Physical-ly Sick

I had my yearly physical on Monday, about 6 months later than usual because of some insurance shuffling and coverage dropout periods.  (Long story.) This blog post is not one of my usual topics but is probably one of the most important things you will ever read in your life.
Or maybe that you will read today.
Okay, probably somewhere in between.

I'd like you to meet my new healthcare team:

I can tell you with the utmost conviction that YOU are now your sole, core healthcare record keeper.  Let's repeat that for emphasis:  YOU MUST KEEP TRACK OF EVERYTHING RELATED TO YOUR HEALTHCARE.  Get a nice, blank book and start writing down EVERYTHING.  The dates, locations, who ordered it and the results.   Xrays, blood tests, mammograms, colonoscopies - the whole 9 yards. Even though my physician has to write a referral for every miniscule THING, none of this comes back to them in the form of information or results. I spent a lot of time sitting in my elegant paper gown waiting for the PA to go find out the results of a colonoscopy I had in December and a hip x-ray I had 3 weeks ago. All done by physicians in the system I was referred to, all in the same hospital system, but never mind that.  Nadda. Next she had to pop out to see what the latest guidelines were for pap smears - apparently it's every 3 years now, so I didn't need to shave  my legs.  Crap.

My understanding of having a "primary care physician" was that there was someone out there who keeps track of all this stuff.  Apparently not.  Bonus - it's getting worse.  I wish I had known this even five years ago - I've had a slew of medical problems (mostly spinal - with specialists) and no one knows from nuthin'. It is appalling.  It is infuriating.  Mostly it is scary, because as I get older it's only going to get worse, right?  I'm not going to wake up someday and find my degenerative discs have miraculously healed and everything is hunky dory - yay!

I'll probably keep a digital spreadsheet of all this information,  but a blank book won't crash or get a virus. (Ironic.) I'm fully prepared to load a flash drive and take it with me to the doctor so the most accurate records are at my fingertips.  I'm also going to CHARGE THEM FOR THE INFORMATION because why the hell not - they would charge me for a copy of my records, right?

I left with lab slips for more blood work and a referral for a mammogram.  I hate getting my mam's 'grammed. I'm debating on even doing it because the results won't get back to them and they'll never know, right? I've got an attitude about those damn 'gramms - every time I have had a blip they refer me on to get an ultrasound. Here is an idea - screw mammograms and just have ultrasounds. They are painless, faster and easier.  (That is why there are no scrotum-grams, just sayin'.  Men would never put up with getting their dainties smashed up between two plexiglass plates, so why do we?) PS - Spare me the mammogram lecture, I'm an ovarian cancer survivor, I know the drill.

I'm good and angry.  I've got to look at changing primary care physicians, but I don't know if I can find one that can (or will) do the job I expect them to do.  I don't know if any of them do it anymore. I have a feeling it's on us to keep the record. I'm going to need a boatload of Big Chief Tablets to keep track of all this information, John-boy.

Autumn, 2001

Watching the coverage of the 10th anniversary of 9/11 has derailed me.  I felt something coming on all week but today the whole thing crystallized for me. Everything in our lives changed that day, but what went on to happen in the next two months almost crushed me.

The September 11th attacks were surreal. I kept thinking we'd find it was just a few rogue idiots - wishful thinking, it turned out.  When in the following days it became clear the scope and source of the attacks amounted to an act of war  I was bewildered. This was something that happened to other generations (WW II, etc.). I did not think I would live to see something of that scope happen in my lifetime. Throw in the weeks of coverage and struggling to get a grip on it all, I needed to go away and regroup.

Luckily, I was booked to fly out of Boston to Jackson Hole just a few weeks later to spend a week with my sister and her twins in Yellowstone.  It was an annual trip and I always loved going out there, but when I woke up the morning of my departure I had such a knot in my stomach I was almost physically sick.  Flying out of the Boston airport was suddenly very scary.  I had no idea how the security and processing methods had changed, or even if it was safe.  Copycat hijackings were on my mind as Joe dropped me off at Logan Airport. We have not before or since had such a tender farewell.

Just after I returned from Yellowstone we got word (on October 23, 2001) that my 69-year-old mother had pancreatic cancer.  I remember the date because it was my wedding anniversary and Joe had given me a necklace with a gold heart and a little ruby (my birthstone) in the crest.  I made him take it back because when I looked at it all I could see was a broken, bleeding heart.  My mother, diagnosed with cancer?  She was the healthiest person I knew. Three weeks later she was dead.

Ten years later I feel it all very keenly.  Calling 9/11 it a "life changing" event is an understatement of epic proportions.  Watching the coverage this morning, I kept thinking, "10 years ago right now, everything was fine.....10 years ago right now, everything was fine." Then 8:45AM came, the time the first plane hit, and I felt like I had stepped over a line.  Everything  was no longer fine.  Ten years later our country struggles with the far-reaching impacts of that day, including our current economic storm.  I struggle to find  the "new normal" but nothing seems stable. We live on the shifting sands of economic threats, challenges of aging and everyday unknowns.  Maybe it's because I'm 10 years older and see things differently from the perspective of my fifties. Maybe it's because I lost my much-loved dad just 5 months ago and now I feel both their absences so intensely.



Maybe there is no "new normal" because there is no "normal".  This could all just be a rite of passage into becoming a wise elder, but I don't feel grown up enough to be a wise elder. I remember with great nostalgia being able to effortlessly jump on a plane and fly home by myself to visit my mom and dad.  Dad was usually watching golf, football or baseball. I'd be stretched out on the couch watching the game, reading or (usually) snoozing. I did not have to make a decision or be responsible for anything.  Mom would bustle around and inevitably say, "Did you fly halfway across the country just to sleep?" and I would always smile and say, "Yes, Mom, I did."

I liked that era of my life, of America's life.  I will never stop missing that "normal", nor stop wishing to find a new one for myself and for all of us.

Whining Interrupted

I have neglected my blog - a series of days with temps in high 90's &  heat indexes of 107 can do that to a person. There are only 2 rooms in our house with an AC unit and anything outside of those rooms is uninhabitable.  Add to that my first, EPIC case of poison ivy and you have some idea of where my head has been for the past three weeks. I finally broke down yesterday and saw a nurse practitioner  who took one look at me (and my jumbo zip lock bag full of OTC lotions and sprays) and prescribed oral steroids. She said it "might" make me irritable.  (I told her my husband would not notice the change.)

While I whine and moan and complain about the heat, itching, and how everything in my laundry basket has calamine lotion stains, a blogger who I admire and love has had more on her plate than any human should have to endure. The blog is Toddler Planet , but don't let the name fool you. Toddler Planet is written by Susan Niebur, four time cancer survivor, astrophysicist, and mom of two happy little 4 & 6-year-old boys. Susan is now fighting metastatic breast cancer in her spine, hip, and ribs, still looking for that "new normal."

Any ONE of those things would be enough to deal with, but all of them?  There are no adequate words to describe her brilliance, her humor, her humanity and her uncanny ability to take her own trials and use them to benefit others. She makes science and the study of the stars spellbinding.  I am in complete awe of her - and I pray for her daily.  I think of her often, and at odd times throughout the day.  I have always believed that when we think of someone out of the blue, it is actually grace compelling us to say a prayer for that person.

As I get older, I appreciate more and more the short prayer Catholics say during the Our Father.  When you get to the "deliver us from evil" part most Christians continue right  into "for Thine is the kingdom..." but Catholics inserted a little bonus application for help:

Deliver us, Lord, from every evil, and grant us peace in our day. In your mercy keep us free from sin and protect us from all anxiety as we wait in joyful hope.....

Being protected from anxiety is something I have struggled with my entire life.  I love that little add-on, and I  frequently use it as a stand-alone prayer.  I believe in the power of prayer.  I pray that Susan is delivered from anxiety, and from all the other things she is struggling with today.  Please join me & send up your own versions of something that will wrap this woman (whom I have never met) in a loving blanket of faith, healing and comfort.

Thank you.

Contemplating Ceilings

I feel like indulging myself in  some really selfish whining so if you can't handle it just  bail right now. It's my blog and I'll bitch if I want to -- and I want to.

I have spent an unfair amount of my life staring at ceilings, namely the drop  ceilings found in doctor's offices.  I have had  a LOT of surgery over the years so I am something of  a connoisseur of ceiling construction, examination garments (paper and cloth) and the accoutrement that goes with yet another trip to the doctor to see what-the-hell-is-wrong-this-time.

My most favorite ceiling was in the OB/GYN offices of my beloved and much missed Dr. Rose Osborne.  Rose was not only a hell of a surgeon, but for a "cutter" she had a great sense of humor. Rose always had pictures on the ceiling so you had something to enjoy and contemplate while your feet were in the stirrups.  God I loved that woman - and I miss her dearly.  Cancer often takes the best from this earth and I'm getting a seriously bad attitude about the "why" of it all.

Most hospital or doctor's offices have dropped ceilings with or without the little black dots.  I have counted those dots many times while waiting for a doctor, physician assistant, EMG, EKG, MRI, X-ray,  or any one of the endless round of procedures I seem to have on my chart.  A few ceilings have that textured popcorn stuff that is pretty droll and gives you nothing but endless craters to contemplate as you prepare yourself for what comes next.  I'm surprised that no one has thought to put a flat screen on the ceiling so you could watch a movie or take in a sitcom - have a few laughs while you get tubes and electrodes stuck into places where the sun don't shine.  It sure would make a difference. Hell, it would make a huge difference. The pharmaceutical companies should cough up some serious bucks for those things instead of the wine-and-dine golf outings and  BS they pay for now.

I feel at this point I have earned my own examination  gown (they call them a "johnny" out here) that I could whip out of my totebag and put on with some aplomb.  I'd certainly make it out of some attractive print, maybe a Kaffe Fassett, so I could at have something  pleasurable to wrap up in for the duration. (The bleached out drab greens and blues are  surgical and so depressing.  I'm just sayin' . )   As for the ceilings - well, hell - would a little something up there bankrupt your practice?  I don't think so.   I'm not asking for the Sistine Chapel (although a poster of it up there would be a pisser)  but is it really asking too much to tack something up there so those of us trapped in a tarp with three armholes can have a little something to look at while we ponder what  orifice or vein is next to be violated?

I have an appointment with an orthopedic surgeon this morning at a sports medicine clinic.  I can't wait to see what they have on the walls.   Judging by the age of the building,  I can  tell you right now the ceilings are going to have fluorescent light fixtures with  those cracked ice lenses.   There will be pictures of patients shooting a basketball, or back on their slalom skis swooshing about with "thanks Doc!" penned across the bottom.   I'll bet anybody $100 that  their ceilings are bare of any posters, much less one of a  50- something  female with a spinal fusion from scoliosis gone to hell-in-a-hand basket.  Any takers?

I didn't think so.