I made a great discovery.  I had made chocolate chip cookies two days ago (shut up) and there are cookies left in the jar.  I usually have an afternoon snack and those cookies were looking pretty good, but then I remembered how our friend Jim had cooked some of his fresh zucchini for us in the microwave when we were there, just sprinkled with a little salt and pepper.  I love zucchini, so I cooked one for myself for snack and it filled that empty hole I would otherwise have filled with chocolate chip cookies.  

But then things like this are always wonderful during the honeymoon phase.  It's the long haul that is the real test of commitment.  I know this.

Well THAT Was Interesting

The MRI has been done and it was an interesting day. 

I set two alarm clocks when I went to sleep around 10 p.m., to be sure I'd wake up in time,but my brain was so worried that it woke me up every hour or two.   I finally got up to stay around 5, ate something, and dutifully took my pain pill at 7.  The young little pharmacist said it should kick in in about 20 minutes, but if it did you couldn't prove it by me.  I didn't feel nausea, so it was good I ate, and I did not feel drowsy at all.  On the way home after the MRI, told Walt that I thought I could have driven to and from by myself without problem. 

We got to Kaiser and they took me right away.  As it turned out, I really did only have to insert my lower half into the tube, which made me very glad when I saw how much space I would have had if the whole body went in. They positioned the leg and gave me ear plugs because they said it would be loud.  The guy also told me they would pull me out in about 20 minutes to insert some contrast solution.

Then it started.  L'empress, from occasional guest book entries here, told me that she spent her time "counting the bangs" (my first thought was of Mamie Eisenhower, but I don't think that was what she meant!)

At first there were a few clicks followed by silence, then more clicks.  I wondered what the ear plugs had been for.  But then it started in earnest, with banging an screeching and a sound that I can only describe as The Doppler effect.  When I was taking basic Physics at UC Berkeley, a guy tried to teach me what the Doppler effect was.  I never learned why it happens, but I always recognize it as the sound of an approaching vehicle, the sound as it passes, and the lessening sound as it leaves.  So I had a Doppler sound coming in one ear, passing across my body and leaving out the other side.

I was going to control my thoughts and just relive fun moments of my life as I lay there, but I found that it was better to let my brain go blank and see what happened.  I thought of sheep in the fields of Orkney when we were visiting Sian.   Don't ask me why.  The sounds seemed somewhat "pastoral," I guess. Then they got more strident and I thought of soldiers marching across Red Square.

I finally decided it was like being in a black box experimental theater.  A dark place (though I was in a well lit room) where sounds were coming from all over at random intervals and I was trying to figure out what it might be all about.

It seemed hardly any time at all before they hauled me out and gave me an injection of the contrast solution.  They put me back in and I was waiting for it all to start when suddenly I had the strongest feeling of needing to vomit.  I thought I was going to have to call to ask for help.  Saliva kept building up in my mouth and my stomach was acting very strange.  I was thinking about that book I read recently, about the nun who, when she first joined the convent, had to learn to control her bladder, her bowels, and any other bodily function until it was the scheduled time to pee or vomit.  I decided to do deep chest breathing and relax as much as I could.   That seemed to work and in a minute or two the need to vomit left and the test went on without incident.

When they were taking me out of the tube, I mentioned that to the guy and he said that one in 1000 people might have a reaction to the contrast solution.   Yay--I'm one in a thousand!

Walt and I went back out to the car and drove home.  I seemed to be having trouble holding my head up and he was laughing because I would pull my head up from my chest, and insist that I really wasn't sleepy. (I think maybe the doctor was right and it was good I had a driver!)

But when we got home, I decided to take a nap.  I didn't know if it was the pain pill or the lack of sleep last night (or both).  I went to sleep instantly and slept until 1  p.m. 

I got up to fix myself some lunch and discovered that I was very dizzy and my body felt "tingly."  I couldn't walk without holding on to something.  I had a small sandwich, got back into my recliner and fell instantly back to sleep again until after 3 p.m., by which time I was feeling rested, un-dizzy and whatever passes for normal with me.

Of all the tests that the doctor has ordered, this was the one I was most nervous about, mostly because of my back and my mild claustrophobia, but it's done now.  During the test, and especially afterwards when I saw another patient from the hosital lying in the waiting room, I thought about how very lucky I am to have been healthy all of my life.  I think of for how many people tests like this -- and worse -- are part of their regular routine.  For me it was 40 minutes out of my otherwise unremarkable life.

But still I'm glad it's now over.

---

Note:  Budapest photos are now up on Flickr.

Is there a Doctor in the House?

If there is a doctor in the house, the chance is that I have seen her today.  My word have I been doctored up  I've been poked, proded, drained, pushed, pulled, and everything but shot--and that's only because I think they forgot to do it.

And it all started with a simple annual exam.

Before I went to the exam, I wanted to be sure I had (finally) done the labs they have been asking me to do for months.  Off to the medical offices at 7:15 to give blood and urine. Home at 8:30 (lots of people waiting for tests, so it took forever to be called), got a quick breakfast and went back to the office for my exam.

The doctor was late, so it was nearly 10:30 before I saw her.   While I was waiting, I was noticing that this was the first time in years when I could actually tie the lovely gown.  In the past their large size was too small for me.  But I've lost 40 lbs this year on my butter and ice cream diet, and my blood pressure showed numbers I don't remember seeing ... 111 over something in the 70s.  I usually run 130/90+.

The doctor and I talked mostly about my knees and feet and she did some planing (shaving) of the wart-like things on my toes that made it difficult to walk in Europe (along with everything else that made it difficult).

She sent me off to x-ray for the knees and to check the big lump on my leg.

That happened at the lab which is also where you get mammograms and I'm almost due for a mammogram so I decided to have done at the same time.  One stop shopping. I waited forEVer, including about 30 minutes in the little cubicle waiting my turn at the squish-a-boob machine. Thank goodness I had my Kindle. Then I got dressed and waited another 15 minutes for the x-ray tech to go to the bathroom and take my x-rays.

She did most of the x-rays with me standing up, but then did some with me sitting.  She tried to get me to hold an x-ray plate, and contort my body into something resembling a sitting up fetus minus the amnionic fluid.  Totally impossible.  My body just is not that flexible any more!  She had to get someone to come in and help, a woman who complained she had to risk exposure to the x-rays because I couldn't hold the plate myself.  (She said it jokingly, though.  I think.)

The doctor had made an appointment for me to see a physical therapist.  In Sacramento.  At 2 p.m.  It was 12:45 when I left the x-ray department.  I did not have enough gas to get to Sacramento, my cell phone needed to be charged and the charger was at home, and I didn't want to drive an hour without my iTouch, so made a flying stop home, picked up the iTouch and the charger, got gas and headed to Sacramento.

I was wondering if I were going to get lunch at all, but arrived with about 15 minutes to spare, so went to the nearest fast food place, Del Taco and ordered the first thing I saw.  Turned out it was tacos with...french fries???   Weird combo.  I also ordered a "medium diet coke," and didn't realize it was the size of a small bucket.  Good lord--what is the LARGE size?

I tried to finish lunch in the hospital parking lot, but had to leave the coke in the car, in the hot sun (it was about 100 degrees)...and as it turned out, I was in the office for such a short period of time, the coke was still cold and still had ice in it when I got back.

The physical therapist was the same one who treated me after the bike accident in 2003, which started this whole knee business in the first place.  She greeted me with a grimace and said she had just looked at my x-rays and my knees "didn't look good at all."  Turns out I have degenerative joint disease (fancy word for arthritis) and almost no cartilage, which is why it has been hurting so much, since the knee cap is rubbing directly on the bone.

I am also considered a high risk patient for knee replacement, so the plan is to work on doing stretching exercises to strengthen thigh and calf muscles and perhaps start a water aerobics program. And everybody thinks my cane is a great idea.   Go me!  I guess.

I still have to go to the podiatrist to check on the foot problems, but that won't be for 2 weeks yet...and I have to go to Vallejo, halfway to my mother's, for that appointment.

But I feel like I've had my tires rotated, my oil changed, and I'm good to go for another year.

Don't Get Sick

This morning a link to this article appeared on Facebook.  I shared it on my wall.  It's a horror story of a woman with cervical cancer and early in the article it sets up the scene

She hadn’t gone to the doctor because she had no health insurance. The only kind of work she could get in a struggling rural community was without benefits. Her coat and shoes beside the gurney were worn and her purse from another decade. She could never afford to buy it on her own. She didn’t qualify for Medicaid, the local doctor only took insurance, and there was no Planned Parenthood or County Clinic nearby.
So nothing was done about the bleeding until she passed out at work and someone called an ambulance. She required a couple of units of blood at the local hospital before they sent her by ambulance to our emergency department.

It gets worse, and I hope everyone reading this reads the article too.
As I said, I posted it to my own Facebook page and got some interesting additional stories.  Jennifer shared:

A less severe story, but local: My cousin just dislocated her shoulder. She has a teaching credential, but the only job she's been able to find so far is a part-time position at her local high school's library/computer center. No benefits. Her boyfriend (who lives in Italy) was in town and took her to the urgent care. The clinic charged her $50 and then told her they couldn't help her because the doctors there can't relocate a shoulder. The other clinic wanted to charge her $100 for x-rays, but they told her they still couldn't relocate her shoulder. So mom took her to the emergency room. By this time, she was throwing up and dizzy from the pain (it had been almost a full day since the accident). Three and a half hours in emergency room, they relocated the shoulder and gave her some meds. She had to pay $300 on site, and they'll send her the rest of the bill in a month. Tana says if CA hospitals are like CO hospitals, it'll likely be in the range of a couple thousand. On a part-time job. Her boyfriend (who has national coverage in Italy) was completely horrified by the idea of someone not getting medical care because they couldn't afford it.

I've had a dislocated shoulder.  I can't imagine going through what this woman went through.  Later on, Victoria shared her own story.

I broke my leg last June 26th. I was employed with BlueShield at the time. In Oct we had to short sale our home as my husband had gone to AZ to find work (no construction plumbing jobs for 2 years). He found a City job . I had to sell, pack the home while in wheelchair and cast. I was told by my ortho that I on my way to healing and he removed my cast. Of course I had to resign my position. We could not afford the $1300.00 so we had not elected COBRA. My leg was hurting terribly and went to new physician in AZ on my last day of insurance. She had me get xrays immediately and found that my fracture had not healed AT ALL. I have a 2mm displacement and now I have no insurance. I had MRI paid for by hospital due to our financial situation but the reading cost $265.00! I was sent to Tucson Ortho who charged $260.00 to tell me I need a CT scan. I have no treatment now. And all insurance companies I applied for have denied me for a pre-existing condition ! One even denied me for MENOPAUSE !! That would be Aetna ! Waiting for Mike's job to become FT.. So we will have insurance. Now I am living on Tramadol and pain. Ironically... I was a pre-exsisting claims processor at BS for the past 6 yrs. Is this my penance ??

Ronald sums it up very nicely:

And this type of scenario is repeated hundreds if not thousands of times daily in this country. My God, where is our decency, compassion and common sense!

I don't want to wish harm to befall anyone, but there is a black corner in my heart which hopes that all of those fire'n'brimstone Obamacare haters find themselves in a position where they or someone in their family is seriously ill, and they have no insurance.  And that the politician (I've forgotten who it was now) who was asked what someone needs to do when faced with such a situation and blythly said "I guess you don't get treatment..." knows the pain of watching a loved one suffer because nobody will treat her because she has no insurance and can't get any because she has a pre-existing condition.  Like menopause.  Sheesh!

We Americans used to be good, caring people--or maybe I was living in a false rosy haze.  Now it seems that we don't give a fig for our fellow humans, just so long as we and our family and friends all have ours, the hell with everyone else.

Once again, I ask the God-fearing Christians -- in a situation like this, what would Jesus do????  Would they be acting like your legislators?  

---

Happy 4th birthday, Brianna...we'll miss you today!

How Do You Spell "Hong Kong"?

I've had my tires rotated, my chassis cleaned, my oil changed and I'm ready to go.

To China, that is.

I had my annual physical today, after which the doctor suggested I call Kaiser's Travel Desk to find out if there is anything other than the routine stuff that I need to get or have with me to travel to China and Hong Kong. The operator took the information but was flummoxed when she got to Hong Kong. "That's H-A-N- ...uh... how do you spell Hong Kong?"

These are the people who are in charge of my medical health. It does not give me confidence!

But all is well in the House of Beverly, it appears (other than the obvious). My blood pressure, while slightly high, was down from last year. My weight, miraculously, is sown 25 lbs (...and I do mean "miraculously"!) I'm up to date on almost everything, though she suggested getting a whooping cough shot just to be on the safe side, so that's done.

I've gotten a refill on my diabetes meds, since I'd (a-hem) not been a compliant patient for a long time and it's time to be compliant again.

We also talked about medical directives and that's very weird. According to the nice shocking pink form they ask you to fill out and post on your refrigerator (yeah--lotsa luck finding an 8x11 clear space!), in Part 1 you decide whether, in the case that you have lost consciousness, you want them to attempt resuscitation/CPR or not.

If they attempt resuscitation/perform CPR, you are, by default, agreeing to Full Treatment. Full Treatment means medication, positioning, oxygen, suction, manual treatment of airway obstruction, antibiotics, IV fluids, mechanical ventilation, defbrillation, and transfer to hospital.

Now if, for example, your wishes are that if you are so far gone that there is no hope of regaining consciousness and all you really want is for them to see if they can revive you, you can't elect to choose anything less than the full monty.

So if you pass out and want CPR, that means you have tacitly agreed to everything in man's power to keep you alive. But if you want only minimal intervention (and, say, not being put on a ventillator), then you have to express your wish NOT to have CPR and not to have anybody attempted resuscitation.

I asked the doctor about it and she agreed that it seemed silly, but that since the form was written that way I had to either opt to be resuscitated or not resuscitated. Resuscitation comes with the possibility of being attached to a machine and unable to respond...forever ('cause we all know from watching medical shows that once you are ON a ventillator, the person who holds your medical power of attorney does not have the power to ask them to turn the ventillator off.

So let's just hope I don't pass out somewhere in China,OK?

---

This evening I went back to part 2 of the Twitter class and got my questions answered. Actually it was probably a good thing because I couldn't remember my twitter password, so had to set up a new account and the new account has fewer followers and I can start with a clean slat and maybe make it work for me from the get-go. It also has the advantage of NOT rolling all of my tweets over to Facebook. Right now the main thing I have used Twitter for is to post updates to Facebook, but that doesn't mean I want EVERY tweet I write to be rolled over to Facebook.

(And apologies to those who don't have a clue what I'm talking about!)

Interestingly, at the end of the class, after everybody had left except the teacher, the DCN assistant and my friend Kari, whom I taught to use Twitter and who then surpassed me in spades, were left. Kari and I were talking about our former use of Twitter and the teacher looked up and said something like "...because you two were the big names in Twitter in Davis when I first started using it...." Now that was a huge surprise. Never dreamed I was the big name in ANYTHING involving the internet, even locally.

My Mother's Daughter

I have written here extensively of my frustration with my mother for refusing medical care. She talks about waking up in the middle of the night in excruciating pain from muscle cramps or when she can't move her arms, or when her heart is racing, or something else, but she won't call the doctor to ask for advice because she's afraid they'll ask her to come in for an appointment and she hates to go to the doctor. (She also hates to take pills and gets angry because she considers it a weakness to need them.)

When she gets to the doctor's office, she apologies for bothering her, minimizes her complaints and forgets to tell the whole story "because it's not really that bad," she tells me later. There are times when I've been driven to distraction by her actions.

There are differences between myself and my mother. For one thing I worked in medical offices for about 20 years so I have no fear of that world.

For another, I don't tell people when there is something wrong with me that I am trying to ignore.

So it's a big deal for me to confess here that I have had this "condition" (which I will not describe) for about three months now. Sometimes it's better, sometimes it's worse, but I am almost always aware of it. I have my own method of dealing with it and it usually clears up, but this time it's been worse, and less worse, never "better."

I have not talked with anybody about it. I haven't even mentioned it at Cousins Day. I've just been being...well...my mother and determined to deal with it myself rather than go to the doctor's office.

Last night it woke me up and I was up in agony for about 3 hours until I was finally able to deal with it. I made the decision that this was the last straw. I went to the computer, called the Kaiser web site up and made an appointment.

I didn't even tell Walt I was going to the doctor, nor has he had a clue that there has been anything wrong with me.

Turns out it was a good thing I went. This is not life threatening, it's just "quality of life" threatening -- and it has definitely been threatening the quality of my life for a very long time.

Apparently almost everything I've been doing to fix the problem has possibly been making it worse.

So I am now loaded down not only with a course of medication that should fix me up in about a week, but I also have a second course in case things happen in China. A week. She said a week. HOW long have I been suffering with this???

I don't think I'll admit to my mother what I've been doing all the while I've been scolding her for refusing to call the doctor when she's not feeling well!!!

But I did learn about health care at my mother's knee, and apparently she taught me very well.

---

Do you ever use Google earth? I've had it forever, but I've been using it more since I got into this "write to people around the world" jazz. I check out their addresses on Google Earth. If I'm really lucky there is a little camera to click on that will take me to a street view of that address, or close to it. It has made all of these anonymous encounters a bit more real.

Well, today, I decided to check out Valley Springs on Google Earth and not only was I able to see the town, but I followed the road that we took out and got a great satellite shot of the farm and when I clicked on the little camera, discovered that the camera was situated directly in front of the road to where the farmhouse had been. I even discovered the address: 1874 Paloma Rd. (of course they had no road names when my mother lived there). What fun.

Jabbed, Scraped, Poked, Prodded & Squozed

The day started at 9, when I went to Cindy's to have the second half of my root planing procedure. It seemed to go more quickly than the first half did and I didn't get as much book listening done as last time, but listening to a book sure makes a couple of hours fly by!

This time Cindy prescribed some antibiotics for me so I had to go to the Kaiser pharmacy to drop them off. While I was waiting, I decided to get the lab tests I haven't gotten around getting yet. The lab is just across the hall from the pharmacy and even has a pharmacy board in the waiting room, so you can check when your prescription is ready.

While I was checking in for the lab work, I asked if I needed a mammogram (since the mammogram desk is right next to the lab desk). They checked the computers and decided I did, so I registered for a mammogram too. The lab lady said that if I wanted to get a flu shot, there was a nurse on duty down the hall in the flu clinic who was giving them.

I went into the lab and got my blood drawn. She thought my good ol' reliable vein, which I use every time I donate blood, had collapsed because she couldn't get any blood out of it at all, even after digging around in my arm. Finally she tried a different test tube and that made all the difference in the world.

When I'd finished giving blood, I went down the hall and got a flu shot. I don't know if they still use needles or if they have finally discovered how to inject stuff in an arm with some sort of pneumatic device because I did not feel a needle at all. It's also possible that the novocaine from the root planning had numbed my arm too. LOL.

Then back to the lab area where I was called for my mammogram. The lady who gives the mammograms is from Russia and I can truly say I have never had a mammogram while discussing the benefits and shorcomings of the Soviet system of government and how the older people would prefer to return to Communism, while the younger people don't care.

I can also honestly say that I've never had a mammogram that hurt as much. I wonder if there is a correlation...?

I left Kaiser completely caught up on all my pending work, still numb in the mouth, and having this sudden craving for scrambled eggs. Kaiser is just across a field from an iHop, so I decided to go and fill my craving for scrambled eggs and they tossed in a side of pancakes for me as well.

I came home and took the first dose of pills. The downside is that one of them (Flagyl) has, they tell me, the same effect as Antabuse and if you have any alcohol at all, it will make you violently ill. Well, I guess I won't be toasting Kayleen and Sean at their wedding with anything stronger than water on Saturday!

---

Oh. There is a new chapter in my parking citation saga.

The Department of Theatre and Dance has issued me a placard to be placed on my car. I have been invited to attend a costume fitting for an upcoming production tomorrow and someone is going to meet me in the parking lot to give it to me.

But I have received a message from The Parking Nazi that they will not honor that placard and that she has sent a message to the News Media Management people and "will let me know" their opinion. (This is so stupid because this has not been an issue for the ten years I have been using my old card!)

"No parking for YOU!"

I have not let her know that the Enterprise has ordered me personalized business cards after all, but I have let the Department of Theatre and Dance know that I will not be attending the costume fitting they invited me to come to to help with my review of their upcoming show.

At 10 p.m., I got a call saying they would pick me up and take me to the costume fitting and drive me home afterwards. There is talk of having the chairman of the department call the Parking Nazi.

My mail today: a letter from Fred in the Philippines
and a post card from Slovenia through Postcrossing.

"Something with Chicken in it"

I found a wonderful website today. It discusses the suggestion made by Nevada Senate hopeful Sue Lowden about bartering chickens for medical care.

Following this pullet surprise, I immediately sent the link to Dr. G. I am the web master for the "pelvic aesthetics" part of his business and I told him I needed to know if we were going to have to recalculate the fee schedule on the web site. I notice that things like "vaginal rejuvenation" are not covered in the chicken converter at present, so I suppose that we are going to have to make our own calculations.

I do have some problem with the chickens-for-health care plan. I managed two medical offices and I'm struck by the sheer logistics of it all. We had trouble finding places for all of the midwives to see patients as it was. I don't know how we would do it if we had to have a chicken room to store all of the fees that showed up at the office, to say nothing of the fact that we were on the second floor and shared space with a general practitioner, and a pediatrician, all of whom would presumably have the same problem.

The question has been made about payments, and making a downpayment. Would pregnant women pay for their monthly visits in eggs rather than fully born chickens?

If I get hungry some afternoon and fix myself a deviled egg sandwich, would I be accused of embezzlement? Given that my specialty for dinner has for some time been "something with chicken in it," could I get away with sneaking a hen out under my coat?

What about vegetarian physicians? (Well, Mike Bell (R) of Tennessee likes the whole barter system too and points out that some doctors have been paid by Mennonites in vegetables.) Can I pay my bill with a big pot of vegetable soup, then? Is this an answer to all of those zucchini stubbornly growing in the back yard that I can't give away to my neighbors? Do I get reduced fee if I add dumplings?

(Somehow, knowing all the physicians I've worked for, I'm convinced that most doctors would rather be paid in paper lettuce, and in carets rather than carrots!)

If you think about it, though, this barter system would require total revision of our economic system. It's one thing to bring Ch3000 to your doctor (that's the abbreviation for 3000 chickens), but how am I, the office manager to be paid? Chicken wings? Do I get a vat of Buffalo wing sauce as a Christmas bonus?

It could, however, have a big impact on unemployment figures. Doctors would not only be required to hire managers and clerical people and nurses and other support medical personnel, but also chicken herders and chicken feeders and chicken killers and chicken pluckers, and egg gatherers and even chicken sexers, for those precocious eggs who insist on being hatched (I know there is a job of chicken sexer because I saw it on Dirty Jobs once).

Most importantly, we'd need to hire people to clean up chicken poop. Hey! Isn't there some sort of use for guano? Could we harvest chicken poop and have our own version of making lemonade from lemons?

This barter system thing does change the whole look at pyramid schemes, doesn't it?

What would the disaster at Enron look like if we lived on the chicken and vegetable standard rather than the gold standard? Would we cry "Fowl"?