Tag Archives: health

LIVE

fine.. so I’m not dying… (right this minute).


When I visit my accountant I don’t touch his adding machine, fiddle with his paperclip holder or riffle through his drawers.

So why is it when I’m in a physician’s office – I suffer from the complete compulsion to to touch things?

The big heavy shiny examination tools… Like that little ear magnifier television thing… How does it charge? It makes a cool “ker-thunk” noise when you stick it back in it’s holder.

Big pyrexâ„¢ jars with individually wrapped tongue depressors… drawers filled with empty pee cups… Latex gloves….

I never find anything that strikes as me critical nor anything that would make me recoil and regret snooping in the first place.

It’s just a curious affliction… The type who’s mystery would have a better chance being solved in a “different” kind of doctor’s office…

Harmless nonetheless and now since we’re going to a doc that does “partner visits” – I now have an audience to furrow their brow and tell me to “keep my hands to myself.” – as Chad said more than once as we were just in for our follow up appointment.

Aside from having unsatisfactory “good cholesterol” levels – we both got a clean bill of health… This includes the results of my heart scan.

Like good ole mom… I apparently have inherited her “occasionally funky heart beat”.

Catherine explained it as: “you just simply skip a beat now and then” – most likely as a result of caffeine or stress.

Silly shaman… I should have told her to look across the examination room and look at man sitting in there with us… Thanks to him and the other one – my heart’s been skipping a beat since 99.

I’m just decompressing from thinking my ticker was on the fritz…. *whew*..

(not blogging)

LIVE, OBSESS

lub dub, lub dub, lub.. lub dub.


I haven’t had health insurance since June 2004…. My last physical was in 2003…

Since I’m all insured now I figured I better get my happy ass back in for a check up… As well as drag Chad with me. He hasn’t hasn’t had one in 10 years and his mom has threatened creating a need to see a doctor if I didn’t help persuade him to go in a for a physical.

My doc wasn’t accepting new patients…. grrrr…. My boss suggested we give HER doc a try…. I called… THEY weren’t taking any new patients either.

Amy smirked when I told her this, picked up the phone and quickly had appointments for us lined up.

The concept of changing docs is intimidating… I wasn’t displeased with my previous one’s performance – but I never felt 100% at-ease to discuss “ANYTHING”… She was my dad’s doctor and her assignment was more like an arranged marriage and less like what I would think should be an intimate pairing process.

Boss lady’s doc is considered a close friend of her family AND a “gay doc”… Not to suggest that one’s sexual orientation makes you a better or worse doctor – but definitely means that if you’re homo also – it eliminates any of those awkward moments when you’d otherwise hesitate to share health information based on social stigma: “Hey Doc, we were trying something out of the Kama Sutra the other night and I got this weird pain right here.”

Besides… If the princess who could have any doctor in town she wanted trusts her and her family’s health to this man – he must be good.

The first-date-willies were severely reduced when we pulled up and I laid eyes on Dr. David’s building… Kick-ass modern mid-century…. Right on… I figured if I didn’t like the staff I could always just drool on the architecture.

The willies were further reduced when they called us BOTH back and told us that we could share the same examination room.

They’re like a tag-team… A Doc and a Nurse Practitioner. The FPN, an attractive, fit, cosmo-cool looking woman with fashionable glasses, entered the room introduced herself.

You ever meet someone who you’re instantly at-ease with? Catherine was this flavor of cool.. within five minutes we were openly chatting about everything from family history to sexual habits.

We were poked, felt, squeezed and coughed all within an hour and deemed mostly healthy….

“Mostly” referring to me. She heard something funny through the stethoscope and confirmed with the EKG… I have something funky with my heartbeat pattern.

I was reassured that it’s not cause for alarm, but rather cause for investigation.
She ordered me something called a “2D Doppler Heart Scan”.

My mom has a similar phenomena which turned out to be a non-life threatening peculiarity. If ever I was to pray for genetics to come through – it’d be now.

I thought when you quit smoking you were supposed to get healthier.

I thought I wasn’t blogging…. oh yeah – I’m not.

LIVE

gore and gums


Yesterday was even more Spring-Like.

The perfect weather to crawl out of the basement I’m currently signing for a client, jump in the car, roll down all the windows, crank the stereo and schlepp out the the county to see………. my dentist.

Dr. Helfridge, who’s about my dad’s age if not a smidge older, has been my dentist since I was two years old. His small office is staffed by the same helper, Paula… She always remembers and greets me with a familiar warmth of an out of town aunt.

The office itself is a time-capsule… EVERYTHING is exactly the same…. Placing it somewhere the era of early 1970’s. Oddly – the furniture is aging better than the doctor or Paula who are showing the tell-tale signs of fifty-something.

I was fortunate to be born with good teeth – so trips to the dentist growing up were never problematic… I actually “liked” it… Jumping up in the harvest-yellow space-age looking chair and looking at all the tools… I thought I was in a spaceship.

Now… as the years have passed – I note the Harvest Yellow enameled equipment and wonder if I can find a Kitchen Aid stand mixer that same hue.

The consistent thread running through the three decades of visits is the lecture about not flossing enough.

Of course I should have heeded his warnings for the last ten years…

I now apparently have, (he stressed only the “beginnings of”) – “Gum Disease”… I pressed for a technical name,… but knowing about my hypochondriac streak and constant access to the internet – resisted telling me.

Nonetheless – the ole’ “hook-between the teeth” clean-out was quite uncomfortable and when he was done I was spitting out mouthfuls of gore into the mini porcelain sink next to the chair.

He’s referred me to a specialist to be evaluated and maybe get a “raking” done or something like that… not exciting…. but… according to him:

“You’ve got nearly perfect, beautiful, naturally decay resistant teeth, (never had braces) – it’d be a shame if they all fall out in ten years if you don’t get a handle on this condition NOW”.

(*sigh*)

So…. I’ll make an appointment with the specialist when I can afford it….

Meanwhile – I’ll start flossing religiously.

My mouth is too sore today to blog.

LIVE

day three


Time is distorted.

Things like sitting down to watch a movie is almost impossible.

Got Chad’s Christmas gift hooked up, (big firewire drive) – which gave him lots of excuses to run back and forth and feed CDs into it.

Actually – the “physical pain” bit isn’t constant… Only when you hit those triggers which make you want to smoke go off… (after meals, sitting in front of the computer, watching a movie). etc…

Then it sucks… Sorta a head spinning, cramping and panic-for-no-reason feeling.

I’m starting to understand why reformed smokers become such assholes.

I don’t want to become an asshole…

I don’t want to blog.