Alternative New Year’s Eve Festivites

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Okay, what I’ve learned is that the abdominal wall right near the belly button is fragile tissue because the umbilical cord was there. So umbilical hernias are not that rare. They are usually caused by one of three things:

  1. Many pregnancies, not me, never had a kid.
  1. Overweight, I wish I was 10 pounds thinner but I am not overweight. The good Dr. Christy even called me skinny the last time I saw her. It’s no wonder I like her so much. It’s probably because she is so used to looking at fat people that I look skinny to her. In my opinion, I’d be skinny if I were 10 pounds thinner.
  1. Coughing, that would be me. When I first moved to the dreaded Dallas I had allergies so bad and was coughing so intensely all day every day that I thought I had lung cancer. I was coughing until I either sneezed or almost threw up. (TMI, I know.) I finally googled “internist Dallas,” closed my eyes and picked one and by an incredible stroke of luck, or divine intervention I ended up in Dr. Christy’s office. So anyway, one of my gifts from Texas is Dr. Christy and another one is a hernia. Jus’ sayin’.

Dr. Christy was able to simply push my hernia back in for a while. The last time I saw her however, she couldn’t do it so she referred me to a surgeon and I’ll be ringing in the New Year with surgery on New Years Eve! I hope each and every one of you has something just as fun and festive to do to ring in yours! I’ll be recovering from anesthesia and drinking chicken broth while all you guys are drinking expensive champagne, swinging from the chandeliers and kissing each other.

On Monday I got the call from the admissions person at the hospital for the typical pre-surgery health and lifestyle interview. She started by quizzing me to be sure I wasn’t a complete idiot.

“Do you know why you are having surgery on Wednesday?” Peggy asked.

“Yes,” I said, “I have an umbilical hernia that the surgeon and my PCP Dr. Christy thought should be repaired,” I said.

“Do you know what your surgeon’s name is?” she asked.

“Yes,” I said, “Dr. Komen.”

“Do you remember what time they asked you to stop eating foods and beverages the day before your surgery?” she asked.

“Yes, midnight.” I said.

“Who will be driving you here on the day of your surgery”?

“My beautiful husband,” I said.

“What time is your surgery?” she asked.

“10:00 am.” I said.

“What time do you need to be here?” she asked.

“8:00 am.” I said confidently. I was kicking butt on my interview!

After determining that I had at least a couple of operative brain cells, she went on to the more complex questions.

“Do you live in a house, a condo, an apartment or a trailer?” she asked cheerfully as if each of these were an equally delightful situation. Why do they need to know that? I thought.

“Who else lives with you in the house other than your beautiful husband?” she laughed.

I laughed too, “beautiful doggies,” I said.

After she did all the family medical history stuff, who’s dead and who’s alive, what kind of shape everyone is in, the surgeries I’ve had, whether I smoked, drank, took illegal drugs (who would say yes to that!?), she moved on to more esoteric stuff.

“Do you like to ingest information from written material and figure it out by yourself OR do you prefer someone explain it to you and walk you through it OR both?” she asked.

“Probably both,” I said, “but what a weird question.”

“I know,” she said, “but we have patients who can’t read and they don’t want to admit it which is understandable.” I loved her for her sensitivity. “This question is a great way to let them off the hook so they don’t go home with instructions they can’t read but rather with a visual and explanation they can adhere to.”

“That makes perfect sense.” I said.

“Okay,” she said, “last question. Do you and your beautiful husband know where the hospital is?”

“Uh, yeah….” I said.

I’m nervous about two things; going under anesthesia and not drinking water for so many hours. Going under has always made me a little nervous. I’m envious because my sister Lisa and my friend Michelle love going under! They see it as a mini escape from life!

I snuck some water in tiny amounts the morning of my hip surgery and I planned on doing that again. I am a rebel and I think some rules like that are for the convenience of whoever made the rule and really have nothing to do with me. But my husband told me today if you are under anesthesia and 1 teaspoon of water gets in your lungs, you could drown. Sounds a little dramatic to me and I’m not sure I buy it but it was kind-a motivating and my husband does not make stuff up.

Today is Tuesday and I think I’ll stay up until midnight drinking water.

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Sweet Linda (aka Lovely Linda)

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“Sweet?” I said.

“Yes, sweet,” my esthetician Linda answered. “I used to have some impressive stuff about myself on my profile at Match.com but one guy said, I can’t date you; I’m just a regular guy.”

“Oh, so that impressive stuff intimidated him.” I said.

“Guess so,” she replied, “So after that I did a some research to find the words that men use to search profiles and the top word was sweet. So now all my profile says is sweet girl looking for a relationship. The hits to my profile tripled!”

“Now that you mention it,” I said, “I remember years ago before the Internet when I was dating, a girlfriend set me up on a blind date and she told me the man asked if I was sweet. So, yeah, even back then sweet was key.”

I’ve been called many nice things in my life but sweet has never been one of them.

“What does that even mean!?” Linda almost shouted

“I know!” I shouted back, “What does sweet mean!? Oh, wait,” I went on, “I know! Sweet means you will go to bed with him!”

We laughed hysterically as she almost gouged my eye with her microdermabrasion wand.

We caught our breath and I wiped away the tears flowing from the aforementioned eye and Linda said, “Oh, that reminds me, I have this friend in her late fifties who is getting divorced. She said to me Linda, all I want is a man to be a companion, someone to have a meal with and to sit down with and talk. Ya know?”

“So what I told her,” Linda said, “is that what men want is to go to bed with you, not worry about being your companion, not have a meal with you and not sit down and talk with you! Oh my god, she got so mad at me!!”

We both laughed out loud as I gently grabbed the wrist of her hand holding the wand.

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The Good Doctor (Part II)

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“How are you?” Dr. Christy said as she entered the examination room. I could tell she was happy to see me. I was happy to see her, too.

“Good!” I said, “well maybe….”

“Well yeah, there’s a reason you’re here,” she laughed. (Of course she laughed. See an earlier post called The Good Doctor.)

“Right,” I said, “so it couldn’t be all good.”

“So what’s going on, Andrea?”

“Well, I’ve been nauseous for about two weeks. If I weren’t 56 years old, I’d swear I was pregnant. I’m concerned that it might have something to do with that umbilical hernia you diagnosed that we decided not to treat just yet so I thought I better come see you.”

“Hmmmm,” she murmured. She was thinking and typing. She types everything I say into her laptop computer, which I love because I know it means she’s keeping good records on me. “Do you have any cramping?”

“Nope,” I said, “just nausea.”

“Yeah,” she said, “the hernia would cause cramping, not nausea. And I was reading your chart this morning before you came in and the one prescription drug you take and the OTC drugs you are on for allergies would not cause nausea.”

“What?” I blurted out.

“What?” she looked surprised.

“You read my chart this morning?!”  I was shocked. “Oh my gosh, Dr. Christy, thank-you!!”

“For what?” she looked bewildered. “What are you thanking me for?”

She has not invited me to use her first name and when I really respect a doctor (which is kinda rare,) I like to call them Dr. so and so out of respect until I get that invitation. And I don’t care so much whether I get the invitation or not. Medical school is a huge commitment and a lot of work and they deserve to be called Dr. if that’s what they want. However after this question, I spontaneously blurted her first name.

“Melody!” I said, “do you know how many doctors I’ve had over the years who make it completely obvious when they walk in the room that not only have they not read my chart, they don’t remember who I am, anything about me or what my medical history is? I’ve known for years that when I hear the doctor on the other side of the closed door take my chart off that little chart holder attached to the door that it’s the first time they’ve so much as glanced at it in months. And because 30 seconds after I hear the chart holder noise, the little knock/come in the room thing happens so how much could they have really read!?” I ranted.

“Then,” I raved on, “I have to spend the next 20 minutes accommodating them while they fumble around verbally trying to recall who the heck I am and what my deal is. Oh, right, they might finally say, you’re the one with the umbilical hernia. It’s an OUTRAGE, so yes, thank you for reading my chart this morning, Dr. Christy!”

Dr. Christy is incredibly unpretentious and she just laughed.

“Do you take pain relievers like Aleve or Ibuprofen or anything?” she was getting back to the nausea thing.

“No, I don’t take that stuff, just plain old aspirin. And I don’t take it often but I have been having a little trouble with my low back and have been taking it for the past 2 weeks or so.”

“Yeah,” she said, “that’s probably what’s causing the nausea.” She went on to explain how aspirin might aggravate another little situation I have going on and she told me to quit taking it until the nausea subsided. “Lay back” she then said, “let’s check that hernia and push it back in.” I lay back, pulled up my shirt so she could get to my belly button and she started pushing and prodding.

“Why are you fighting me?” she said smiling, “relax your stomach muscles for me.”

“Oh, sorry,” I said, “I’m trying to seem skinny.”

“You are skinny!” she smiled. I relaxed my stomach muscles.

“You know,” she said after a while, “I can’t push it back in this time, and it wasn’t so long ago that I could and that bugs me. I’m going to refer you to a surgeon and I think you should go talk to her about getting this fixed.

“So, you think I should have the surgery now?” I asked.

“Yes, I do,” she replied.

“Okay, but Doc, if I have to go under general anesthesia anyway, can we work it out so I can have a face lift at the same time?”

Dr. Christy laughed.

Fat Cats

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I forgot cats existed. I also forgot mosquitos existed but that’s another story. The outcome of forgetting mosquitos existed when I moved to Texas was disastrous. Not quite so bad with cats. In daily life in Arizona, if you don’t have cats of your own, you would never see a cat. There is no such thing as “outdoor” cats in Arizona because of “outdoor” coyotes. An outdoor cat would quickly be lunch for an outdoor coyote. So I hadn’t seen a cat for something like 15 years.

I really like cats but I could never have one because one, my husband is allergic and two, we always have big dogs. Even if you think the dogs get used to a cat and accept them as a family member, bad things can happen abruptly. Years can go by and you think everything is splendid between the dogs and the cat and then when you are not home, some instinct in the dog kicks in and you get home and no more cat. I’ve seen it happen. No cats for us.

One of my favorite cats of all time was my brother Sean’s cat, Gracie. She was adorable. Gracie was also one fat cat. In fact, she was the second fattest cat I’ve ever seen. The first fattest cat I’ve ever seen was in Venice, Italy and coincidentally when I saw this fattest cat, I was traveling with Sean before we both got married. Speaking of married, that trip had it’s strange aspects because at that time, 20 some odd years ago, we had the same last name and when we were checking into little, inexpensive B&B’s suggested by Sean’s “Let’s Go!” guide, Inn keepers assumed we were married and I ended up sleeping in the same bed with my brother way too many times. But yes, there was a cat in Venice who was fatter than Gracie living with a woman who made masks.

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Sean was very defensive about anyone calling his cat fat. “She’s fluffy,” he would say. “Fluffy kitty,” he would say to her affectionately in baby talk. I guess we were all supposed to take the bait and go into denial about how fat that cat was, which we cooperatively did.

Anyway, my dog Troy, a one hundred pound Golden Retriever whom we suspect has hound dog in him had never seen a cat until we moved to Texas. There is one who must be a neighbor because I see it gallivanting around my house frequently. That cat is not fat and it’s new favorite pastime is to terrorize Troy. I have a high to low window in my home office that looks out to the front yard. More than once I’ve heard Troy violently barking in my office and have come running in to see him jumping up and down while that cat sits outside the window preening and glancing in at Troy while he goes berserk. While that cat might not be fat, I suspect it is smart. That cat is never around when Troy is outside.

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Good Goats in Texas

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“Want to go to the Texas Hill Country?” Steve asked me excitedly.

“What’s that?” I asked.

“It’s the Texas wine country about 3 hours Southwest of Dallas.” He said. “We could stay at a beautiful B&B in Fredericksburg.”

“No.” I said.

We’d only been in Texas from Arizona several months and I resented everything. I did not like anything about Dallas and I missed my best girlfriend, longed for my old tennis circles and hated having to leave my volunteer work as a tour guide at a wildlife sanctuary. I know California wines pretty well and I couldn’t fathom that Texas even made wine much less that it would be drinkable.

“Oh, c’mon Beetle, it would be good for you!” my husband said.

“Okay,” I finally said. “I would like to get out of Dallas.”

Dallas reminds me a lot of Los Angeles where I was born so the fresh air, wide-open space and nature of the Hill Country were a welcomed relief. We stayed in a cottage at a place called the Herb Farm, which was charming in a funky way. We saw the entire little town in about an hour, stared in delight for over two hours at hundreds of goats; a quarter of them tiny babies and then looked at each other anxiously wondering what to do with the rest of the day.

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“Want to go wine tasting?” Steve asked.

“No.” I said. I knew the wine would be ghastly but I suddenly realized I was being cantankerous. And what else would we do for the rest of the day? “Oh, wait, I meant yes!” I exclaimed, “Yes, let’s go wine tasting in Texas.”

At the first winery we took a sip, hated it but swallowed. For those of you who don’t know, spitting into a spittoon when you are wine tasting is perfectly acceptable. It’s supposed to be tasting, not drinking. Yeah, right. We moved on. At the second winery we bonded with the guy who coached us as he poured wine not to compare Texas wines with California wines. He claimed that in Texas they had no interest in making their wine taste like California wines. No kidding, really? We liked the guy so we tasted several wines, detested them but swallowed. Several hours later after a few more stops we were quite cheerful, having loads of fun and when we got to the sixth winery the wines were starting to taste pretty good! Whada’ya know? We bought three bottles.

A couple weeks later back at home, we opened each bottle one by one, took a little sip, spit it out and poured the rest down the drain.

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Technology Resistance

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I’m not that scared of blogging, but learning how was hard for me. While I’ve never been formally diagnosed with Dyslexia, I know I have it. For years I wondered why a chicken place would call itself Chic-A-Fil. I finally asked my husband, “What the heck does Chic-A-Fil mean? Why would a fast food place call itself that? It just doesn’t make any sense!”

“Sweetheart,” he said, knowing well this little disorder in my brain, “it’s Chic-Fil-A, and it’s a word play on chicken filet.”

I was unwillingly dragged to Texas, had serious culture shock and as an outlet started writing about my observations. I thought my stories were funny so I emailed them to friends and family.
“This needs to be a blog,” I heard back from a couple professional writers in the group, so here we are.

When my grandmother was 10 years older than I am now, the new cutting edge, technological breakthrough was the telephone message machine. After buying my grandmother a new radio with a digital station display, which she rejected in favor of her old-fashioned dial station display, I knew she wasn’t exactly keeping up with the times. However, I was tired of calling repeatedly trying to catch her at home, so I bought her the new technology.

“Nana, I bought you a present and here it is.” I said.

“What is that?” she said less than eagerly. She loved presents and this one apparently didn’t look like too much fun.

“It’s a message machine for your telephone!” I said excitedly. I was way too enthusiastic as a young person. I see it now in young people, enthusiasm to mask inexperience.

“What does that mean?” She frowned as she looked at it.

“When you’re not home, this will record messages from people who call you and you can listen to them when you get home!” I exclaimed.

“Why would I want to do that?” she looked perplexed. “All these years I’ve been fine without something like this, why would I want it now?”

“It’s the new thing Nana; everyone has one and you have to keep up!” I cautioned her.

“Well, I don’t know about this, Annie, how does it work?” She was annoyed probably because this was not the present she wanted.

“The phone rings when you’re not home and the message machine picks it up and the caller hears your voice and they leave a message!” I explained, “and then you listen to that message when you get home!”

“It picks it up? What do you mean, it picks it up?” she asked incredulously. “How can this thing pick up a phone?”

I caught her eye and could clearly see she was trying to figure out how the machine would reach out and pick up a telephone receiver. I adored my grandmother and she may not have been the sharpest knife in the drawer.

While I was standing in line to return the message machine, I made a commitment that when I was “old”, I would keep up with the times. So, here I am, 30 years later facing Blogging, Tweeting, Facebook, Instagram, ad nauseam. Most of it seems narcissist and unnecessary and surely that’s how Nana felt about message machines. So, to honor my commitment, I’ve started this blog and I just got on the dreaded Facebook today.

So, like me or follow me or whatever you’re supposed to do on these things. God, it’s so annoying!!
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The Good Doctor

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“You have an umbilical hernia,” my doctor said laughing, “and the weird thing is, so do I.” My doctor laughs at just about everything, which utterly delights me. The first time I saw her, shortly after we moved here just over a year ago I was a complete wreck.

“I hate Dallas,” I said back then, “there is nothing beautiful here and the weather is a joke.”
She laughed and typed on her laptop.
“I miss the nature and wildlife in Scottsdale so much I could cry!” I moaned.
She laughed and typed.
“I used to be a public speaker and had audiences of three hundred; now I can’t make it to the grocery store without a half of my dog’s Xanax.”
Laugh and type.
“I cough all day, every day and I have horrible anxiety because I’m sure I have lung cancer!”
Laugh and type.
“I used to write management training programs for corporations, now I can’t sort out a recipe!”
Laugh, type.
Her laughing didn’t put me off. It made me think she didn’t think anything was wrong. When I was finished emoting she diagnosed me with “severe allergies” which apparently is very common in Dallas, said I probably had PTSD (which was confirmed by a therapist several weeks later), sent me for a chest x-ray to calm my nerves about lung cancer, and gave me some OTC allergy drug recommendations.

“So, what do we do about the hernia? “I asked, “What did you do about yours?”
“Well let’s wait and see. I just push mine back in from time to time.” she said, “and I just pushed yours back in. Let me know right away if you experience any new pain and if you do, we’ll think about surgery. But for now just carry on and exercise as you normally do, abs and all. But before you go,” she went on, “how are your menopause symptoms these days?”

I’m fine,” I said, “but I’m on hormone replacement therapy and you’re not and the last time I saw you, you were having a very rough time, so I’m wondering how your menopause symptoms are.

“Well,” she laughed, “I was drinking way too much red wine and I think it was making my hot flashes worse, so I switched to Scotch and I’m feeling soooo much better.”

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