Close Calls

I was walking.

I am such a caricature of myself: the doctor’s wife, in my yoga clothes, with my yoga mat slung behind me, in flip flops, clutching a latte … but I digress.

There was a lot of construction. On one side of the street, there was a fenced-off lot with a backhoe working and on the other side, a big truck was slowly backing into a driveway.

Since the sidewalk along the fence wasn’t closed, I was walking there.

The fence was about 8 feet tall. The heap of rubble behind it was much taller. It had been a brick building that morning. And it was shaking. The backhoe, which I couldn’t see, was working behind it.

It began to occur to me that, perhaps, I shouldn’t be there.

The construction worker directing the truck saw me and waved me to the other side of the street. “Just in case,” he said.

Of course, he was right.

(Also, that sidewalk should have been blocked off, hello.)

After I had walked on, I turned. As I watched, that pile of bricks tumbled over, flattening the fence and spilling all over the sidewalk.

Whew, a close call.

We all have them and have more of them, the older we get.

Once you become a certain age, it seems, doctors are always finding things that could be terrible. I continue to have doctors monitor me for possibly horrific things. In fact, I just got another all-clear after a week of worry.

Even with all these all-clears (thank God), I am left with residual fear. What about next time?

Because something will eventually get you, right?

How are we supposed to deal with that?

Yet, the bricks didn’t bother me … I am going to buy that construction worker a coffee, though.

Sick of Fear

I went through a period of about a year and a half, with an intense stretch of about three months at the end, of health scares.

Suddenly, it seemed, I couldn’t get a routine medical test without it coming back positive, possibly indicating something dire. Literally, at one point, I was standing in line at a doctor’s office, to get a follow-up procedure for one finding, when my phone rang, to let me know of another positive test result that could indicate something else dire for which a follow-up had to be scheduled … in a few weeks.

All I had done was get the routine screening tests my doctors told me I should, the way I always did: mammogram, pap smear, eye exam, etc. But this go-round, they led to, according to my count, a follow-up mammogram, three ultrasounds, four unpleasant gynecological procedures, in which, as my doctor-husband put it, gynecologists got “way up into my business,” a urology procedure, two MRIs, a CT scan, two sets of x-rays, excisions and a skin graft.

I am not blaming anyone. My doctors are very good at what they do, were doing exactly what they are supposed to do and very possibly saved me from something bad.

But, although it was no one’s intention, I cannot think of a better way to push someone, especially someone like me, who’s kind of anxious, right off the fear cliff.

I am fine, for which I feel lucky and grateful. I know I am also lucky to have access to healthcare.

But I also ended up seeing a therapist and getting on Prozac.

(Prozac’s great, so is therapy!)

Maybe that’s a silver lining: Feeling besieged led me to seek help for the anxiety I’ve come to realize has  always been lurking inside my head. J

Getting Political Again

So, I continue to contact my representatives. Most recently, about healthcare. One of my senators is Ted Cruz, who would like to slash Medicaid and allow insurance companies to sell products that don't actually cover anything.

What I found to say:

Dear Senator,

According to the most recent survey, 61% of Americans oppose the most recent Republican proposed healthcare plan, 65% oppose your proposed cuts to Medicaid, even after they’ve heard your arguments for them, 71% do not want a total repeal of the ACA, or Obamacare, but would rather you work with Democrats to make improvements to the nation’s healthcare. I am joining all these other citizens, as well as consumer groups, patient advocates, doctors, hospitals, addiction-treatment centers, insurance companies, religious leaders, governors, both Republican and Democratic, and your fellow colleagues in the Senate, to urge you not to vote for your healthcare plan to become law.

It is a hot mess.

It is not OK to throw more than 20 million Americans off their insurance plans, some of whom are in the midst of battling deadly medical problems.

It is not OK to slash Medicaid so deeply. Medicaid goes to poor children, poor pregnant women, the disabled, including about 160,000 profoundly disabled children here in Texas, and most of the elderly residing in nursing homes across the country. (42% of Medicaid’s costs come from the elderly living in nursing homes.) Those are the people you are going to take from? No.

It is not OK to allow insurance companies to offer products that don’t actually offer coverage, that don’t cover things like emergency room visits and prescriptions. Such a product isn’t insurance; it’s a scam. Shame on you for attempting to allow it.

This is not a game, Senator. This is millions of people’s health. Quit rushing. Quit trying to simply win political points by insisting on repealing everything we have now just because it has President Obama’s name on it. Look at what we have and fix it. Do it for the good of your fellow Americans, your constituents, and not just yourself.

By the way, I will know that you have come up with such a plan when I see that you don’t exempt yourself and your family from it.

Thank you.