I Fear Change

Oh, yes I do!

So here I am in a brave new world with no-mo-HMO.

I belonged to an HMO for what seemed like forever. I can barely remember how I went about seeing a doctor before there was Kaiser. It’s terrifying to be without it now. I wasn’t always a big fan of the Kaiser system but I grew to understand it. It was familiar to me. There is comfort in the familiar. The well-known, pre-recorded selections and options to choose from and doctors who (for better or worse) knew me and my litany of woes were familiar.

It’s all unknown again…new offices, new doctors, new smells, new sounds, new patient history forms and all sorts of brand new imagined terrors.

I am attempting to figure it out and doctor-up before I find myself in a crisis, panic, meltdown and NEED one ASAP.

On a bright note, I no longer have to deal with general practitioners acting as gatekeepers for the specialists. If I want to go see an otolaryngologist, I can just go the hell out and see one.

On a not so sunny note, when I called a particular medical center today and asked if I could speak to someone from otolaryngology, the receptionist asked if that was like an obgyn!!!

Out of the Frying Pan into the Volcano

What’s worse than having hot mud spewed on you?

Maybe having hot mud AND large concrete balls spewed on you?

I keep seeing articles about the attempt to plug up an Indonesian Mud Volcano and wondering how wise a plan this really is.

It’s like feeding the angry volcano spirit ammunition.

Sweet Dreams

are made of THESE.

My boyfriend (BF) sent me a link this evening to Mickey Mouse Croatian Liver Paste. I scrolled down a bit to find the even better photo of “Princess Dreams” turkey rolls. I could make all sorts of comments, but why bother. The package speaks for itself. It appears, reports that one of Bernard Matthews' poultry farms was infected with Avian Flu were correct. I’m no Xenophobe but I sure would NOT go seeking meat products imported from the UK!

When we were traveling in Lithuania several years ago, BF actually ordered steak tatar from room service! It was a gorgeous presentation, complete with a single, raw quail egg on top like a maraschino cherry. It looked great, and I’ll admit that the kitchen it came from was more immaculate than ANY I’ve EVER seen in California, but still I couldn’t bring myself to taste it.

Later during the trip, we visited something called “Living Archeology Days” where traditional foods were cooked by traditional methods and served to us by locals in historic costumes. I ate what I thought was the best damn chicken I ever tasted in my life! It wasn’t overcooked. I couldn’t understand why the other U.S. tourists were pushing it aside in disgust. BF finally explained to me that it wasn’t chicken at all. It was pork! I assure anyone who EVER may read this I DO NOT HAVE TRICHINOSIS.

Note: I’ve asked “Boy Friend” to approve of or choose an appropriate pseudonym…but am getting no where with this.

He’s rejected “Alexander,” “Ptolemy,” and “Conan” and is now insisting he wants to be called “Ryan Seacrest”!! I think I’ll continue referring to him as “BF” for now.

He doesn’t even know who Ryan Seacrest is!

Ash Wednesday (belated)

"for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return."

I understand that Ash Wednesday is about purification and penance. It’s just the darned, dust part that seems like overkill. Do I need a special day to be reminded of my own mortality!?! It terrified me as a kid, as did hell, purgatory, limbo and the apocalypse. Catholic school sure got me off to a great start as a worrier. Regardless, we went to mass yesterday evening and received our ashes.

Although I born Roman Catholic, I haven’t been a practicing one for a very long time. Then suddenly, after the media frenzy surrounding the death of Pope John Paul II, the strangest thing happened, I started self-identifying as a Catholic again and even started doing the tourist thing, visiting different Catholic churches. I enjoyed comparing the ritual and music and critiquing the homily. Now, that I moved back here, I’ve been mostly going to the church I went to as a child. I like it. There’s one priest in particular who’s masses I really enjoy.

Now that I’m doing these things again and now that I have the Internet (ring the bell and swing the thurible), I enjoy thinking about and reading about why things are done the way they are. Yesterday, I was thinking about fasting and abstaining. Specifically, I was wondering if not wearing perfume was an appropriate thing to do for lent. I saw no reference to it anywhere. My question was answered at mass (I guess I forgot). It is inappropriate to call attention to one’s fasting and/or abstinence. So, giving up perfume is not a good thing to do. Wow! Perhaps blogging about it is also wrong (didn’t think of that).

Anyway, on the way home, I mentioned my brief confusion to my boyfriend. He proceeded to give me an interesting new perspective on the issue. He explained that when a woman poured some expensive, fragrant oil on Jesus’ head, his disciples were upset by the waste. The oil could have been sold and money given to the poor. Jesus responded, telling them “You will always have the poor with you, but you won’t always have me.” Hence…Jesus approves of grooming products.

The Big Burp Theory

It is a good day when I can laugh at my own folly. Today was such a day.

This afternoon, while getting ready to go to Curves, I noticed a dull pain behind my left breast when I bent down to tie my shoes. I lie back on the bed, breathed deep and felt for lumps, then moved abound a bit to see if the pain changed at all. No change, it was just a dull pain. My mind raced, imagining all the possibilities.

In spite of my certain doom, I soldiered on and continued to prepare for my work out. When I finally got downstairs, I contorted a bit to get my sweatshirt hood flattened out inside my coat. Then it happed, the big burp. Instead of the cold, metallic taste of death, my mouth exploded with the taste of Diet Cherry Coke!

I wonder how many cases of breast cancer, lung cancer, stomach cancer, heart failure, etc. have been “cured” with a big burp.

Happy Fat Tuesday!

More Songs About Hypochondria and Pho

I am compelled to add that my terrible experience did not scare me away from Vietnamese restaurants permanently.

About six months after my big panic, I went to another of my favorite pho spots. Above each booth was taped a hand-made sign with a picture of a smiling cow face. Each sign proclaimed, “Our Cows are not Mad.” I ordered a dish containing ONLY pork and shrimp there. Gasp!

But later, I did find a more upscale (wow, I hate that word, “upscale”) restaurant that served only Niman Ranch meats. I ate pho once again.

Barbora

A Very Scary Story

Back in late December 2003, you may recall that a batch of beef, contaminated with mad cow disease, was brought in from Canada and ended up on the shelves of grocery markets in the United States. My boyfriend and I were spending Christmas with his parents when the news story broke. I remember hearing about it and thinking it was a bit frightening, but was able to go on with the visit normally. Thank goodness for small favors. (I recall even feeling a little proud of myself at the time for having such self control and success managing my OCD’s.)

When we returned home (West Coast at the time), more details about the story began to emerge. First we learned that the beef ended up in California. Then, that the sale of the beef occurred in two counties only – the county I lived in and the county I worked in. Somehow, in spite of this, the fear of MC disease didn’t consume me...yet. The stores that sold the beef were Asian groceries I hadn’t visited in ages.

THEN, one night in January 2004, I was hanging out watching “Castaway” on TV. (I didn’t find the movie particularly compelling nor do I watch that much television at all.) I don’t know why I continued to watch that night. At one of the commercial breaks, I saw footage of a story that was going to be featured on the 11pm news. “Local Restaurants Serve Contaminated Beef!” Before I could say anything, my boyfriend called in from the other room, “Hey, isn’t that the owner of our favorite Pho place?”

It was.

I watched the news in terror. Yes indeed, there on TV was the owner of the restaurant I used to go to! And of course I ate there in December 2003. The amazing thing is that many restaurants served the contaminated beef but were NOT required by the Department of Health to disclose this to the public. Why this one particular restaurant owner chose to do so is bewildering (he has since shut down).

I was horrified.

The next day, I closed the door to my office at work and screwed up the nerve to call the restaurant. I called and asked for the possible dates the meat could have been served. I found out that I had eaten there about a week before the contaminated meat was supposed to have been cooked. This did not convince me however…the proximity of the dates was just too close for comfort. With room for error…God only knows when that meat was served.

During the worst of that bout of obsession and panic, I discovered the link between MC and tonsil infections. Too much information for Barbora! I knew immediately that from that moment, the game was on…any time I had a sore throat (or any throat sensation whatsoever), my mind would go directly to the worst-case scenario.

And so it has been.

On a good day, I can reassure myself that I wasn’t in the right place at the right time to have been infected, and actually believe it. Other times, I’m not so lucky.
I am very fortunate that I rarely get sore throats…but I have no shortage of, bumps, tingling/burning sensations and bitter tastes in my mouth and on my tongue (This is the reason for the two, afore-mentioned, “unnecessary” biopsies). I had been able to dismiss the tongue symptoms as irrelevant…until last October. I was listening to late-night, AM talk radio, when some nut came on talking about how MC disease was directly related to cattle mutilations and was brought to Earth by aliens…I had twinge of fear and though maybe I should turn the radio off…But NO! I was feeling brave and thought; this crap can’t scare me. That’s where I was WRONG. This guy uttered the words that now haunt me…”Everyone knows, the tonsils, tongue and anus are a repository for prions.” All I can say is I’m darned grateful my butt’s not burning.

On a much, much lighter note…we are indeed snowed in today. This was our dog’s first experience with more that an inch or two of snow since we moved back here. This morning when I took him out for first-walks, he seemed delighted by the snow, snuffling and pulling me all around the back yard. This afternoon, when the snow was almost as tall as him, he wasn’t so happy about it. Now he has to go potty, but doesn’t want to go off the porch. I think one of us is going to have to go out there and shovel.

A Rose By Any Other Name

It’s funny, but only in the last two weeks have I been self-identifying as a hypochondriac! I’ve been perfectly o.k. with “Anxiety,” “Panic,” and “Obsessive Compulsive,” but NEVER “Hypochondriac.” For some reason, this kind of felt embarrassing/shameful to me. Like “hypochondriac” and “histrionic” were synonymous in some way, and “histrionic” is the kind of word ONLY my ex-husband would have used to describe me. I’m actually pretty good under pressure, as long as it’s not literally life and death (specifically MY life and death).

But now that I’ve embraced it, the term “hypochondriac” suits me perfectly. I’ve had seven HIV tests and two biopsies. I am now convinced it must be mad cow disease (but that’s a whole other story). Looks like we’re going to be snowed in, so I may get the opportunity to tell my terrible tale tomorrow.

Hello World

I read this quote the other day and it really resonated with me, especially in the context of blogging (rather than science fiction writing as it was originally intended). I’ve been reading the blogs of other folks like me, neurotics, hypochondriacs and others who are broken (and not broken) in similar ways. I certainly hope I share their humor and intelligence.

Here’s the quote…

“Perhaps first-person writing is sympathetic because it conveys respect for the reader’s identity. The protagonist is not telling you who you are. The protagonist is just naked, saying ‘I am Robert A. Sloan, science fiction writer. That’s not just what I do, that’s who I am.’…I spend a lot of time making up affirmations, whistling in the dark.”

From Whistling In The Dark by Robert A. Sloan


So as my introduction…I’m starting this blog to simply write about what I do and who I am (regardless if anyone reads) and like Robert A. Sloan, I REALLY DO spend a lot of time making up affirmations and whistling in the dark.