Blog # 263                               March 24, 2022

 

As we start our sixth year together at Limerick Oyster, I’m convinced that what makes it work for us is that I am totally open and unafraid to share with you my most personal moments, my strongest opinions, my foibles and frailties, my peculiarities and peccadilloes.  And I’m not stopping now!  This week I had a Urinary Tract Infection (UTI).  I was convinced of the diagnosis by the discomfort and the blood.  Yes, I can hear many of you right now saying: “OMG, your UTI is really TMI,” and I suppose you’re right, but off I go anyway.

 

I wanted to tell my wife about my discomfort so I could get a little sympathy, but I knew that wouldn’t work.  I remembered what happened 13 years ago when I had my bypass surgery in North Carolina.  When it was over, I heard her talking to a friend on the phone.  “Oh my God,” said the friend.  “Michael had quadruple bypass surgery?  How horrible.”  “You think that was horrible?” said Carol.  “I had to drive back to my daughter’s house in the dark at 5:00 am.  And it was sleeting and it took me ten minutes to defrost the windshield!  Now that was horrible!  You think having your chest cut open with a bone-saw is bad?  You think having your ribs spread apart by a huge vise is disgusting?  The cafeteria’s chicken-salad had sweet-pickle in it!  Now that’s disgusting!  And I didn’t like the nurse’s outfit.”   

 

Instead of telling her, I immediately called the office of Dr. Doctor and spoke with a PA, or an RN or an NP or whatever her abbreviation was.  I told her what I had and what antibiotic I wanted prescribed.

 

You see, I had a UTI ten years ago and the antibiotic prescribed then worked wonderfully.  I know that doctors don’t usually allow their patients to make their own diagnoses or prescribe their own treatments, but I must have been convincing, because an hour later I had the prescription filled.  No office visit, no tests, no questions.  And it worked!  My problem has disappeared.  There are three possibilities:

 

1.     The antibiotics I prescribed for myself did the trick.  What a genius I am.

2.     I never had a UTI to begin with and it was only a broken-blood vessel and I should never have presumed to diagnose myself in the first place.  What an idiot I am.

3.     I’ve forgotten the third thing.

 

It should be a general rule,

When you’ve not been to Medical School,

If you’ve got certain ills

And prescribe your own pills,

Then you’re probably just an old fool.

 

Guilty!

 

I got a text from my oldest grandson.  He’s 20 and at college.  The text was to thank me for the Care Package full of snacks I sent him.  It had been sitting in the Duke Student Mail Room for almost three weeks.  Young people get all their communications on their phones, and physical mail is just a nuisance.  For my generation, getting the mail has always been a routine, yet very important, part of the day.  To many, it is almost a holy pilgrimage to trek to the mailbox or Post Office each day without fail to see what the letter carrier has brought.  (I almost said Mailman which, of course, would have been horrible.  After all, it could have been a Fe-Mail Man.) Today, there were only two items, an invitation to an Open House at the new Senior Lifestyle Community down the street and an AARP Magazine.  Is that sad?  To find nothing but reminders of how old you are?  The American magazine with the largest subscription is AARP The Magazine.  In second place is AARP Bulletin.  They each have about 23 million readers.  It seems that AARP has the Old People market firmly under control, so now they’re working on a series of magazines for Dead People: Good Hearsekeeping, Corpse Illustrated, Better Plots and Gardens.  I know, I’m warped.

 

But you love me anyway, don’t you?  Hi there and welcome back.  I hope you are feeling well and warming up with the nice weather now that Spring has arrived.  Have you changed your calendar page?  Do you still have paper calendars with pictures of fuzzy little cats or waterfalls or grandchildren?  Or do you just do all your planning on your smart phone?  If I know my audience, I’m betting on the fuzzy cats. 

 

How’s your hearing?  What?  HOW’S YOUR HEARING!  Yes, as we get older, as we reach the age where Happy Hour is a nap, some of us are beginning to turn up the TV volume and learning to read lips.  One of my friends just got a new hearing aid.  “I just bought a new hearing aid,” he told me.  “It cost me four thousand dollars, but it's state of the art. Perfect!”  “Really,” I replied. “What kind is it?” “Twelve thirty,” he replied.  Bad-a-boom!

 

We are now into the fourth week of the war in Ukraine.  What the Russian forces are doing to the Ukrainian people is sadistic and tragic.  Is there no way to make it stop?  Apparently not.  It is frustrating and heart-wrenching and blood curdling and a whole bunch of other words you’ve heard me use in these prolix blogs.  There’s one – prolix, which means tediously prolonged and wordy (Weekly Word).  Guilty again.

 

Businesses of the world are beginning to sever all connections with Russia, from Banks to McDonald’s, and I strongly approve.  I am proud of the world.  We should continue to arm Ukraine with missiles and ammunition and supplies and, yes, airplanes.  There I go again, looking for trouble or, as Don Quixote calls it, “looking for a three-legged cat.”  And speaking of trouble, I have a feeling who we’re going to hear from next.

 

Message from Shakespeare:  Double, double toil and trouble (Macbeth).  Pops is reading this big book about a crazy old Spanish man who goes around saying stupid things and getting into trouble with everything he does.  Sounds like Pops, doesn’t it?  Don’t worry, I’ll bite him if he goes too crazy.  Purr.

 

Now it’s time to end this prolix adventure into medicine, gerontology and, perhaps, even a little humor.  Please stay well, count your blessings and pray for the people of Ukraine.  I’ll see you next week.

 

Michael                                    Send comments to mfox1746@gmail.com