LIVING WITH MCL

It doesn't happen all that often, but it does happen often enough, when someone comes to my door that I don't know, I assume they're trying to sell me something, and immediately turn them away. I try not to even listen to their opening salvo. I just say "not interested", and shut the door. Edie's not as jaded as me, as she will always "give someone the time of day", but not me. The other night some girl came to the door around 6 PM just as we were sitting down to dinner. The door was closed, so I was able to ignore it, and she went away. But about 2 hours later she returned. This time I answered the door with my usual cynical, pissed off attitude, stating we're having dinner, and I wasn't going to buy anything. She tried to tell me she wasn't trying to sell me anything (at least now that I think back I believe maybe she was trying to tell me that), and she asked if I were Eddie. Well, obviously I wasn't, so I said no, shut the door, a...

I just got the results of my latest blood work, and my hemoglobin was down to 10.8 g/dL. That's the lowest they've ever been. No wonder I got dropped on PCH [on the club bike ride] yesterday. At least all the other numbers were good. Creatinine at 1.0 mg/dL, lymphocytes still below 90 thou/mcL, and platelets, although dropping to 154 thou/mcL, are still above normal, and have been worse. My only hope is it's either a bad test, I was just overly hydrated from the pint of tea I had this morning or it's all the stress from last week causing havoc on my body. Unfortunately, now I'm going to be stressed out a month waiting for next months test. Maybe I should just start having my blood checked every other month, or every 3 months. I'm just afraid if I do that, I'll be stressed out even more wondering, or worse, my counts will take a dramatic turn for the worse.

The saga has finally ended. Sylvia made it to Florida to be interned with my mother and father, and Edie and I have made it back from a very stressful 42 hours of travel (22 hours of which were either in the air or waiting in airports), traveling between LA and Fort Lauderdale. I sure don't want to do that again. Up at 4:30 AM on Thursday, arriving Fort Lauderdale around 7 PM that evening, only getting about 3 hours of sleep Thursday night, and essentially awake for the next 24 hours before arriving back home at 11 PM on Friday. At least I slept good last night, and even managed to make the "hammer zone" [bike ride] this AM, although I will admit to missing the first part of the ride, having awoken just a little later than normal, but it felt so good. It sure does feel strange though, knowing Sylvia isn't around any more, or that we don't have to go visit her in the hospital anymore either. I guess that's something we'll just have to get used to.

Here's one that will go down in the annals of US health care history, and is one, if you know how much contempt I have for our current system, and despite my [unsuccessful] attempt to refrain from such posts , boggles even my mind. Edie [my wife] becoming eligible for Medicare (due to her disability) signed up for Kaiser Permanente's Senior Advantage Plan. It's a Medicare Advantage plan combining Medicare parts A, B and D, and usually referred to as Part C. She filled out the application at the end of February, and very recently received a letter in the mail indicating her enrollment in the Senior Advantage plan, along with a new card also showing she was enrolled. Great! Everything's fine, or so I thought. It's now time for her to reorder her Lyrica, so the pharmacy calls to let her know there will be an $835 charge [it's a very expensive drug], since she hasn't fulfilled the deductible part of her current plan, which is the plan she was on before she was e...

Well, the inevitable occurred last night at 8:48 PM Pacific Time. Sylvia passed away. It all started just before Thanksgiving, when I had to call the paramedics for what I thought was a stroke. Miraculously, she made what seemingly was a very quick recovery, and she was able to return home in just over a week. That unfortunately didn't last very long, and she spent the next 3½ months going back and forth between home, the nursing home, and the hospital, each time making what appeared to be a good recovery. Then a week ago on Monday, just after I had visited with her, and thought she was doing better (I even took her for a short walk earlier in the day), she again had to be rushed to the hospital that same evening, because she had difficulty breathing, and had become unresponsive. This time was different though, and she never really got any better. She was trying, even sitting up in a chair on Sunday, but I guess that was just too much for her frail body to endure any longer. It...

Still believe in the benefits of vitamins and supplements? Still have trouble grasping the idea that vitamins and supplements are a well devised scheme by the pharmaceutical and supplement industries to separate you from your hard earned money? Then maybe this article from Consumer Reports will finally convince you otherwise. Americans .............. spent an estimated $10 billion on them [vitamin and mineral pills] in 2008, according to the Nutrition Business Journal. But recent studies undertaken to assess their benefits have delivered a flurry of disappointing results. The supplements failed to prevent Alzheimer's disease , cancer, heart attacks , strokes , type 2 diabetes , and premature death. "We have yet to see well-conducted research that categorically supports the use of vitamin and mineral supplements," says Linda Van Horn, Ph.D., a professor of preventive medicine at Northwestern University's Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago. "Most s...

Things have just not been going well lately. Sylvia's back in the hospital. She had trouble breathing Monday evening, and was unresponsive, so she was moved from the skilled nursing facility to the hospital. She then had to be put on a dopamine drip, as her blood pressure dropped to virtually zero during the night. So now we're just waiting, not knowing exactly what to do. I spent about an hour with her yesterday (I'm just not good in hospitals), but Edie spent most of the day with her, and will go back again today. There is definitely nothing harder than watching someone deteriorate so rapidly, and unable to do anything. Especially someone who still has their wits about them. On top of that, business is slowing down at work. The plant only worked Monday this week, and on only one order. Hardly worth the effort [and cost] to fire up the boiler. But worst of all, it's 41°F outside this morning. That's the coldest it's been in quite awhile, and just when I was get...

To make up for all my regrets (forgotten and not forgotten) we went to Osteria Mozza in LA for dinner last night with friends. We were celebrating our friends birthday, and as you might guess we had just a little too much to drink. But so what, you only go around once in life, so you might as well do it with gusto, and besides, we had a good reason this time. Suffice to say, dinner was good. We had a good time, and I would go back. We started off with a Proseco as a celebratory gesture, followed by a 2003 Domaine Serene, Mark Bradford Vineyard, Pinot Noir, and a Howell Mountain Cabernet with the main course (corkage is only $20 per bottle), and ended with a 13 year old Rip Van Winkle rye (whiskey), which surprisingly was better than expected. Oh, and the food was good as well. I could elaborate extensively, but I don't want to bore you too much. So I'll just touch on it briefly. We started off with a selection of mozzarella from the mozzarella bar, then had a little gnocchi an...

I've done a lot of things in my life, and been to a lot of places, and I really haven't had too many regrets. Sure I've made mistakes [lots of them], but for the most part they have all been forgotten. Except for one thing. Ok, maybe two. The one decision I've regretted the most, is not having gone to my 40th high school reunion four years ago. I had actually planned to go. I even made airline and hotel reservations in Pittsburgh, but at the last minute [for some unexplainable reason], I changed my mind, and instead went to Italy. Now in retrospect, that was just plain stupid. I wasn't impressed with Italy, and besides, Italy wasn't going anywhere. I could have gone there anytime, but a 40th high school reunion, that only comes around once in life, and it can't be repeated. That's why, regardless of how much I don't relish the idea of going to Ohio this summer, I know I can't let Edie miss her 40th high school reunion either. No sense both of us ...