Count Down To Houston

Early next Sunday, a week from today, we will be headed back to Houston. As mentioned before, this trip is just for testing and assuming all goes well I will go back on October 21st for surgery.

Even though this trip is only for testing, it has become a challenge for me. I guess everyone knows the economy is pretty soft now and it has affected the car business like everything else - maybe even a lot more. Plenty of people want to sell or get rid of cars, but most are holding off on buying. It is still a fun thing for me just because I love cars and I love people, but it has become a very difficult job. I will spend all day - many times twelve hours at a time, and only see two or three customers during that time and probably two thirds of them are just looking or killing time. Sometimes I think people come in just because they have nothing to do and they charge admission to go to the zoo. They can come to our place and kill an hour or two (and an hour or two of my time too) without any cost. A great place to bring the family on a week-end! It's like fifteen or twenty people (sales associates) standing around a pond with fishing poles and there are only two or three small fish in the whole pond. It is hard work, but the thrill of seeing someone come in with a chip on their shoulder and ready to do battle because of their past experience with car dealerships and leave laughing and excited and even hugging you because of the experience they have with us. Yes, there is a paycheck involved, but it is almost insignificant compared to the pleasure you get from making someone happy and catching them completely off guard because the treatment they get is totally different than they expected or have had anywhere else.

As stated, it is a very full time job just trying to catch those few fish in the pond but the upcoming MD Anderson trip has made it even more difficult. They have sent me a letter with their requirements for this initial visit. They want a list of all of my doctors, addresses and phone numbers. I will probably have a list of a dozen doctors or more as it is kind of like a game with these guys. You go to one doctor and he refers you to another. The second doctor does his routine and refers you to yet another and so on and so on. I'm not even sure I can remember all the doctors I have been to. I am thinking of taking the yellow pages and giving them a dart and just letting them throw the dart at the yellow pages. I am sure that where ever the dart lands it will be on a doctor I have visited. In addition to wanting to know who my doctors are, the want ALL cardiac test results for the past five years, including all stress test results, echocardiogram reports, electrocrdiogram. They want all pulmonary function tests, all CAT scan results and reports from any and all other doctors I have visited in the past five years. They want all medicines - in their original bottles, including over-the-counter medicines, herbal supplements, inhalers, etc. If you are a diabetic, which I am, they want all recent blood sugar logs. My blood sugar logs are going to be very recent because I got tired of pricking my finger a long time ago and determined that my diabetes was in pretty good shape and kind of forgot to keep track of it like I'm supposed to. So, this past couple of weeks I have been very diligent about pricking my finger and squeezing the blood out and testing it - just so I will have a log to show them.

While trying to deal with the problems of our current economy and putting in twelve hours a day to do it, I keep getting interrupted by the need to bounce all over town from Doctor to Doctor to sign forms that will give them permission to give me these records to take down to Houston. After I have given them permission to give my personal medical records to me - (does that make sense?) I will have to go back to all of them and pick all of these records up. So. I am actually not putting in twelve hours a day at work. I am putting in sometimes up to sixteen hours a day which is broken into many small segments. I doubt if there is twelve hours left over to work. Go to a doctor's office, bounce off to work, leave and go to another doctor or two, go back to work, etc.

There is good in everything! While I get a little ticked off at having to do all this running around, I realize that possibly I am here today because MD Anderson is so thorough and exacting about every little detail. They don't mess around! They are going to know every molecule in my body on a first name basis before this is all over. I love them for that. In fact, I think I might just throw in the name of my barber as kind of a bonus to show my appreciation.

Presbyterian, my health care coverage plan, has this program which is free and designed to help you do a better job of taking care of your health problems. It is called "Lifemasters" and this program has Registered Nurses who call you and interview you over the phone. It is really a very good and thoughtful program and these people are all very nice and if I wasn't such a grumpy old man, I would really appreciate it. But they set you up on a schedule and call once or twice a month to check up on you. In my case they call fifteen or twenty times because I am never here when they call. I just can't see sitting around the house waiting for someone to call to ask me about my wieght, my diet, my exercise, my blood sugar levels, my pills, etc. The truth of the matter I forget, but even if I didn't forget I might find it difficult to arrange to be home at 10:30 in the morning on Tuesday next month. I have a hard time remembering what I am supposed to do tomorrow. Anyway, they caught me off guard last week and caught me just as I was ready to leave for an appointment I was already late for. She advised me that our conversation was being recorded and then assured me that the call would probably not last more than fifteen minutes. Fifteen minutes! You can ask me how I am and I can tell you okay in about 30 seconds. Anyway, she started asking me all these questions and then wanted to know what medications I was taking and what the dosage was. Now I don't carry a list of that stuff around with me and have a short memory on top of that - and sometimes I accidentally forget to take a pill or two. So my response was; "Well, I got this one pill - it's kind of long and skinny and it's a pale pink color, then I got this one that is round and kind of flat and I think it is orange, then there is this one that is also orange but it is fatter and it is really nasty - if you aren't sick when you take this pill you will be after you take it". I counted one day and I think they have me taking something like seventeen pills of some kind every day. How am I supposed to remember all that?
In fact, one morning I laid all my pills out - I don't like to take pills so I just put them all together and toss them all into my mouth and hold my nose and take a big gulp of water and it's all over. But I also have a capsule that I am supposed to put in an inhaler and you puncture this capsule with a needle in the inhaler and suck this stuff in through your mouth. I had this capsule laying out with all my pills and before I realized it, I had tossed that in my mouth with all my pills and swallowed it. Once I realized what I had done I thought that maybe that was not a good thing so I called Walgreens and asked the pharmacist what the warnings were for this capsule. She didn't know and had to look it up. She started reading all the things she had but the first thing was; WARNING - do not ingest this capsule! Well, I'm still here, so whatever terrible thing could have happened didn't so I guess I'm okay. I have segregated that capsule from the rest of my pills though.

Well, you can see that it's a struggle for me to just get through life on a daily basis. It wouldn't be all that bad if all I had to deal with was cancer, but all these care givers, nurses and other practitioners are kind of upsetting my routine. I can see why people think that old people just sit around home now. That's all they have time to do if they are complying with all requirements of the people who are trying to help you maintain your health.

Assuming I will be going back to Houston for surgery the last of next month, I have a new worry. I know a plastic surgeon is going to be involved and I couldn't figure out why. Someone told me they will put a screen like thing inside me to hold the hernia in place. That doesn't make any sense to me. Where I grew up a screen was to keep the flys out. Will I have to go back and have them take the screen out and put storm windows in when it gets cold? The more I think about it, I don't know if I should go through with this. I might just get some duct tape and wrap around my tummy to hold everything in and go on with life. It would be a lot less expensive and I wouldn't have to take all these pills, take all these phone calls and visit all these doctors.

To all the wonderful people who are going to be at the reunion in Colorado - I wish I could be there, but know that I will be thinking of you and love you all!!

ALBUQUERQUE AL