The Dread Protocol

   Having had a "procedure" two days ago, I just received a call from SMH (not shaking my head) checking on my welfare. I feel fine, and the staff was fine also. That's what they wanted to know.  I was there at 7 as requested, for a 7:30 procedure. I remember hearing that the doctor was there and the last time I looked at the clock it was  7:45.  I arrived home about 10 after 10, after stopping at Dunkin's for a coffee cake muffin, actually was gifted with 2 of them, lunch and dinner.
    Since I don't remember being oblivious for more than a few minutes at most, and didn't fall asleep afterwards, I was hopeful that Versed, that fearsome amnesia drug, had been administered at  lesser strength and therefore didn't destroy as many brain cells as usual, so I looked up the usual dosage from my formidable array of downloaded health records and saw that the dosage was the same. Maybe I've maxed out on dispensable brain cells.
    Googling will attest to the fact that there are many who believe Versed has caused them unimaginable grief, with all types of detrimental and long-lasting effects. But doesn't life do that to you anyway?
   

...continued (Technical error)

My computer is inexplicably dysfunctional.  It has lost the ability to scroll, or I have anyway.
  ,,,the car approaching me just before I reach my house is flashing its lights,  I slow down.  There is a fairly large birch tree across the road, blocking one lane completely and part of the southbound lane.  I drive into that lane to pass the obstruction, and I'm home before 9 in plenty of time for that conference call.

And it's not yet 9:00 A.M.

  The bus driver said he'd pick up at 7:00 A.M.   So I was up before 6 because it's a long process to be curbside that early in the morning, and besides, the driver is invariably early, as indeed he was this morning, pulling up to our driveway at 10 of 7.  I'd turned on the TV to hear reports of  the approach of a devastating windstorm and potential power outages.  So my first reaction was to turn on the dishwasher.  Who needs to be in a cold house with a bunch of dirty dishes.  I needed to do a load of laundry, including bedsheets, so I waited until after the fill cycle of the dishwasher stopped and ran, rather walked, downstairs to the washing machine, hoping the laundry could be dried before the sky fell, Chicken Little that I am.
    It's still early.  I am scheduled to participate in a Conference Call at 9:30 this morning from the V.A.  I opted not to be there in person. It is with Palliative Care. Not to be confused with Hospice Care.  The goal is to relieve pain and ease the suffering and discomfort. Through what, I can only imagine, its being an arm of social worker services.  Neither of us is enduring physical pain, and I have not much faith in the healing power of words, not words that people are paid for anyway.  But they make a big deal of it, so we agreed.  Anyway, I have a while before the scheduled appointment.
  The phone rings: a plaintive plea from the youngest who has left his lunch at home.  He says he doesn't need it soon. His lunchtime isn't until 12, he says.  I decide to deliver it at once, before the power cuts out and before the palliative care call.  The driveway is littered with broken branches. I pick up a few of the largest, and toss them down the bank behind the house.  The road to Schaghticoke is clear, if you don't count the garbage cans which are blown over treacherously close to the highway.  I deliver  the goods to the school, and make it almost to my house.  An approaching car blinks its headlights continuuously so I slow down

Health Care Crisis

   Well, sort of.  In the past year, 5 of my long time health care providers have left their practices:  Goldstein, Constantino, Pietracola, Griffin and now Mastrianni.  Two of them were courteous enough to send departure letters. Three have retired or so the story goes, one flew to another medical consortium, and the latest is leaving his practice and continuing his medical career with a combination of teaching and administrative work.  His letter cited our 14-year relationship. I've been seeing the 5 practitioners for quite a long time, ranging from about 7 to 20 years.  Only one of them was of typical retirement age, so the reason for  the mass exodus is a mystery, or maybe just  a coincidence.
    Likewise, there has occurred an acute shortage of home health aides or caretakers. Though we are deemed eligible for services, we cannot avail ourselves of them because no one is available, either from agencies or personal referrals. The media has addressed the situation, attributing it to increases in payment for fast food workers.  A friend just told me that he knows people who, in addition to paying generous salaries to their healthcare workers, also provide them health insurance and vacation pay.
   Replacing the ACA will do little good if the shortage of providers impacts the delivery of affordable health care.  Where is the focus on that problem?

Travail

"Between the dark and the daylight
When the night is beginning to lower,
Comes a pause in the day's occupation
That is known as (the tortuous hour.)
 ...
And there will I keep you forever.
Yes, forever and a day,
Till the walls shall crumble to ruin
And moulder in dust away."

"There, but for ..."

...not  but for  the grace of God--but for the potential humiliation of a missing-vulnerable-adult alert----go I.

"Ah, bitter chill it was"

The Eve of St. Agnes
Charles Anthony Madigan    January 20, 1966
  Gone now, for far longer than any of us knew him.  Rest in peace.