Category: Health care

Year of the Plague

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 34 Comments
Everyone’s world is getting just a little bit smaller.

Has everyone settled in to The New Normal yet?

Herself had to make a supply run to Herself the Elder’s assisted-living home yesterday, but since she forgot her biohazard gear and breathing apparatus, she had to leave the goodies on the porch. The joint is on lockdown, with the drawbridge up and the moat full of gators, piranha fish, and plugged-in toasters.

She managed to snap a selfie at mom’s bedroom window, though. And of course, when you can’t get actual facetime, there’s FaceTime.

Elsewhere, the noobs are trying to figure out how to work from home. Lucky for me, I have a black belt in social distancing, which I have been practicing since 1991, when after 15 years in the Petri dish of daily journalism it was suddenly just me, my Mac SE, and a Hayes modem, in a spare bedroom.

Also, as a geezer with a broken ankle and the Socialist Insecurity due to start rolling in next month, I don’t have much to do or a pressing need to go somewhere to do it.

So I got that going for me, which is nice.

The hard part, for me and for thee, is the temptation to go all COVID-19, all the time. Don’t do it. Send a daily hate mail to the White House and then call it a day.

Watching this lame reboot of “A Day at the Races” ain’t doing it for me. There are more horses’ asses than horses in this one, and I don’t think the fat fuck playing Dr. Hackenbush is even a vet, much less an MD.

And now, today’s musical selection:

 

Have a nice trip? See you next fall

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 30 Comments
Waiting on the “provider” at urgent care. Is it just me, or does
“The Provider” sound like some sort of third-tier Marvel superhero?

One of the sad things about modern medicine is the questions you get asked.

It used to be, “Where does it hurt?” Or, “What brings you to see us today?”

Now it’s “Do you feel safe in your home?”

As long as I can see the wife in my peripheral vision, and both of her hands are empty, sure.

Or, “Are you depressed?”

Not until you asked me that question.

Another popular one seems to be, “Have you had any other falls recently?”

I didn’t fall this time. I broke my ankle running and then hopped around on the good leg, screaming all of George Carlin’s “Seven Words” in no particular order. Then I limped home, got in the car, and drove a few blocks to visit some people who seem to enjoy probing strangers for weakness and financial information.

While we’re discussing modern medicine, here’s another observation about crutches. Not only do they still not come equipped with cup holders, shocks, or hydraulic disc brakes as standard equipment, but no matter where or how you park them, like Doc Sarvis’s bicycle, they still slide immediately to the floor.

And finally, if like me you suddenly seem to have some time on your hands that desperately needs filling, scope out this fine interview with Sonny Rollins. He’s had to give up the sax due to illness, but he hasn’t given up, y’feel me?

Writer on the storm

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 8 Comments
Smilin’ Jack isn’t the only fella in there, y’know.

My man Padraig at Red Kite Prayer is having a rough go of it lately — so much so that he has turned to ketamine therapy in his ongoing struggle with depression.

In a word, this takes huevos. In my misspent youth I dabbled with various psychedelics — mostly psilocybin, mescaline and LSD — and I don’t mind telling you that any or all of these can really pop the top off your Jack-in-the-box.

Thing is, Smilin’ Jack isn’t the only fella in there. And he isn’t always the first one to hit the door running.

It’s one thing to hitch a ride on the Magic Bus when you’re young and sprightly, with your script largely unwritten. I’m not certain I’d have the guts to screen my personal in-flight movie a half-century further on up the road. A lot of that footage is on the cranial cutting-room floor for a reason.

So chapeau to Padraig for having the courage to lift the lid (or rip off the Band-Aid) and face what’s underneath. And for inviting us to join him on the trip. I wish him health and happiness.

If you’ve enjoyed his work, why not pop round to his place to say so? I think he’d like to hear from you.

• Extra-credit reading: Scientific American on ketamine therapy. And William Styron’s “Darkness Visible: A Memoir of Madness.”

Stone free

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 11 Comments
His Excellency recovers from the tortures of the damned, a.k.a. a visit to the vet.

While the shit-mist continues to blot out Old Sol in DeeCee, we’ve had a little sunshine in our back door today.

Field Marshal Turkish von Turkenstein (commander, 1st Feline Home Defense Regiment) had been under the weather about a month back, and so I chauffeured him to his personal physician, who diagnosed a bit of arthritis in the hips and (of all things) a pair of stones in his bladder, an affliction with which we are all too familiar.

The vet recommended that we replace his dry kibble with a canned prescription diet and a side of nutriceutical antiinflammatory, then come back in 30 days to see whether the change in cuisine would solve the issue without more heroic measures.

If It didn’t — well, as I noted, we’ve been down this stony road before with the late, lamented Mister Boo. And we were not looking forward to approving yet another round of surgery on yet another of our comrades.

Today was the day for His Excellency’s followup visit, and not only did the Turk pass with flying colors (and without knifework), he’s actually shed a few ounces on the new diet.

Since his rock has apparently rolled, I played him a little Jimi to celebrate.

Be Worst

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 23 Comments
Remember, kids, cutting and pasting other people’s work
is for bloggers only.

From Steve Benen at the Maddow Blog:

• Melania Trump’s “Be Best” blather was apparently another cut-and-paste job, liberating the content of a document released by the previous administration’s Federal Trade Commission in 2014. The writing, it is hard. I know, believe me, I know.

• While Ms. Trump was Being Best, her husband and his pals were being the other thing. Jeffy Bob Jimmie Joe Sessions plans to separate immigrant parents and children because, you know, “the best people,” etc., et al., and so on and so forth. The Big Orange Cheese, meanwhile, wants to slash more than $15 billion in previously approved spending, more than half of it to come from the Children’s Health Insurance Program, because children can’t vote, buy real estate, or suck a golf ball through a garden hose.

• And finally, according to The New Yorker, Eric T. Schneiderman has resigned as New York attorney general to spend more time with his family and work on a memoir entitled, “Shut the Fuck Up And Get Me Another Drink, You Whore (Before I Slap You Again).”