Don't Look...Bite This!

There is a saying that makes people's heads catch fire about what should be a right and what should be a privilege...which I'm not going to mention.

However, it got me thinking about something.

Back in the day, when the Bill of Rights was being drawn up, this is what healthcare looked like:



There was no question about whether someone could afford the help they needed, or if in fact they wanted the help they were getting, because if they lived through the night they'd probably give the doctor a bottle of booze or a horse or something or maybe they'd shoot the doctor if he messed up and that was that.

Now--with the exceptions of that nurse who recently exposed hundreds of people to hepatitis C...and everyone who catches MRSA in the hospital...and the ludicrous drug-pushing that goes on--medical care seems appealing. I want in. Nineteen years is enough. Especially coming off a weekend where I ended up face down on the concrete waving my good arm until someone noticed. Only I'd have to pay 10x more a month to insure this lump of flesh banging away at the keys than I do to insure my car, providing I lied about my pre-existing condition and never mentioned I'm Google-able and then...let's just whisk past how I've been spending a majority of my time.

So I have a selfish reason for wanting the utter bullshit I've been hearing and receiving in e-mails over access to necessary healthcare for poor people to stop. Any further argument involving the word socialist from anyone who regularly enjoys the cold touch of a stethoscope will merely be met my bleary glare and a very special finger extended on the arm that still works properly.

Poor people have as much of a right to live as those snowflake baby things in the petri dishes. Healthy poor people have a 50% chance of being not as poor within a short amount of time, too, according to a statistic I just pulled out of my ass. MMM, increased productivity!

The opinions expressed in this post are those of the personality of the blogger that comes out on every alternate solar eclipse not visible to the U.S. and should not be taken personally if you, the reader, feel poor people should die. She really loves you more than politics but needed to get this off her wheezy chest in order to resume the life she rather fancies despite all the falling down.

Summary: I am for the public option and single-payer plan and all the stuff the senate is dicking around about. President Obama wants the public option. It's the Senators looking to be re-elected by poor people haters that are dragging their feet. Remember this ten years from now. Also, I have a bow saw if anyone needs their leg seen to.

Don't Look...Bite This!

No? What Kind Of Negative Month Are You, Punk?

Did we watch movies this week? I can't remember. I was busy and I've got all sorts of bruises and stiff joints, so I'm sure I did something, but it's sort of a blur. Which is why I usually make notes all week, but I didn't even have time for that so I guess I was seriously into something. Hmm.

I finally saw the original Sabrina, which I got a kick out of because the remake with Harrison Ford is one of my all-time favorites (YES I ADMITTED IT SO THERE) and I love Audrey Hepburn so that was all good. Not exactly a new movie, however.

Another one that we'd somehow missed for years was Sleep Easy, Hutch Rimes with Swoozie Kurtz and Steven Weber. It's twisty.

Nan found Scary Movie 4 one night and we love that nonsense so I'd jump around and eat couch cushions to get you to watch it, but you know...it's silly fun.

Like Amazon Women On The Moon. I never saw that whole movie before, I only saw the bit with Arsenio Hall vs. the VCR and and Carrie Fisher being a reckless youth. And now I have seen everything that comes between those two sketches! That's my kinda crazy.

It got sort of freezing and these wild winds came through at one point this week, and while that was going on I worked on work-related things. The cabin fever took exactly four hours to kick in. Before that, however, I nearly removed my hand with the butt (eheheheheheh) of a rather largeish bit of gardening equipment, but I took our tree branches out of the neighbors' airspace, dammit. I feel so manly. *burp*

I added more crap to the sidebars of my blog! I figured out how the Last.fm radio player works and I actually heard some songs I'd forgotten I loved. I'm also doing NaNoWriMo again. As far as I know this story will be completely different from last year's, but then I never did talk about Coffeeman much so you wouldn't know, would you...but no, Queen Lulu has probably never had coffee in her life. I'm not ashamed of the people who live in my head anymore, or at least I've gotten over the idea that I'll be sent off to an asylum if I mention them. If only I'd known all these years that not having medical coverage has its perks.

No? What Kind Of Negative Month Are You, Punk?

Still Out Of Unna Boots.

Mum went for her six-month follow up on her leg today, and not only has the vascular clinic changed building, but they no longer take Aetna and they happened to be out of Unna boots, the last of which is fine by Mum as she only needs to keep wearing her support sock and unless her leg opens up again she never has to see any of the doctors or nurses there ever again.

Okay, that part sucked. They're good people and I'm grateful to every single one of them. They all remembered her, which never fails to shock me as I can't remember to put on more clothes when it's colder weather and less clothes when it's hot. I get nervous around hospitals, I never expect to make it out without being tackled by orderlies.

Still Out Of Unna Boots.

Doctors Do Not Appreciate Smart-Ass Commoners

Mum had what is most likely the last Unna boot she'll need for Cellulitis '06 put on today. Her leg is, technically, healed. Luckily, we found out the hospital does so take her Aetna card, it was only the blood pressure clinic which didn't (I don't know, don't ask me, sounds rather suspect), so I did not have to turn to eBay for the last few bandages. Not that I would have minded, because I told Mum last year she needed one of those Unna boots when she only had two tiny things on her leg and no odd colors were involved, and that would have brought the total price of fixing her leg to maybe $25, rather than the house-threatening amount the hospital is taking their time figuring out now.

Reading this back, I'm coming off bitter, almost as if I feel no one listens to me. This is not because I have no voice, no, it's because sometime last month Mum asked the nurse wrapping her leg if she was going to need compression socks like the ones I made her get that closed the first two leg ulcers. "No," each wrapper every week since declared, "You won't need those. What did you ever wear those for? Silly!"

Today the medical person of the week told Mum they'd ordered her compression socks that she'll need to wear after the Unna boot comes off. Because it will take two weeks for them to get the socks, they slapped on another bandage and told her to leave it on until the socks arrive.

I will of course let you all know if they're the exact things we could have ordered fresh from the Footsmart catalog a month ago. Because I have the feeling they will be.

Doctors Do Not Appreciate Smart-Ass Commoners

The cost of not having your parts fall off.

In all the horrid weather, with the flu, my mum had to go have her blood pressure checked out this week, because each time she has her Unna Boot changed, the nurses take her blood pressure and notice it's high. Oh noes.

High blood pressure is serious kids, know that. But also, know that my family, the women of the family, we've all got the blood pressure to orbit the planet given the right circumstances...like...doctor's visits and obesity. Yes. But the doctor insisted on giving her a pill for it, and after five days, mum had new problems she's never had before. And believe me, I love my mum, but I would have killed her if she asked because these new side effects were most uncool. I don't know how I would have managed to kill her, actually, because I'm not even strong enough to lift the kettle at coffee time right now, but I don't have to think about it now because she's off the pills and she and Nan are all gung-ho to lose some weight again. Because that works, it's worked in the past. I'm not just talking out my bum, I've seen it work for them. In 1987, and 1989, and 1991, and 1995, and 2006.

Me, I had the family high blood pressure, then I had a hiatal hernia, then I had reflux, then I had oatmeal for three months, and since then my blood pressure has dropped so low that I can't stand up really fast or I plummet to the floor leaving a Looney Tunes me-shaped hole behind. So I cannot orbit the planet, but that's okay, as long as I don't orbit the staircase.

I'm getting away from the point. My mum, she's had to have that Unna Boot changed quite a bit. On the first visit, Dr. Gunduz the vascular specialist swore he was the only person who could change the bandage, because he has the skillz. That was the last week mum saw him, after that it's all been random nurses, and some have been great, and some have already made it into entries here, but they all have one thing in common: they need to eat.

We got the bill for these outpatient follow-ups to the $16,000 gangrene-avoiding hospital stay. Having bandages changed tacked on another $2000. OMGZ! It cost over $200 a week to go have an Unna Boot I could get off eBay for less than $20 changed!

OMG!

Now, you may recall my bitter little countdown about Mum's Medicare coverage. She's covered now, and Aetna was great for the prescription that nearly sent Mum mad, but the hospital...they don't take Aetna. And they just thought to mention that detail this week.

Although I realize it is not technically my responsibility to pay off my mum's medical bills, I always feel like I should do something. It's true I'm trying to get published, but hey, I'm not that good. I'm not that good at anything. I would have to be a very good lady of the night to pay that kind of a bill off. Not that I'm offering. Unless, you know, there's a call for holding flannel shirts while amorous cats have their fun.

Perhaps I should offer my services as an Unna Boot changer. Hmm.

The cost of not having your parts fall off.

Another Day At The Unna Boot Factory.

There are two nurses who remove Unna Boots on Monday. Two of the other clinic nurses have quit because they couldn't handle working at the clinic. You may leap to the conclusion I'm judging them, however keep in mind I can't stand up for more than two hours or I pay for it for a week, but I can't remember that because my brain fell out in 1988. No, I mentioned them only to contrast against the nurse that my mother thankfully didn't get...who handed the scissors to a patient to take off his own Unna Boot. You may recall people call those things casts.

Four weeks back the vascular specialist who hasn't been seen again insisted he was the only person trained to put an Unna Boot on. Nurses have been putting them on my mother since then. I don't really mind that because you know and I know nurses have their shit together more than most doctors, but...I could buy Unna Boots on eBay. I'm just sayin'. It would cost less than the parking. And whatever mystery funds the hosiptal is tacking onto the bill. I'm not entirely sure I would be able to manage to not make her leg bleed profusely when removing it, but then again the nurse today said that shows circulation!

Four days until Mum is eligible for Medicare.

Another Day At The Unna Boot Factory.

The Second Week of 2008

I accidentally deleted the horoscopes from my bulk folder, so I didn't really know what to expect from this week, but now that it's over, I'm not sure what happened, so maybe that was the message of the horoscopes. I seemed to be changing a lot of ink cartridges and moving around when I probably shouldn't have.

On Sunday I found out figure skating is still around, who knew? I spent a few hours watching it last weekend, and I recognized like three skaters. Has it been that long? When Christopher Bowman passed away this week, I felt like it had been even longer since I enjoyed skating. Couldn't be that long, I remember watching this, it was only a little while ago.

This week, I got my Technorati Tags script for Blogger back, and I bet you didn't even notice I'd lost it, eh? I'd been pasting the div in, man. Hand-edited tags. I'm hardcore.

My eBay listing for Titanic was not a success. Not even one watcher. Maybe some free listing day I'll put it on there again, because now that day I banged into that woman's car has cost me an extra $1.60. I suspect the reason my listing was not the success Dawn Meehan's was is because instead of kids, I have only myself to make fun of, and no one out there can relate to that, at all. I mean, everyone else in the world is an excellent driver and has never dinged another person's car and had to have their mother lay out half the money the screaming driver of the other car was asking for, because I can't even sell a $5 movie on eBay. One day, this will not be an issue for me.

The weather was so lovely at the beginning of the week I mistook it for April and took down the Christmas decorations. The wires weren't even stiff. It was fabulous.

My mother got an Unna boot. She didn't like it. After three days, the doctor gave her another. This time they wrapped it looser. She still doesn't like it. That thing dries solid. My mother is wearing a cast on her leg. The dog offered to help carry her up the stairs to return the favor, but I don't see that working out so well.

We watched The Invasion and Undertaking Betty. Both good, but my love for Jeremy Northam sort of dampened my enthusiasm for what happens in Invasion, and that's all I'm saying about that without spoiling the movie for you. Betty, on the other hand, I've seen four times and I'd watch it again right now if I could.

Alas, I will be researching microwave ovens now. Preferably ones that don't need security clearance from The Pentagon to open after the little spring in the latch breaks. Give me back my hot pretzel, you radioactive bastard.

The Second Week of 2008

This Is Your Brain Being Flipped Like A Fried Egg.

I'm watching a listing for krinkle gauze for Mum on eBay and writing this post at the same time. Will wonders never cease? (I shouldn't kid, I've been known to miss the end of listings I had noted on my arms while sitting at the computer staring at the very listing I was meant to be bidding on.) We get the gauze from a seller called vetsupplies, and when I mentioned this as a selling point along with, "22 rolls for a buck each!" my family's only concern was that it would be okay for people too.

...

The old joke of confusing vets with vets is alive and well, but sadly it took me an hour to realize they thought I was buying veterinary supplies. If it took you until that explanation, it's okay. Really. It isn't like my book is going to be clever or anything.

Among the other supplies for veterans, I found something called a brain spatula. I was looking for sterile spatulas to apply the silver sulfadiazine, see, that is why I innocently typed in spatula, but I didn't find those, I found that there is a spatula...for brains.

I'm fascinated. I thought taking the brain apart to work on voided the warranty or something.

My mother, always with the good questions, wondered only why someone would be selling a brain spatula on eBay.

Hey...speaking of eBay, there’s still a few hours to check out my aunt's factory-sealed 2-tape set of Titanic.

This Is Your Brain Being Flipped Like A Fried Egg.

Dear Drug Companies,

You suck. Don't get me wrong, I'm grateful you pulled my mother back from the brink of gangrene, but you know, charging a woman who only has 52 days to go until her Medicare Part D kicks in $125 for ten days worth of generic antibiotics is rather cruel. But hey, it's not like she had to eat for the rest of the month or anything, and gauze, that's free, right? Sure, reusing the outer wrappings before had nothing to do with the infection she picked up.

Merry Christmas!

Dear Drug Companies,

Christmas Came Early And We Can Start Being Thankful.

My mum's in the hospital. She's finally getting antibiotics for her leg, which is infected and going by the shooting pains she was getting probably would not have waited another 59 days plus however long the medicare supplement HMO-chosen doctor would take to set up an appointment. We can worry about losing the house later, but for now, yay modern medicine.

Christmas Came Early And We Can Start Being Thankful.

72 Days

It's 72 days until my mum is eligble for Medicare, and today we both--at separate times--saw the delightful new anti-smoking ad with the guy in a park...with one leg. He goes on about how many colors his leg turned, and how he ignored the smell, and apparently cigarettes migrated into his leg and clotted there and now he has no leg, but he started smoking in the park 40 years ago. Don't smoke, kids.

Gosh, thanks, Ad Council, I want my mum to see a one-legged version of Aqualung while her leg is all weird. Thanks.

Oh, um, that reminds me, happy Thanksgiving everybody! No, really, I mean that, I probably won't get the chance to wish you a happy Thanksgiving tomorrow because I'll be unconscious. Pie.

72 Days

Fixating on the stupid.

Secure Horizons, the HMO affiliated with AARP in this area, had promised my mother they'd rush an information kit to her...three weeks ago. This week, she got a big envelope from them, which contained a postcard she could fill out for her super-duper information package which will be rushed to her...as soon as they get the postcard with all of her address and everything all over a postcard for anyone to read.

I understand the concept of *headdesk*, I really do.

My mother has to enroll in a Medicare supplement by December. When she was on the phone with Secure Horizons (three weeks ago), they told her their least expensive plan required her going down to Chinatown. In my head, I heard a line from GTA III, and because I'm tired right now, and because you may know the line I'm tallking about....

"Somebody call a medic!"

Do I give a crap about AARP at this moment? No, I do not. Poking around on the website (because I am not waiting for the next information kit), it doesn't even look like she'd be able to go to the local hospital, only the hospital with Towel Lady, the woman who transferred from the late lamented Pelham Bay General and told me it wouldn't be such a big deal if I lost my breast when I was 14. (I mean, I get that, I got that then, but it's an insanely stupid thing to say to a child you don't know. It's an insanely callous and stupid thing to say to anyone.)

Oh, modern healthcare in America, you give me so much material.

Fixating on the stupid.

I cannot blame the planets.

Thursday, the day Mercury went direct, returning us the cosmic normality level of a probability factor of one to one, my car died. This was a normal occurrence up until a few years ago, when I realized that the car alarm designed to keep the car from being driven was so eager to do its job, it didn't know when to stop. After we got a new battery, I never had a dead car again. Which makes this latest drain all the more tragic. There's a button, on the doorframe, which lets the car know the door is closed. It never occurred to me--and maybe you've never thought about this either--that the button could break, and when it did, the car would sit in the driveway doing the automotive equivalent of yelling, "Hey! Hey! Hey!"

The car, however, is soundproof, and I failed to wait the full ten seconds after I slammed my door to see if the interior lights had gone off. This day the button broke, I guess they didn't, because the lights came on when I recharged the car (OMG, my uncle rocks, he gave me a charger 12 years ago and it has never gone to waste) and continued to stay on. The car also kept telling me the door was open. Loud dinging to me is like I suppose being hit over the head with a wet screaming baby who is holding bells and a cuckoo clock that scratches its beak down a chalkboard every second to a person with a severe migraine. That is, I almost shot my car on the way to the service station. This is similar to the reason I don't do well with a metronome, but that's another story.

While the button was repaired--I love my service station so much for all they've done over the years I would hug them but that would be weird and I'd get smudges on my back--my mother and I had to walk to the store I was planning to drive to, because to put it bluntly, we were out of toilet paper. Those who know us very, very well know what an odd, out-of-character thing this is, and now I fully understand why my mother stashes those two rolls that always fall down and wedge in the dispenser. I also learned not to lose my temper with the toilet paper dispenser any more, but that too is another story.

Now, my mother has what I refer to as a bad leg. What it actually is, is a series of hernias that has cut off the circulation so bad that she breaks out in leg ulcers, and this year, she's got two fighting for the title of more annoying section of the ankle. She's eligible for Medicare in three months, and she's hellbent on not doing anything radical like having a doctor check it out and possibly make it all worse until she has coverage. AARP still has yet to send her either package of information on Medicare supplements they swore they'd rush right out to her a month ago. I will not forget this, AARP.

My mother should not be walking, and I actually should not be lifting. I not like to whine, but you all know of my hiatal hernia, and generally how that goes away is if you don't lift anything. Like, say, a 24-pack of toilet paper. So last weekend my mother and I sort of spent dead. My car, upon being picked up by the two of us, laughed. I swear, I heard it. Luckily, the service station did not ask me if I was fit to drive, because had I said more than, "Thank you," they would have detected the slurring. My eye has also been closing lately, and I can joke and say it's my Forest Whitaker impression, but if I was on the road with me, I'd change lanes and get as far away from me as possible as soon as possible.

Monday I drove into a pole. It wasn't a surprise, I mean, I saw the pole, and my eyes were both open at the time, however I didn't see that the pole--holding up the great big light over my car--had a base that extended out far enough that my lovely Empire State license plate got bent. The plastic frame also got cracked, and that is why I choose plain, unremarkable frames for my license plates, because while I remember all the good times we had together, it's not like I'm going to, you know...glue it back together and put it over my computer.

Really.

Being descended from Nan, I know we're not so dainty that little things like hernias and ulcers and dizziness and total inability to carry on a conversation are going to take us out that easy. Nan pretty much does double the amount of stuff Mum and I do, and she still has time to write and make out with the cats even when her legs fall off, which the dog enjoys because she's a maniacal foot-licker. I've convinced myself that everything will be fine. Even if I had trouble swallowing a French fry tonight because my esophagus has that pesky stomach wedged in it.

I also signed up for this year's NaNoWriMo, because I had a book to write anyway, and this gives me a pretty good excuse reason. I have 9,596 words written and not one person has been stabbed in the eye with a beer pretzel, been possessed by a transvestite vampire, traveled to another dimension, or engaged in random sexy hook-ups. Yet. I think it even all makes sense, which is wild.

I cannot blame the planets.