Tag Archives: Healthcare

Christmas Day and Boxing Day

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Red Cabin Sunset

Red Cabin Sunset

Boxing Day is traditionally the day following Christmas Day, when servants would receive gifts from their superiors. Since they would have to wait on their masters on Christmas Day, the servants of the wealthy were allowed the next day off. In Britain, it was a custom for servants to collect “Christmas boxes” on the day after Christmas as thanks for good service throughout the year. – Wiki

Our Boxing Day started all too early. Anne’s ducks started a-quacking just when I thought that I had another hour or two. I had gone to the dentist last week and took the opportunity then to schedule appointments for the boys. Unfortunately, the only time that was available was at 8 AM on Boxing Day. I placed their appointment cards in their Christmas stockings. Our snow never really materialized, except for a light dusting. If it had snowed like it was originally forecasted that would have provided legitimate cover to cancel, rollover and go back to sleep. So, the boys and I trooped out to West County. Afterwards, I felt so bad that I sprung for breakfast at Bread Co. There I apologized, but Dave said, “I don’t blame you, Dad, I blame Mom.” He probably said that because she wasn’t there. Dan chimed in with, “I blame Obama.” 😉

As tough as it was for me to haul myself out of bed, it had to be tougher on the boys. They were heading out to a midnight showing of Les Mis, when I was headed to bed. We had all enjoyed a great Christmas dinner and the four of us, plus Joanie had sat around the TV and watched my Christmas DVD, Premium Rush. This is the Joseph Gordon-Levitt bicycle messenger movie, set in Manhattan. It was in theaters last August and Dan, Anne and I had seen it then, but I really wanted to see it again. Joanie hadn’t seen it before, but kept asking for plot developments to be explained before their time. We ended up playing with her.

Anne had a couple of doctor appointments of her own this morning too. They were a visit with the knee specialist and some hand PT. This is some of the continuing fallout from her bicycle accident last month. In the movie, Premium Rush, numerous bike accidents are dramatized. Without exception all of the accident victims are up and riding again, often within seconds. Even Gordon-Levitt’s climatic crash doesn’t slow him down. His real life accident, where he had crashed through the back window of a taxi during filming didn’t stop him either, although, he did have to go to the emergency room for that one.

Speaking of the emergency room, the bills for Anne’s initial emergency room visit are in now. It is a good thing that we have good health insurance. In addition to the medical bills, several letters have appeared, all offering to pursue liability claims on her behalf. Some computer program must have scanned Anne’s accident report, found in it the keywords, “bicycle”, “car” and “accident” and decided that there might me a case to pursue here. It was a parked car.

Our Christmas was lovely. We were all together, we all received nice presents and our dinner was quite the success. This year, we decided to kick it up a notch. Anne found a Emeril Lagasse recipe in the Saturday Evening Post. We made a turkey roulade with peach and sage gravy. Our deboned turkey was stuffed with the recipe’s dressing, rolled together and tied up with string. Accompanying this dish were sides of roasted potatoes and a pomegranate and pear salad. Joanie brought a delicious selection of cheesecakes from the Cheesecake Factory. Yum!

Staring Into the Maw of Draco

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My Orthopantomogram

My Orthopantomogram

The Weather Channel this winter got the cutesy idea of naming winter storms. This is in imitation of the National Weather Service’s habit of naming tropical storms. Hence, the name Draco, for today’s bad weather. Last night, we had thunderstorms. Today, we have high winds, falling temperatures, sleet and blowing snow, as the center of this massive storm passed over Saint Louis. So far, the ground is too warm for any of this oobleck* to stick.

Dan and Annie flew in from the left coast and were surprised by Draco’s less than warm welcome. Dave is driving down from Purdue tonight; I pray that he is careful driving. Tomorrow, Rey arrives; he is just passing through town on his way out to Colorado, but will spend the night. He should remain below Draco’s freeze line.

This is the last week of school, before Christmas break. Anne and here kids are anxiously awaiting Santa. I arranged for Santa to send a video message to Anne under the guise that she was one of her fourth grade students. Here is the link to the Portable North Pole video that I made for her. Unfortunately, Anne didn’t think sharing this with her students was such a good idea. Anyway, watch it, I hope that you enjoy it! I knew I should had marked her down as naughty and not just naughty and nice.

A orthopantomogram or dental panoramic radiograph is a panoramic scanning dental X-ray of the upper and lower jaw. The one pictured above shows a two-dimensional view of my mouth. It uses tomography to flatten the half-circle it circumscribed from one of my ears to the other. This particular device consisted of a horizontal rotating arm which held the X-ray source and another moving arm that held the digital X-ray sensor. They were arranged opposite each other. The patient’s skull, my head, sat between the generator and the sensor. I bit on a plastic spatula so that all my teeth, especially the crowns, can be viewed individually. The whole orthopantomogram process takes about one minute. My actual radiation exposure time ran about six seconds as the machine took its excursion around my skull.

Being the dedicated blogger that I am, I had to take a picture of the resultant photo. Other than this brief moment of technological gee-whiz-i-ness, the rest of my checkup was the usual fare. Trying to converse with someone who was holding sharp metal instruments in your mouth and who also thought that you should really devote more of your life experience to flossing. The white spots on my upper outside teeth are old fillings.

* Bartholomew and the Oobleck is a book by Dr. Seuss. It follows the adventures of a young boy named Bartholomew, who must rescue his kingdom from a sticky substance called ‘oobleck’.

UPDATE: Dave made it as far as Springfield and decided to lay over for the night. Anne couldn’t get into her car after school, because ice had frozen the door shut. A ‘nice’ man offered to help her and succeeded in breaking the door handle off instead. His excuse was, “That was always a possibility. Is there anything more that I can do to help?”

Herd Immunity

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Thermonuclear Monterey Sunset

Thermonuclear Monterey Sunset

Saturday’s relatively balmy temperatures are now a thing of the past. In their place winter has installed itself, along with a bone freezing chill. This week’s chill is both external and weather derived, but just around the corner is the season of internal chills and pains, the season of the grippe, flu season. The CDC is forecasting an early start to this year’s flu season. Five southern states have already reported influenza outbreaks. It is also predicting a nasty flu season this year. The N3H2 strain of avian flu seems to be dominant. While flu vaccines are still plentiful, over 90% of the available supply has already been distributed. I got my vaccine last month and after a bit of badgering from yours truly, Anne got hers last weekend. So we are now protected, are you?

Thermonuclear war, pestilence and semis barreling down on unsuspecting baby ducklings, how more scary can this be?This world now seems a whole lot scarier place than it use to be when I was a child. Back then, Mom would read to me Robert McCloskey’s “Make Way For Ducklings”. Maybe if we stick together and look out for one another, we’ll make it through the day, through this winter and across the road.

Make Way For Ducklings, Robert McCloskey

Make Way For Ducklings, Robert McCloskey

Save the Giant Sequoia

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Save the Giant Sequoia

Being dwarfed by Earth’s most massive tree, the giant sequoia, fills you with wonder. By massive they don’t mean tallest, that lofty title belongs to the sequoia’s haughty cousin, the redwood. It’s hard to believe that a living thing can be so enormous and old. Now the truth comes out, sequoia are not only old, but fat too. Also known as Sierra redwoods, these trees of California’s rugged Sierra Nevada mountains can grow more than 250 feet tall. OK, I get it, we’re not good enough to be real redwoods. Hey, we look down upon you snooty ‘coastal’ redwoods. From up here, in our lofty mountains, you redwoods look pretty small. Their trunks can grow as wide as 30 feet. Again with the waistline, really do we need to keep harping about this?

Maybe I’m being too sensitive about this whole sequoia thing. I’m sure that I’m just imprinting with what happened at work yesterday. Tuesday, I participated in my first on-site screening. The company held these screening last year, but they were strictly voluntary. This year, if you don’t report your numbers, then a hefty tax will be tacked unto your monthly health insurance premiums.

I should clarify here, the on-site screening was a series of medical tests designed to access my health. There were height and weight measurements. They took my blood pressure and they drew blood. From the blood work they measured my cholesterol and sugar. I have all this done annually by my regular physician and I could have just reported those numbers, but I decided to join in.

The bad news was that I’m old and fat, but other than those two insults I escaped unscathed. Enjoining the on-site screenings is another program called the health self assessment. It is simply an online questionnaire. It is a year more advanced then the screenings though, it was made mandatory last year. Anne is also required to participate in this exercise, under penalty of jacked-up premiums.

It is hard to say where these processes are headed. There are certainly plenty of conspiracy theories being voiced around the virtual water-cooler. We are all feeling as if we are being slow rolled here, but with healthcare costs rising, I predict even more company involvement rather than less. It does feel like some giant foot is hovering directly over my head.