Medical Musings

After the last month and a half I could use a cigarette, a dry martini

and a good loving to change my attitude. No one that I know of speaks of the unspeakable changes that go on with the octogenarians, probably because it would scare them to death. I was doing pretty good working out in the gardens with my trusty pair of clippers . . . yeah, I'm a clip artist and that is about my only claim to fame as a gardener. I couldn't get down and up so learned to weed from the waist down and thought I strained a muscle or two when my left leg started acting up. I 'suffered in silence' (well, daughter Pat may disagree with that statement), for a week or so, hobbling around like an old person. I had just signed up with a new doctor and was waiting for my first appointment some months down the road. There was no excuse good enough to get in the door until after the first appointment. I did the next best thing and went to Urgent Care and met a lovely nurse practitioner who thought I had either 'thrown a clot' or had a Bakers Cyst. The hospital test proved a Bakers Cyst, which I had never heard of in my life, and after three separate medical views I believe it is going to cure itself . . . eventually. The orthopedic surgeon gave me a shot and that helped, then after three weeks when I returned he said too many shots were not good, meaning the atomic bomb he shot into the leg was it. He said, "I am not trying to sell you anything but there is a three shot treatment to lubricate the knee. " I already had enough fluid seeping from the cyst to keep my leg elevated for months. We parted friends. Now the right leg decided to scream from the inherited veins that look like hanging grapes from the Gardens of Babylon. A friend gave me the name of a vein specialist so off I went to Eugene and met an open, friendly, honest doctor who said old age, arthritis and my cheap pocket book did not warrant much attention. I could invest in some special hose that he had set up with a company that cost somewhere in the vicinity of one hundred dollars or more a pair, you know, measured and special threads and all that good stuff. So what is wrong with using the ones the orthopedic doctor uses himself. He lifted his pant leg and showed me he used them and they are only about forty dollars a pair. If I had been in investments I'd know where to put my money. So now it is time for my first appointment with the local physician and he turned out to be a nice guy who knew at first glance that I was into holistic medicine and didn't go for all those chemicals that give you special addictions to a nowhere world. He asked if I wanted to have some of the usual tests, you know the mammogram, the biopsy or one of those 'tube' tests; no way, I have been there and done all that. He had to smile when I told him I was going to keep whatever I had. So I will have a blood test to see if everything is heading in the right direction and hopefully not see him until my check up next year.

I hope that you are hale, hardy, and enjoying life. Just keep in mind that our bodies start to change from the minute we are born until the day we die. Some of it is pure pleasure and some of it hell, but it is what it is. so get up and get busy living today.