Thursday, November 05, 2015

Spinnaker on the Porch


8 comments:

  1. Dean on the ballot. That's what I recall!

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  2. I burned my candle at both ends the last day or so. I think I need a nap before breakfast. Wish I'd known that the roofer's assistant was running late, so I could have slept in. Yawn!

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  3. listener—thought you might find this interesting:
    School police training article from The Atlantic [Click]

    —Alan

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  4. My test results are in for A1c (blood sugar) and Lipid Panel (Cholesterol).

    My A1c is 6.0, which is mid-range pre-diabetic. No surprise. It's been 5.9 or 6.0 just about every visit since 2011 (and before, but that's the visits I still have the results for). Never higher than 6.0, and I've been told that mid-range pre-diabetic may simply be my norm.

    Even so, both my A1c and Lipid Panel may have been elevated somewhat (especially the LDL) by the fact that I had a bacterial infection underway when they did the blood draw!

    Result? My doc wants me to schedule a follow-up visit to discuss my numbers. Egads. It took a week and four calls begging to get these numbers (still waiting on the liver function test), and she barely looked at these numbers before sending her note. Did she even glance at my previous numbers for comparison?

    Sometimes I just want to ditch western medicine and find a good Naturopath! It seems like MDs hardly ever see the whole picture anymore. It's all about the numbers and what the AMA's playbook says. I prefer specialists, because they really know their stuff and its nuances. Anyway, I responded with a nice note, asking what timeframe she was thinking of (and what my insurance allows) for a follow-up. 3mos? 6 mos?

    =Sigh=

    At what point is it smarter to quit the annual physical because it always seems so counter-productive? We all die of something eventually anyway. Ha!

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    1. Do you have an effective choice of doctors? Meaning ones that are conveniently located and covered by your insurance? It sounds like you don't have confidence in this doctor.

      I am very, very happy with my doctor. He really knows his stuff and things the same way I do. I just hope he doesn't up and retire on me.

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  5. The A1C might only be done on weekdays, and maybe not every weekday, because it is definitely not a stat test. These days the others should be bog-standard everyday tests. Odd they would take so long. What Bill said about choice of doctors. Scheduling a second appointment to discuss the lab test results is, excuse me, a common way for doctors to supplement their income. Ditto annual physicals when folks feel well. If you feel well, you probably ARE well. I see there are no Kaiser hospitals in your neck of the woods, but one of the things I REALLY like about them is that you can change doctors any time for any reason or no reason, no questions asked.

    Our cat can't last much longer--very debilitated, but no sign of being in pain. Unfortunately I must work this weekend. I'm not sure how we are going to handle that.

    Alan

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