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Happy Sick People

 I was dismayed to find myself the lone sick guy when I arrived for my 3:45 doctor's appointment this afternoon. Is it not December flu season? Is the world not racked with an H1N1 frenzy? 

Today I spoke like Scooby Doo, an improvement over my eerie silence on Sunday. My doctor and I chattered away, he like a jolly Christmas elf, as he rose to the challenge--getting me to talk professionally for my taped interview in the morning. I gave him 16 hours to get me in shape and so I endured a shot, and a double-dose of mixed drugs. 

While I waited for a nurse to prick me in both the butt (throat super solider serum) and arm (cholesterol screening), I looked across the room at the racks of informational brochures on all that ails the middle-aged patient: Acid reflux, frequent bladder urges, heart disease, diabetes, H1N1, restless leg syndrome--you name it, they had a smiling face on the front cover. Each diagnosed condition warranted a delighted model, but I was unsure if these indicated joyfully recovered individuals, or hopeful soldiers ready to endure with joy in their hearts.  

In the end, the doctor told me not to talk until just before interview time, so I've nodded gamely at question upon question from my five kids, sat quietly in the corner during my son's Cub Scout meeting, and comforted my wife with listening eyes and a hug. I've just finished a chaser of lemons upon lemons with honey, it must be doing something--my throat reacted with ferocious gagging. T-minus 10 hours now.

Half-Pint the House Cat

I remember primetime television as family-appropriate. Ma and Pa and my two sisters and me, could watch just about anything airing during the first hour of the evening, but we had our routines. Tuesday was for Happy Days, Thursday the Waltons, and Monday was Little House on the Prairie night. 

There was something intoxicating about the relationship of Pa and his daughter Laura, a man's man and the little girl who was his kindred spirit. I grew up wanting to be Charles Ingalls, or maybe just his son-in-law. I don't know how many other young boys were crushing on Melissa Gilbert, but her new memoir, Prairie Tale, gives some indication of the attraction she must have generated. 

In many ways the book is a classic retelling of every child actor's journey, with frequent flings (as Gilbert calls them), drugs, and later, booze. But there is something different here, if not redeeming. While Gilbert doesn't seem to regret much, she seems to have put her journey to use--trying to understand herself and her purpose in life. Like Maureen McCormick (Marcia Brady), Melissa Gilbert could never be as good as her famous character, though she enjoyed the escape into her fictionally idyllic life. 

Prairie Tale lingers over the best stories of her years on Little House, revealing the parental role her TV dad played, even letting us in on her jitters at sharing a kiss and later a snuggle with an older actor when she'd never had these experiences for herself. For Little House fans largely unfamiliar with Gilbert's later work in TV movies, the book seems to spend too little time on the prairie, but it succeeds as a device to help us understand her journey. 

Inside are the breakups and reconciliations with Rob Lowe, her disastrous first marriage, and finally her years with Bruce Boxleitner. Gilbert comes across as a little girl lost--grasping for acceptance in all the usual ways, but placing a world of circumstance on her adoption as an infant, framing herself as rejected by the young couple who had her for just a day. Now in her mid-40s, Gilbert has found a more contented life, embracing her kids and family, her renewed Jewish faith, and her sobriety, accepting that she can never be perfect. 

But in the closing pages, as we read her happy wish to be a house cat in the next life, I felt empty, knowing there's a Father in Heaven who can give her everything she--and we--have spent our whole lives chasing. 

I Know What She Did

I know what she did. Maybe she didn't intend to leave me in the dark, but that's where I was--nestled in my glorious bliss. She calls me a packrat. But are memories only to be imagined? Or can we hold them in our hands and smell their faded glory?

It may seem like nothing, but it was my boy's wallet. More like a coin purse, but do you think I'd tell him that? He inherited it from his brother, the mesh-sacked Zebra with the zipper down the back, and he carried it with his pennies and nickels--all of them quarters to him.

He has a new wallet now, one that folds into velcro, but this was his first and it embodies him. Tonight it toppled out of my trunk, an unsold offering at the community consignment sale. She had tried to pawn our memory for a dollar. My tears for this memory are worth more than that.

He's Not Heavy, He's My... Actually, He is Pretty Heavy

The health care debate swirling about us is a subject I hate. Not because I don't see a need for reform, but because of the way we are once again split into warring sides, half nodding their allegiance to a plan they have not read, but feel in their heart of hearts is right and moral. The other half digging their heels in to stop what they feel is the end of civilization as we know it, or at least, the Democratic Republic for which we stand. 

I believe that tension is a useful law of the universe. When two connected halves are pulling away from each other, the tension restrains them from complete and total fracture. That is why we have had a largely effective two-party system for the last 150 years. It is good that there are conservatives and liberals. We are meant to balance each other, but I'm afraid, that over the past two decades, there have been few things one side hasn't ramrodded into the other. Discourse is a lost art form.

This brings me to the current turmoil. Should the federal government exercise a mandate to take up the health care costs of every uninsured individual, and in so doing, take money from those who are likely the insured--in a time of recession and diabolical deficits? Perhaps I tip my hand just a bit in my wording of this question, but my largest concern is in how we pay for this proposal, how we ensure the success of it if it becomes law, and in the legal right of the federal government to take such action. I acknowledge that these concerns of mine ignore the emotional sides of the argument--that no one wants people to be uncared for, neglected, or destroyed for lack of access to medical care. That is a good and noble desire, but it should not cloud us from making a wise choice regarding the solution.

The slogan du jour on Facebook.com today was this: 

No one should die because they cannot afford health care, and no one should go broke because they get sick. If you agree, please post this as your status for the rest of the day.

I don't have all the answers, in fact, I have very few. What I do have are questions, issues I hope to explore to some level of satisfaction. My first question is this: Are you asked about your medical insurance when you call 911 or an ambulance? If you're rushed into the ER, clearly in crisis, are you denied treatment? I don't think this is so, perhaps these instances do fall under the second category of the above statement of belief, that 'you shouldn't go broke' because you need medical care. Perhaps coverage is denied to those uninsured who have more gradual forms of decay, disease, and debilitation.

How much is our inability to pay for medical care outside of insurance a product of the insurance system itself, and the litigation that has followed? If most of America expected to pay out-of-pocket for prescriptions and office visits, how much less expensive would the costs be with the elimination of the middle man? I know we can't begin to go back to this bygone age, but still, it's a question. There is concern today for the young--those who are least likely to be insured. How much is coverage for a single, 20-something anyway? This is supposing they can't get covered from their college or an employer. Would the cost of such coverage--taken with the understanding that we live by paying cash for things, not incurring rotating monthly payments for things--be equal to or less than the tax burden of this same 20-something to pay for their government-provided health care? I don't know.

Another thing that concerns me, besides my suspicion that very few of our representatives have read the bill they'll soon vote on, is all of the varied policies that are conjectured to be in a final bill. Things like: denying coverage to those who are deemed to have made 'poor life choices', or paying for abortions (which terminate life), or suggesting non-treatment of illness because of one's age and the need to look out for those who are younger.

What I do know is this: the federal government has failed and failed again with massive programs. The areas of medicine that the government is currently involved in are going broke. They seem unable to fix these problems, how can they begin something new, on a much grander scale, and hope to succeed?

I've looked over the Constitution of the United States, and the only thing that seems to have any bearing whatsoever on this issue is in Article I, Section 8:

The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises, to pay the debts and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States; but all duties, imposts and excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;To borrow money on the credit of the United States; To regulate commerce... etc.  (Read more)

There is much that follows, but nothing about securing the medical care of the citizens, or collecting taxes for that end. The closest we get is in that phrase 'for the common defense and general welfare of the United States'. The instances listed below this include 17 examples of what this welfare consists of, and none of it brings us close to what we are proposing in the legislature and from today's White House.

Of course, this brings me back to the opening of my post. We are two warring sides, unwilling to entertain discourse on the subject. I have a hope that we would go back to the documents that define us to guide us today, and to clarify what is permitted. But I know that is wistful thinking. We are left with the problem: how can we help our disadvantaged citizens without crippling our future and disregarding our past? I am in search of the answer.

You Don't Want Me as Your Neighbor

I'm one of those terrible neighbors. We have no grass in our front yard. Well, that's not quite true--there's crab grass here and there, mostly by the sloping curb, and it makes my chest swell. It's long and reed-like and needs to be mowed, but sadly, it's the best part of our yard.

The rest of the yard is a dusty chalk of mud, but it's not even good mud, because there are no mounds or texture, only a smooth surface that looks like the work of a paint roller. The worst of it sits at the top of our upward climbing yard, so that this eyesore is all the more visible.

In April I planted a weeping willow in the middle of this square of a yard, with the hope that--in a year or two--it would cover at least some of my sins, with pinestraw or mulch and a little rounded wall lying beneath the tree in its shadow.

The bushes on the perimeter of the yard would look better if I could keep them from their Amazonian sprawl. But this impossible as I keep cutting through the power cord with my hedge trimmer each time I started in on them. It gets expensive when you pay $36 for a 10-minute, incomplete session.

When we moved in seven years ago, there was grass, but as we hit our first spring I realized that the shoots were merely dusty grafts clinging to netting. I tried to improve the situation, but in my eventual frustration I tore everything out to start fresh. Then nothing grew. We've sodded, scattered, and raked in seedlings, but our success is very modest and quickly dies. We've cut down trees to give ourselves more sun, then wished we'd left them up so the yard didn't get so dry. I've destroyed bushes to plant flower beds, only to discover robust gardens of grass where the bushes once sat.

Our meager shoots and burgeoning crabgrass have grown long and scraggly, and are sorely in need of trimming. The lawnmower I bought for the house stopped working after one season, and rather than hunt down a mechanic or buy a new one, we've been weed-wacking the grasslings and dragging a spinning, chopping machine at the grass. It doesn't work, and now the handle is coming off.

It's hard to believe I'm descended from a mechanical family--my paternal grandfather the proud owner of a small engine repair shop where I whiled away the hours as a young boy, sitting on lawnmowers, listening to my grandfather's belly laughs.

Silence Your Cellphones

It was a night of firsts at the local bijou.

First, we heard a non-mechanical whistle from a few rows back. A whistle that sputtered and grumbled and caught, then went silent. It's an old theater that plays second run movies, a cheap place to sneak away for a tiny reward. Then the noise started up again, sounding somewhat human, like breathing hampered by a very large tongue, or a mouth-breather with a condition. The sound deepened and revealed a pattern, then we all knew it--someone was snoring.

Mere minutes had elapsed since the scant previews, the opening sequence still playing, the film's protagonist yet to be introduced, and the guy in row 38 is chainsawing a forest. No one looked, though many stifled a laugh, a few didn't stifle anything. I kept waiting for the man to be nudged by a cohort, but as the wheezing continued, growing in volume, I suspected he must be alone. People were getting up and moving closer to the screen, while I was counting to 10, to 20, to 30 before I planned to get up and poke him myself. And then there was silence, except for the sounds of our protagonist emerging from the water.

Later, at a critical juncture in the film where an extreme close-up was employed to heighten our horror, the back door of the room swung open with a thud, spilling white light on the audience. A disjointed assembly of youths came streaming in, following the two aisles to the front of the house, they criss-crossed in front of the screen, screaming wildly as a burning man was fighting for his survival on screen. It didn't take long to forget about them and their tomfoolery, but not everyone had forgotten. In the lobby after the show, a harried group of people short on real-life excitement were filing a police report on a pack of kids who wore hoodies in the dark.

Another 10 Things I've Never Done

You may remember this little listing game I used to do. Here are ten more to add to the list.

1. I have never had a mosquito for a personal friend

2. I have never had a pedi

3. I have never been to Mrs. Winner's Chicken & Biscuits

4. I don't believe I've ever had a kumquat

5. I have never been the Biggest Loser

6. I've never made it through an award ceremony without a sharp lump in my throat

7. I've never been over Niagara Falls in a barrel

8. I've never even put a toe in Asia

9. Algebra was easy, but I never could get trigonometry 

10. I haven't stopped loving you

Sick Day

It's striking how fast the day goes by when you spend it in bed--asleep and nursing a nasty headache. Well I did spend 45 minutes on ESPN.com, catching up (the Braves will not be .500 at the All-Star break by the way). Nonetheless a few items did capture my interest.

My six-year-old twins (Halle and Emma) kept popping in and out of the room (the two oldest children were at camp, the youngest with my wife), asking me to resolve their conflicts, address their letters, and authorize their candy consumption. One of these disputes involved the following exchange: "What's wrong?" / "Halle said India is just a big ball of poop." / "And that makes you sad? (nodding). Why are you interested in India?" / "Because Aladdin lives there." / "I think he's from Saudi Arabia, but close enough." / "I want to go there someday."

Later I was off to the doctor's office where again they insisted I stand on the scale, fully clothed, with my shoes on, and my wallet, keys, and phone in my pocket. Why? Nothing about a headache diagnosis asks, "how much do you weigh?" But since I knew this would happen, I made sure to wear sneakers, not boots; shorts, not jeans; and go sans ballcap. And as usual, I weighed five pounds more than I do at home. I got the female nurse-practitioner and in the interest of full-disclosure had to reveal something to her I'd rather have shared with a dude. Ah well, I'm getting pretty good at that now. 

At dinner time I took Madison and Marshall (10 and 8) to Target because Marshall had $36 burning a hole in his pocket. While I was there looking at sunscreen he launched into the following conversation (names have been changed), both of us talking at full volume: "Dad, do you know Xavier McDoo from church?" / "Xavier, from our church? No. Is he in your class?" / "Yeah, he has kind of short, scruffy hair..." / "Is he chubby?" / "No." / "But he's in your class? Have I taught him during children's church?" / "Yeah." / "Do I know his parents?" / "I don't know." / "Well, I think I've heard the name Xavier McDoo, but can't think of who that is." 

Once we had moved further into the store, I asked Marshall why he had asked me about Xavier. "He was just over there," Marshall said, indicating an area clearly within earshot of my big mouth. "He was standing there?" I said, "...while we were talking? So he heard the whole conversation? I asked if he was chubby!" 

After comparison shopping at K-Mart where I gave the kids a history lesson on why the Big K just wasn't cool back in my day, we headed home listening to Madison's grand soliloquy on the reasons why 10 is such an awkward age: "You're too old for toys, and all the good stuff is so expensive and all you can see is kids' movies and I really want to see 17 Again and Marley & Me and..." 

So He's Doing It

The President I didn't vote for is on his bully pulpit again. Pronouncing health care for all! If you like what you've got--keep it, he says. We're not going to take anything away from you, he says. But in his effort to secure insurance for an estimated 50 million uninsured Americans, large corporations to small companies will no doubt be tempted to wipe their hands of the trouble insurance causes for them. 

If this passes, count on the gap to close between the currently uninsured and the soon-to-be uninsured as Americans quickly become completely dependent on the government for health care. If we can even call it that, socialized system after socialized system is replete with stories of failures in the medical system, long waiting lists to see doctors, and the denial of tests and procedures. 

The President I didn't vote for has also headed down the road of anti-smoking legislation, and he won't stop there. Watch as he enacts rules about how much cake a 50-year-old with 15 pounds to lose can eat. Watch him deny coverage to someone who doesn't take "enough" care of himself. The government becomes our mother in this scenario, providing sustenance for us. This should not be!

The government should get the flip away from our private lives--protect our borders, pave our roads, be a cooperative extension of the American people. I have never seen a president pursue change with the reckless abandon of this guy, so much for crossing the aisle, working together, he has come into office with an agenda to eradicate everything America stands for as quickly as he can, before America wakes up and screams. Once we launch these medical "reforms" they will be very difficult to undo, not something a new election can remedy.

I know I have spoken in some hyperbole here, but this is getting ridiculous, and many of us are feeling increasingly helpless to do anything to change the changes.

Sleepy-eyed View

Since my highly demanding life and other aspiring aspirations have kinda sorta kept me from blogging, maybe I ought to catch you up on all things I think.

Let's start with the story out of Sleepy Eye, Minnesota, where the issue of parents' rights is at stake.

There are a lot of variables to consider in this episode involving a 13-year-old boy with Stage 2B Hodgkin's lymphoma and his mother's initial refusal to treat him with chemotherapy. The doctor involved in the treatment reported that he had upwards of an 80 to 90 percent chance of survival with treatment and less than five percent without. I'll give the doctor the benefit of the doubt, and suggest that he is well-meaning in reporting the mother to the authorities on the grounds of child neglect, but that doesn't give society the right to force people to do what they object to doing--particularly with their minor children.

I had the same view during the Elian Gonzalez story, that even if we felt collectively that the boy's father would return Elian to Cuba as a ward of the state, it was his right to do so. These are private issues of conscience and should not be group-thought toward solution. When we call out the dogs on something that appears to be a matter of life and death we invariably unravel lesser concerns, that are tied to the same rights. We can not whittle down a parent's right to make informed decisions about the welfare, education, and development of their children--even if most people agree on the substance of that decision. We are losing these rights in our country, and it's time it stopped.