Monday, October 19, 2015

No Pills For That

I realize that I have been away for several days, my dear readers, and I apologize. I have been a bit under the weather. This is not to be confused with being under the radar, which can be good or bad, depending on where you land in the situation. If you are working on a project for which you are not quite qualified but are able to manage without your boss knowing this, you've successfully flown under the radar, and it's a good thing. If you are the other person on the project who is keeping some poor hapless coworker afloat by doing extra work that gets unrecognized, your colleague is flying under the radar, likely causing you to be generally cranky at the state of your working situation, which is bad.

I am striving to get out from under said weather. It hasn't been anything really dreadful, just enough to have several times during the day, for multiple days, where you find yourself saying, "Okay-I have-to-go-to-bed-right-now-or-I'll-throw-up-or-collapse-or-both-thank-you-please." This too shall pass, thank goodness. I'm on the comeback trail. I thought I'd share one of those "I love my doctor!" moments since I am writing so late and want to keep it brief. 

I had a regular quarterly checkup with Doctor Mike on Friday. I actually have to go into the office monthly due to a medication I take to keep me from having dangerous blood clots. That is a simple poke of the finger blood test, and then I am on my way. Once every three months he likes me to come in for blood tests and to have a brief examination to monitor my diabetic condition. I also get a finger poke on these visits, and this time I just knew I was going to fail. I knew that my coagulation time would be too high, and I knew exactly what I had done wrong.

Sure enough, the number was just slightly too high. I explained the situation to the Medical Assistant, who relayed it to Mike. He came in with a little grin on his face. "So, I hear that you accidentally took too much coumadin earlier this week?" The explanation blurted out. "Well, you see, I have been taking all of my night-time pills with my dinner because my stomach is having some problems with pills lately. And on Sunday, we went over to our friends' house for dinner, and I usually just take my diabetic pills during my dinner when I go there, but I was being smart and packed all of my night-time pills and had them with my dinner. And then when I went to bed, I thought, oh, crap, I haven't taken my night-time pills, so I took them again, and so now my level is too high but I will be better, I promise."

Mike has known me for many years, so he didn't laugh at my way-too-long explanation. Instead, he looked at me with a slightly devilish grin and said, "Don't ask me for pills for smart. There's no pills for that." We got a good chuckle out of it and had a good visit. Mike can be hard on me sometimes, and when he loses his good bedside manner, I will tell him that he is being uncool. But he understands me, and I can talk with him about anything and ask any questions, whether they have anything to do with my health or not. It's a great relationship, all things considered.

Mike was in a very good mood because in a few days he will be taking a vacation with his wife. They will fly to Athens and board a cruise ship. He will be going to all of his favorite Greek Islands and cruising the Mediterranean. He's leaving his laptop at home, so there will be no work done while he is traveling. After twenty-nine days at sea, he will land in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, and head back home. I couldn't be more pleased for him. He deserves it.

By the way, I call my doctor by his first name because I have known him for years. My family knew him when he was a genius kid who got bored easily and thought of various ways that he and the other neighborhood boys could find some trouble to get into. He seldom got caught, but when things happened, the cry was raised, "Where's Mike?" I'm glad he's smart but easy to talk to. I'm glad he's my doctor. But I wish he'd get to work on creating that pill for smarts.





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