Leaving The Monsters Behind

 

last doctor visit, BP was kind of way high.  changed my meds, and I got busy and went out of town, then forgot to get back for a followup, so I did that today.  Much better, but still too high for someone on the high side of half a century, so more adjustment.  Weight was slightly down, so that was good.

Doc listened to my chest, checked feet for swelling, professed himself satisfied.  I like him, but going to the doctor always makes the BP go up.  my old doc referred to it as “White Coat Syndrome” and at least I don’t have it as bad as the Bloggess (read her book.  Sometimes she passes out at the VET…)

 I ascribe it to the chamber of horrors that was the clinic I went to as a kid, named the Quisling Clinic, which was actually the reference used by Elvis, not the fat dead one, in this song:

 

Nurse asked me to pee in a cup.

I mentioned that I had been reading that before chemistry, doctors, who had noticed that ants liked the sweetness of diabetic pee, that they would diagnose diabetics by tasting their pee for sweetness.  We laughed and agreed that things are much better now, and my!  weren’t we having a lovely time….

Since I had already had my morning pee, I had nothing, not even the couple of drops.  Sorry.  So it was all about the glucose, she resorted to the finger stab, which I am very used to…

The blood test came back quick enough ain’t modern medicine wonderful?  A1C at 5.9. 6 months back, it was at 5.1.  Doc professed pleasure at the control.  I asked if it was possible to go off the insulin injections?  He is OK with it, looking for frequent daily testing to keep an eye on glucose, which is really no problem.  I am kind of chuffed…mikey says ‘dude, you’re cured’ which I do not think I am, but on the way, with some luck…

So I asked the doc and the nurse to approve the refills of my meds, and the new one although I have some insulin I will use up…later in the morning, I got the text from the pharmacy (ain’t technology wonderful?) saying my scrips were ready, so just to make sure everything was there (ain’t getting old wonderful?  Now I don’t have to check if my prescription is ready, but whether ALL of them are ready). and looking over the list, I saw the copays.  yep. a buck….2 bucks…3 bucks… 500 bucks… WAIT A FUCKING MINUTE.  the alternative to insulin was a 500 GODDAM COPAY PER MONTH???!?!!?!?  WTF, doc.  I know my record says I am an architect, but you don’t know what being an architect is worth these days.  So when I went to pick up the meds, I told the pharm (and I have to say I am coming to love the pharms, even the dudes although the women are irrepressibly cute, and I am verging in to ‘Sexy Grandpa’ territory…) that I couldn’t pay that, and I would take the cheap ones and if necessary, cancel the Stupid Big Horse Pills of Golden Leaving.  But he, being a Good Person who is now on the Zombie Apocalypse Shortlist of People Who Get A Pass, spent a little time doing some computer.  Lo and behold, if they gave me twice as many pills at half the dose, and I took them twice a day, the cost was ….TWO GODDAM DOLLARS!!!!!

What the actual fuck, dudes?  how does a double in dose result in an increase in price of 25,000%?!?!!?  Sweet living fuck-the-vampires, that is ridiculous.  Dammit, if I used that logic, my billing rate would  be 30,000 dollars an hour.  So, thank you to the CVS Pharmacist who did the right thing and helped me out.

instant I am still excited to be off the insulin spike.  I still have other issues, and the content refrain from every doctor is ‘…for the rest of your life” which includes the ominous threat that if I don’t, the life will not either…but yeah.

Now, I just have to deal with the formerly reliable client who is now deciding to stop paying me since January.  But that is another story, and since I lived through another Father’s Day, rest assured it will show up here….

Oh wait.  I should remark.  In the past couple of weeks, Wife Sublime asked me if I wanted anything for Father’s Day.  I responded by saying, truthfully, “Not spending it in the hospital”  And I guarantee you that is something you want as well.  It is especially hard, because Wife Sublime’s father died on Father’s day as well.  It makes it hard for her.  I would have done it on a different day if I could have….

So on Father’s Day this year, my wife and son took me to lunch at Pizza Man, a local standard and longtime favorite, and we had bloody marys and great food and sat on the balcony in the sun and my, we had a wonderful time.  And Wife Sublime and Young Zombie gave me an iPad Pro (with Apple Pencil!).

 

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