• Tag Archives physical

  • It’s Beginning To Look a Lot Like…March?

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Samain                                 Moon of the Winter Solstice

    It’s beginning to look a lot like….March.  Geez.  Rain?  In mid-December?  47 degrees.  Come on guys.  We need that climate deal now.

    (this was the scene out my study window on December 11, last year)

    How would Robert Frost write “Stopping by Woods on A Snowy Evening” for the Winter Solstice?  Somehow the carriage sunk in mud while the rain beats down just doesn’t carry the same poetics.

    Annual physical finished.  Tom Davis, the internist whom I see, enters the State Fair art contest every year in photography and has never got admitted.  He has one of his pieces in his office and it’s pretty damn good.  A pensive work in Galena, Illinois.

    Each year after the physical, since fasting is required, I go to Hell and have breakfast.  Hell has its Minneapolis location in the basement of the building next to the Medical Arts parking ramp.  An all punk wait staff, classic movies projected on a big screen and broadcast over TV’s, and an imaginative menu make Hell a bigger draw than you might imagine.

     


    📂This entry was posted in Aging Health Weather +Climate 📎and tagged

  • One Last Physical

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Samain                                       Moon of the Winter Solstice

    As 65 nears there is one more physical left under the old, private insurance model.  COBRA, which allows extension of private medical insurance for up to 18-24 months after loss of employment or retirement, if you can afford it, has kept the Health Partners plan in place until February 14th, when this baby boomer adds another droplet to the silver tsunami.

    So, one last time under the private health care insurance model that has bankrupted and made more ill hundreds of thousands in this the wealthiest of all possible countries.

    Tom Davis has seen me now for four years or so since Charlie Peterson took off for Colorado, Steamboat Springs.  Tom collects native american pottery and hopes some day to become a docent at the MIA.  He’s a good doc, a geriatrician in the mix.

    Each year.  Downtown to the Medical Arts Building.  Park in the ramp, find the skyway.  Take the elevator.  Yes, nothing to eat or drink other than clear liquids since midnight.  The blood pressure cuff, measuring my major health problem.  Once by the nurse.  Then again by Tom.  Maybe yet again.

    The ritual questions.  Any difficulty swallowing?  Any changes?  And on.  Probing with words while the eyes watch, looking for signs, fleeting symptoms.  Diagnostics at work, the differential tree now second nature, honed by so many patients.

    Disrobing. The paper gown.  So cute. Poking, coughing.  A reflex tested.  Prostate checked.  Prescriptions refilled.  Blood work drawn.  Urine sample.

    After visit summary in hand, back out through the lobby.  Others wait.  For the blood pressure cuff.  The ritual questions.  The disrobing.

    Next year though it will be socialized medicine and a local HMO taking care of the visit. Medicare is not the problem, it’s the solution.

    The ritual question for solving the problem:  for whom will you vote?


    📂This entry was posted in Aging Commentary on the news Health Politics Retirement 📎and tagged

  • The Civil War

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Samhain                                                 Waxing Moon of the Winter Solstice

    The NYT has started a series focusing on the civil war, looking back 150 years ago.   Lincoln has just been elected and the country has an internal division not matched again until, perhaps, the 1960’s, the War’s one hundredth anniversary.  The Civil War fascinates me and I’ve visited several battlefields, as I’ve said here before.  I’ve been especially interested in the war’s execution, why did the North win and the South lose?  What have been the subsequent ramifications?  Did Lincoln’s execution, which put Andrew Johnson in the Presidency, set back the integration of African-Americans into American society by a century or more?  What did we learn?  I look forward to a several year focus on the war, raising these questions anew.

    A quiet physical.  Saw Tom Byfield there, apparently we share a doctor.  Tom, Davis that is, collects pueblo pottery and has a couple on loan to the MIA.  I didn’t recognize his description, but I’m gonna check’em out.  This time, the first time in a long time, I had no particular concerns to raise.    He found nothing new or remarkable.   The labs will come in, of course, and we’ll see then, but for now, I’m feeling good.

    When I drove in today, each exit off Highway 94, starting at Broadway, then 4th street and finally Hennepin/Lyndale had cars backed up onto the freeway.  I took Hennepin/Lyndale thinking there must a traffic jam in the city because of the snow.  Nope.  A peculiar situation, one of those imponderables that happens here when we get lots of snow and very cold weather.  People drive strange.

    On the news sheet:  4 bodies in NYC, dumped along a Long Island freeway, might mean a serial killer.  Motorcycle thief steals $1.5 in Bellagio chips, rides away.  So, is it news stories ripped from the television cop dramas or the other way around?


    📂This entry was posted in Aging Art and Culture Commentary on the news Health US History Weather +Climate 📎and tagged

  • Oh, boy.

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Samhain                                                Waxing Moon of the Winter Solstice

    Annual physical tomorrow morning.  This ritual obeisance to the gods of health and long life are, of course, futile.  No matter how closely we monitor our health, no matter how compliant with diet, exercise and medicines, no matter how meditative and calm we can keep ourselves, entropy will win the day.  It just takes too much energy to keep us fastened together much longer than 90 years, give or take 10 years.  My goal has been, for a long time, not to die from something I could have prevented.  So far, so good.

    All kidding aside, I’m happy to do these visits once a year since it’s a minimal investment in surveillance of and for my health.  I do have some anxiety each time though.  Any one of these visits could be the one.  You know, the one where doctor calls back.  Ooops.  We need to do more tests.  Uh-oh.  And, I’m sorry I have to tell you this, there’s just no good way.

    In my fantasy this visit never happens.  I live a reasonably healthy life into my late 80’s, early 90’s, then death comes calling.  That’s what I’m aiming for, being healthy till I’m dead.

    My new doc, Tom Davis, is a careful guy, an i dotter and a t crosser.  I like that in a doctor.  He’s also calm, unflappable.  I like that, too.

    This is my next to last physical under the old regime of private health care carried by Kate and paid for jointly by her and Allina.  Two years from now, I’ll be just another anchor on the ship of our economy, dipping into Medicare to pay these bills.

    Here’s to a boring visit and uneventful news.


    📂This entry was posted in Aging Health 📎and tagged