Coffee heat rising

funny

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…from Worse to Hilarious?

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DATELINE: CHURCH FRONT OFFICE. Okay, okay. I give up whinging about the endless stream of bad luck, minor hassles, major headaches, and downright disasters that have infected every damn day here for the past six weeks or so.

This is no longer terrible, horrible, and downright deplorable. It has evolved into…

laughable

😀

Nay, uproarious!

Just when you think nothing more could possibly go wrong…the ENTIRE CITY goes offline.

So we’re told, anyway. The Apple techs and the Cox tech who spent four hours trying to help get my email working were swimming against the stream. Little did they know…even the Cox tech!…that Cox is down over the whole City!

Apparently the degree of down-ness varies by district. From my house, I could at least get Firefox to cruise the Internet. And the phone was working.

I get down to the church, where I cool my heels for four hours once a week, and find that EVERYTHING is down:

The wireless
The outdgoing and incoming phone lines
The in-house phones

Holee ess aitch ai!

The pastor has gone home in frustration, after having tried for quite some time to accomplish his work on his smart phone and about put his eyes out for his trouble.

Other staff are hanging around, filling time with various small manual tasks, except for the musicians, who are giving lessons or practicing.

Hilariously, the Cox tech I spoke with for something over an hour this morning had no idea there was a Cox outage here. And given that some are saying it covers the entire city, that’s quite the little secret to keep from your customer service employees, isn’t it?

Apparently, the extent of the outage varies by district. At my house, MacMail would come on, in a spotty way, though it was operating so slowly that some functions simply wouldn’t work. Yet I had no problem opening web pages, and indeed wrote and published a post for Funny about Money this morning. I thought what was out was the Apple Mail function.

Here, the office is offline, but one of the priests just came in and said she was online at the school, and so was the teacher whose classroom she was working in.

That notwithstanding…the phones and the computers are absolutely positively not working over here, a hundred yards away.

Chortle! I wonder if this is an attack…the Russians strike again. Or the Koreans? The Saudis?

Hmmmm… Will the burglar alarm system here be online? With no phone system operative, how will ADT get the message if the Burglar decides to stroll in and make himself to home?

At any rate, Korean sabotage or not, I’ve about had it with Cox. If they can’t even let their CSRs know about a major service outage, they are not worth the price!

My plan now is to get an iPhone – though one of the staff here was telling me about something called Great Call, designed for old folks who can’t figure out these contraptions. Apparently it has a mode that’s pretty simple to use. But it operates with Samsung. The last time I tried to use one of those types of cell phones, I never could figure out how to work it. Finally just gave up.

Apple is giving classes at its stores. Get an iPhone, and you can go over there and take lessons until you finally get it into your head how to work the damn thing. This is likely to take awhile, because I really don’t want to know how to work such a thing. My head is full of ENOUGH clutter, dammit. But I guess I can’t put it off any longer.

The advantage of an Apple device is that it connects seamlessly with other Apple products – notably MacMail. And I’m told it’s relatively easy for old people to learn to use, which sure isn’t the case for Android devices. Also, they apparently have a highly entertaining robocall blocker, which spoofs a human and makes a live caller truly miserable. That concept, I like.

Get phone

Either from TracFone or from a more conventional provider.
Compare costs.
Also, can you use TracFone to connect the iPad?

Learn to use phone. Ask at Apple store if you can get some lessons before you sign on and transfer the phone number. Or check on Internet for simple lessons on how to use the thing.

I think they’ll let you use a floor model or an extra to sit in on the classes and learn how to operate things.

Sign up and transfer my number to the phone.

Practice a lot at using it. Decide what functions are needed

Phone
Call blocker app
Access to Web
Access to Mail
Camera would be nice

Call Cox and cancel the landline

Confirm that it REALLY is true you can call 911 from a cell phone if it doesn’t have minutes or a connection that you’re paying for.

Buy 6 clamshell phones, charge them up, and have them around the house

Remember to recharge the car phone, too.

Look into Earthlink and Great Call.

How reliable are they?
Do they have customer service?
What does it cost?

Sooooo… My VoIP-ish phones were working when I left the Funny Farm. But if the system is by now as thoroughly down there as it is here, when I get home I, too, may have no phone service. I do have a clamshell phone in my car. And a couple of old phones whose recharging cords I’ve lost… 😀 So if I bring the phone into the house at least I’ll have something to use in an emergency.

An hour and a half to go. With no client work to do, I tend to count the minutes when I’m here. Which is weird…was never a clock-watcher when I had a real job. It’s just that…well…it’s awfully quiet here. And really, there’s nothing to do.

And, I think, the computer and other fine features of Our Modern Dystopia infuse a kind of gestalt into everyday life. You don’t sit and just do a single task or series of tasks from beginning to end anymore. You’re either interrupted constantly or you interrupt yourself with the Internet (out of restlessness or curiosity), so that you become accustomed to doing things in tiny, staccato intervals.

Plus it must be admitted that I failed to appreciate just how inconvenient it would be to have a four-hour slab sliced out of my life every week. I did tell them that I didn’t want to do this gig on the same day as choir practice…but ended up here on practice day anyway. So I have to race home, tend to the dogs – one of whom is still pretty sick – grab some food for myself, bolt down dinner, and then turn around and come right back down here.

True it is that I knew this schedule would be a PITA. But…the hectic turnaround really isn’t the issue. The issue is the four hours taken out of the day – and the week. Which is odd: I really didn’t think I had all that much to do. But apparently I do.

Cassie the Corgi seems somewhat better, actually. I suspect she’s about as much better as she’s going to get…and chances are, that itself is a temporary state of affairs. She still coughs occasionally – Valley fever? cancer? But she can bark again (this dog is nothing if she can’t bark!), and she’s eating cheerfully. Haven’t tried to take her for a walk since all this horror story came down – nor has Ruby had a walk. This means their claws are getting so long they can barely dodder…which tells you something about how long our little horror story has been going on. Tonight, of course, I won’t be able to take them out. So…maybe tomorrow morning? Probably not: some workman is supposed to show up at the crack of dawn tomorrow.

An hour and seven minutes to go. {sigh}

The longer I’m not at home, the longer some crazy new thing can’t happen to me! 😀

…And the Beat Goes On

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WOW!!! It just does not stop: day after day after day after day filled with conundrum, catastrophe, and freaking disaster.

Yesterday? Yes, the thing on my hand is NOT ringworm; it is indeed cancer. Probably squamous cell cancer, which can be removed…but…but…

a) You thought melanoma was the skin cancer that could metastasize and kill you? Well…yeah. But so can the squamous cell variety. Not as often, though. Fortunately only about 1 percent of them do…but the way my life has been going, my version of the 1 percent figure may mean a 1 percent chance it won’t.
b) Once you’ve had one of these things, you’re probably going to get more of them. You have to go in to the dermatologist every three to six months for a full-body check, now and evermore.
c) Surgery isn’t exactly major (assuming it hasn’t spread), but it doesn’t sound like a helluva lot of fun, either. We’ll find out how much fun we’ll be having after the results of the biopsy come back. Oh, yes, and let’s not forget…
d) They also cut off a tiny, extremely black mole from my sun-battered leg, which came up some months ago and has just been sitting there silently. Not a good thing, especially in these star-crossed times.

Okay. That was yesterday. Now we have fuckin’ TODAY.

Last night my email goes down. I’m on the phone with Apple for an hour. Supposedly fixed it. This morning: it’s down again.

I spent another hour on the phone with another tech this morning. She finally decided the problem has got to be with Cox.

Fortunately(?), I pay extra to get Cox tech support. Got on the phone with one of their guys: because my laptop’s computer has an advanced type of screen, this guy could not view my computer. He says he’ll switch me to another tech. Well, he doesn’t: he just switches me to a regular Cox CSR.

I spend another hour on the phone with her, as she climbs uphill doing battle with Cox’s fine technology. Systems are up and down on HER end, so she’s already having a bitch of a day. Finally she’s able to get the thing to run well enough to tell that the issue is probably my modem…you know, the damn thing they attached to my computer when they ripped out the land lines? All my phones are running on Cox’s answer to VoIP. Which I personally would call plain old VoIP, available for 4 bucks a month from Ooma.

Understand: that’s THREE HOURS of wrangling with techs and technology, and my email still isn’t working right!

Since I had this little fucker installed, over my dead body, last February, it’s only eight months old and it’s ALREADY CRAPPED OUT!

Fortunately, they signed me up to an expensive service contract, so having a guy come out here and fix it will be (heh heh heh) “free.”

That does it. Whenever I can catch my breath (WHENever????), I am going to buy an iPhone, take the classes to learn to use it, and shut down the damn fake land lines. That’ll save some money…or not: whatever I have to pay at least won’t be going to Cox!

eee-fuckin’-nuff!

A little frugalista prepper strategy…

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Okay, this one is not prepping for the day the stock market crashes into the sub-basement of the Bush Recession. This is a day-to-day routine prep that can come in extremely handy. And it’s outrageously simple:

PHOTOCOPY THE CONTENTS OF YOUR WALLET

Yeah. Take all the cards and IDs and whatnot and lay them in neat rows and columns on your printer’s scanner bed. Press COPY. Now flip each one over, keeping the things in the same order, and press COPY again.

Print these out. Oh, what the heck: print out two or three copies. Stash at least one of them in a safe place where you know you can find it. Put the others in places that you might look if you forget where you put the safe place that you knew you could find.

This can be a lifesaver if your lose your wallet or any of your cards.

I never did find the brass card case that held my personal AMEX card, my new Medicare card, my Medigap insurance card, and misc. other junk cards like the grocery store “membership” annoyances. Of the ones that matter, the only ones that were not copies were the credit card and the Medigap card. I carry copies, not originals, of the Medicare card, but I’d carried the original Medigap card because it has the company’s contact information on the back, which doctors’ offices often want.

Sooo… Needed to call the Medigap carrier — no point in even bothering to call Medicare, it’s SUCH a nightmare trying to get through to a human being, and nine times out of ten whoever you do reach is clueless — and ask for a new card. As I contemplate having to paw through a pile of paperwork to get the apposite numerals to reel off to the CSR at the end of the punch-a-button maze, I remember that indeed I do have a copy of the thing.

Hauled out the sheet, copied it, cut out the photocopied x 2 Medicare and Medigap cards, stuck them in the card case, and voilà! So had no problem this morning ordering up a new Medigap card from GPM Life.

Related tip: Do this about once a year. The cards in your wallet change — you get a new account number when you lose a credit card, you ditch one card and get another, and…whatnot. Keep the set of cards you’ve copied up to date.

…and the Dust Settles

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Après le déluge…yes, the dust does settle.

Today — Monday — nothing on the calendar. Thank God. With any luck, no lunacy will occur today.

Cassie the Corgi is getting a lot better. She was already throwing off the cough when Second Opinion Vet put her on doxycycline for the urinary tract infection MarvelVet opined was negligible. Whether the antibiotic is making a difference, I couldn’t say…except since she’s been on it, she’s improved markedly. This morning she endured being lifted off the bed without a coughing frenzy. It looks a great deal as though she’s going to recover and also as though the alleged adrenal tumor was something I didn’t want to know about. Or need to know about: at 12 years of age, this dog is going to pass on to her furry fathers pretty soon, and something has to spirit her away. If that’s the something, then that’s just the something, and there’s not much anyone can do about it.

Late last night, I remembered that you can polish grocery-cart scratches off your white car with one of those wall-scrubber sponge things. Duh! Why did I not think of that before? So I ran out to the garage and tested it, and lo! It did rub off some of the lesser “scratches,” which actually are paint from the flatbed. There are a couple of real-life gouges in the bumper’s paint, but most of it is not gouges but black stuff scraped ON to the finish, not scraped into it. It was dark out there last night, of course. Whenever I get my act together this morning, I’ll try this by light of day and an open garage door.

The car is running fine. Its bashed tire is not going flat.

Speaking of flat, I’m flat broke, budgetwise, and the economy, as predicted by a certain skeptic of your acquaintance, is about to go down the tubes. But what the heck…it’s not the first time. 😀

I still do not have a new AMEX card. Looks like the post office once again delivered the mail to Manny’s house: Manny and Josie live one street to the north. Stupidly, our streets bear the same name, and so postal workers and various service persons routinely go to the wrong address. And  Manny will NOT forward misdelivered mail! They just throw it in the garbage, far as I can tell.

So now presumably the garbage scavengers (of which we have a-plenty) have had access to my name, address, and a brand-new AMEX card. 😀 Today I have to call American Express and get them to send me a new one. Again. Meanwhile, I still have no credit card!

Nor do I have a card for my Medigap insurance. Today I’ll have to jump through that set of punch-a-button hoops, too. Together, those will absorb some time and create some more unwelcome aggravation. Oh well.

Speaking of unwelcome aggravation, the alleged squamous cell carcinoma is looking somewhat better today. I suspect Young Dr. Kildare’s pronouncement — that I have skin cancer, not ringworm — was yet another misdiagnosis. It takes about two weeks for the antifungal cream to kick in…and last Friday was the start of Week 2. It may be that not enough time had passed, by the time I saw YDK for the gunk to start to work. Last night I was NOT awakened at three in the morning with frantic itching and burning. And the lesion looks less inflamed than it did. In the “looks” department, I have to say it sure does look a lot more like images of tinea manum (ringworm on the hand) than like images of skin cancer. They are, in some ways, similar. But…well…we shall see.

In exploring the Hypochondriac’s Treasure Chest That Is the Internet, I learned that an outbreak of ringworm can be brought on by prolonged stress, which can weaken your immune system.

That would explain a lot, eh?

Coccidioides…the causative organism?

And speaking of aggravation, I remain convinced — nay, I’m more and more convinced — that MarvelVet misdiagnosed Cassie grievously — and possibly deliberately. I think this dog picked up whatever bug was going around, the one his staff told me at the outset she probably had and for which they originally prescribed the Temaril-P, which acts as a cough suppressant. I never did learn what that bug was…whether it was viral or bacterial. But its signal characteristic was a cough. Cassie may not have thrown it off as fast as expected because it either progressed to a bacterial infection or started as one.

She was slowly getting better by the time 2Ovet prescribed an antibiotic for what she says is about as bad a UTI as a dog can get. But two days on doxycycline and voilà! The cough has subsided to the point where she no longer hacks and wheezes when lifted off the bed and even sometimes can drink water without choking and wheezing. Doxycycline is a broad-spectrum antibiotic — meaning it acts on the two broad classes of bacteria, gram-positive and gram-negative.  What this means, if my speculation about the cough is correct, is that it would attack the cause of the cough (assuming it’s not viral) as well as the cause of the UTI.

There are some serious risks to broad-spectrum antibiotics. On the other hand, there’s a serious risk to pneumonia, too…

I wish I were not such a damn cynic…but I am. I cannot get past the suspicion that the “misdiagnosis” I sense was deliberate misdiagnosis. MarvelVet’s claim that Cassie’s UTI was negligible and did not need to be treated was just plain false. I saw the results; the numbers were as high as they get. The dog had a serious UTI, and that is why she was bleeding into her pee. He may have realized that treating her with an antibiotic likely would clear up the cough. And that would take me and my dog and my credit card out the door.

Valley fever is a huge profit center. The cost of treating the disease is bracing, and the treatment goes on for a minimum of six months but often for the remainder of the animal’s life…which can be years. One of my friends, who says she’s lost four dogs to Valley fever, said she was spending $300 a month on the drugs. MarvelVet has a link to a compounding pharmacy (a remark he made suggested he owns it or has an interest in it), and so he was giving me a month’s worth of pills for $40. But…either way…just think of that.

At $40 a month, that’s $480 a year. Just 10 doggy patients diagnosed with “Valley fever” — correctly or not — will bring you $4800 a year. But if you can get $300 a month, that’s $3600 per patient per year, or $36,000 a year if you can diagnose 10 dogs with it. Holy shit! That doesn’t even include the $500 he charged for the tests.

MarvelVet has a large, active practice — he is a very busy man, indeed. And one could argue that he’s so busy that of course he makes an occasional mistake with an off-the-cuff diagnosis.And you certainly could figure that 10 cases of Valley fever would be on the low end for that practice.

I’d like to believe this was a mistake. But…man! The money motive is there, in a big way.

As for the adrenal tumor? Well…the dog is 12 years old. She’s not going to get out of this world alive. She’s near the end of her breed’s average life span. It would be surprising if she didn’t have some life-threatening ailment.

Just now, though, she surely isn’t behaving as though her life was threatened. Half of adrenal gland growths are benign. So she does have a 50-50 chance of staying well. At least for awhile.

Comes the Deluge…

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Wow! What a fantastic day!

It’s been raining since about 8:30 this morning. Temps in the 70s. Naturally, I’d put off driving up to 2nd Opinion Vet’s office to pick up the doxycycline she wants to inflict on poor old Cassie’s urinary tract infection. So I had to shoot up there under darkening skies. Darted in, grabbed the pills, ran back out, jumped in the car…and the skies opened!

Along came a downpour like the great old rainstorms we used to get back in the day, before Arizona was destroyed by development and too damn many people, parking lots, buildings, and machines. Yeah: the kind of rain where you can barely make out the road in front of you. 🙂

Without the fiberglass cover over the back porch, rain sluices right down onto the pavement, which tends to turn into a lake. But interestingly, despite a LOT of rainfall, water did not come up to the back doors’ threshholds. Apparently when the cover was there, it channeled so much water to the rocks off the back patio (submerged in this picture) that the French well and rock “river” couldn’t handle it. If the amount that fell today couldn’t flood that patio up to the level of the back door, presumably the back door and slider are pretty safe from water damage.

Got home without incident, mostly because there weren’t many people on the road early on a Saturday morning. It’s now 3:30 and the rain has just let up. The local play-nooz is reporting that October is now the 2nd wettest month on record (right! I’ll believe that when pigs fly). Whatever: the pool is now filled to the coping. Another few inches of rain and it will overflow. I probably need to open the valve on the filter to let some of that water out, but truth to tell, I have no idea what will happen when I do. So…discretion being the better part…

How do you like this little toadstool that popped up in the rain? Cute little guy, ain’t he?

Finished another two sections of the present client’s annual promotion & tenure paperwork. Ohhh dear God, am I ever glad not to be in the academy anymore! Crazy-making. And this woman: she’s like some sort of nuclear engine. A real powerhouse! When you look at what she’s been doing, you wonder when she has time to breathe at all, much less have a life.

Cassie is enjoying doggy moments when she seems MUCH better. This morning she was just about back to her old bright-eyed, yappy self. Never thought a dog’s barking would be a welcome sound! She does have her ups and downs, though. Right now she’s doping off on the bed again. The vet said the doxycycline could have some unpleasant side effects, but so far…so good. But of course, she’s only swallowed one of them.

She’s still unduly thirsty and still peeing gallons, but no longer on the floor. She can make it outside, and she doesn’t have to pee every 20 minutes. Thirst and frequent, copious urination are symptoms of Cushing’s disease — i.e., something wrong with the adrenal glands. BUT…they’re also side effects of Benadryl, with which I’ve been dosing her copiously. It seems to have helped the cough significantly, although the cough and wheeze have not gone completely away. And they’re side effects of prednisone, of which I suspect she was given too much. She’s much better…but lifting her off the bed presents a problem in the breathing department: the weight of her chest on my arms as I lift her down apparently sets off a coughing/wheezing spree. So…yeah…there’s something wrong there.

Coughing, though, seems not to be a sign of Cushing’s. We shall find out, sooner or later.

2nd Opinion Vet made a few remarks that were unwittingly revealing… She said that one of those ultrasound scans costs $450 to $500 — this was said in the context of her mild surprise when I said I couldn’t afford to spend vast amounts of money trying to keep a 12- or 13-year-old dog alive. When I told her that MarvelVet had comped the ultrasound, she was startled.

Now, he may have done that out of the Goodness of His Heart. He is a very nice man, after all. So it seems. But…I’ve begun to suspect that he thinks he misdiagnosed the supposed Valley Fever and in doing so gave her two drugs that he shouldn’t have given her. Either one would have made her very sick. The fluconazole, as we’ve seen, damn near killed her. The Temaril-P probably was responsible for the incontinence, explaining why that phenomenon is going away now that the Temaril has about worn off. He probably figures he practiced mal, and he’d better find some way to make up for it. Or to cover it with a convenient other ailment.

And lo! there is an other ailment, all right: 2nd Opinion Vet finally got a copy of the ultrasound — days after requesting it — and she said there indeed is a mass on one of the adrenal glands, but it’s impossible to tell what kind of mass it is. She uses the term “Cushing tumor,” which doesn’t seem to be standard — at least, I’m not finding it. At any rate, there’s a 50/50 chance the tumor is benign. The only way you can know is to take it out and biopsy it.

I can’t afford $1000 to operate on a dog that’s this close to the end of her normal life span. That sounds awfully cold…but it’s a fact of life. I don’t have thousands and thousands of dollars to spend on a pet…and if that’s what’s involved in taking in a pet, then obviously I can’t afford to have a pet.

A urinary tract infection is among several signs of Cushing’s disease, the effect of a tumor on an adrenal gland, and so if the tumor is non-benign,  she may  never go back to normal. But…it’s worth knowing that Cushing’s can also be caused by over-administration of steroids — of which prednisone is one. And we did give her two rounds of that stuff. Often iatrogenic Cushing’s clears up after you quit dosing the dog…although the stuff can do permanent damage. Gee, doc…thank you so much for telling me that [not!]. Do I have to look up every goddamn thing for myself?

2OV was also startled when I told her MarvelVet said her UTI was so minor as to be insignificant and did not need treatment. She said the numbers were about as high as they can get. Which would explain why the poor dog was peeing out undiluted blood. I gave the stuff to Ruby, who came to me from the breeder with a UTI, and she had no problem. This dog is agèd and has been very sick, indeed, and so we could see some side effects. But we won’t know until we try it. If it works, though, she may be OK. Also, if the cough is from a bacterial infection, the doxycycline may help with that. Which brings us to another gripe: MarvelVet has not sent the purported X-ray of Cassie’s lungs and heart to 2OV…hmmm…. Was there even a real X-ray, or did he show me some other dog’s X-ray to scare me into paying for expensive treatment for Valley fever?

2OV did not say so but she sounded a little nonplussed by MarvelVet’s prognosis that the dog will live about 3 months if left untreated.

Arrrghhh! I feel like the Wicked Witch of the West to be so skeptical about all this. But my own Adventures in Medical Science — to say nothing of past Adventures in Veterinary Science — incline me that way. I just have the worst feeling that this thing is not only a tempest in a teapot, it’s a fraudulent tempest….

Meanwhile, speaking of Adventures in M.S., I’m not yet very alarmed about the alleged skin cancer thing. In the first place, we don’t know that it is skin cancer. Young Doctor Kildare a) is not a dermatologist and b) is a D.O., not an M.D. Although osteopaths are licensed to practice medicine in this state, a D.O. from Midwestern University is not the same as an M.D. from Johns Hopkins or some such. YDK’s sterling quality is COMMON SENSE. And we see this characteristic here: Duh! Send this woman off to a dermatologist.

Hmmm…and lookee here: the lady is not just an M.D., she’s listed in U.S. News and World Report!

I haven’t been able to get in to a dermatologist for years. They’re all backed up for six months or more — literally, you can NOT get an appointment. So YDK’s having shoved me in to see this woman — in three days flat — is quite a little feat. And a relationship with her will be valuable for me, because when you live in Arizona you really should go to a dermatologist about once every year or two and have all the colorful growths that sprout inspected. Just about everybody who lives here permanently eventually gets some kind of skin thing.

Seventy-one degrees and a rainbow over the ’hood!

Month from Hell: It gets even BETTER!

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Honest to God. If you wrote this stuff into a novel, no one would believe it. Really: it has been just about a disaster a day for the past month or six weeks. Today’s disaster: cancer.

Yeah. The thing I thought was ringworm? Young Dr. Kildare believes it’s skin cancer. He thinks it’s a squamous cell carcinoma.

Charming.

Mine doesn’t look quite like the things in those images. There are some infections you can get that actually look a lot more like it. Whatever it is: dayum! Another little drama…another PITA.

Truth to tell, though: this is a blessing in disguise. I have not been able to get in the door to a dermatologist since my last dermatologist fell off the radar. In our parts, their schedules are so jammed with skin cancer patients and Baby Boomers seeking rejuvenation treatments (which apparently is where the big bucks are…) that many of them won’t even make an appointment with you. Even at the Mayo, where I’m a patient, the wait list is six months.

He gave me a referral, and incredibly, when I dialed the number…are you ready for this?…a live human being answered the phone!!!!!

Jayzus. I don’t know when I last ran into a human being on the phone at a doctor’s office…not in living memory. 😀

Anyway, they arranged to see me on Tuesday. Not only that, but the doc will do a full-body exam, which will give me a chance to ask is there’s anything she can do about the damn neurofibromas. And of course, get rid of the current crop of actinic keratoses, which anyone who lives in Arizona for many years routinely sprouts.

So I don’t feel like it’s exactly world-ending. It’s just another damn nuisance to soak up time. The drive to YDK’s office takes a good 40 minutes, and this dermatologist is even further west — basically out in the vicinity of Sun City, only further to the south.