Spent most of the day banging around in 112-degree heat. Dawn cracked straight into the windshield as the Dog Chariot cruised east (halfway to freaking Payson!) toward the Mayo.
The Mayo Clinic, which runs the only hospital in the Phoenix area that consistently scores high in patient safety and overall quality, would prefer not to have to deal with Medicare patients, who don’t return as much cash as folks with private insurance. So if you’re not already a patient there when you turn 65, you’re not about to become a patient. You can stay if you were enrolled in their records as one of their doctors’ patients before you go on Medicare, but once you are a Medicare patient, you have to show up at least once a year, whether you need care or not. If you don’t, out you go!
To complicate that matter, my long-time doc, who had done his residency at the Mayo (way back in the day!) and later rejoined the clinic the instant the Mayo built its Scottsdale facility, has retired. So I was assigned to a young thing who looks like she graduated from high school about six weeks ago. 😀 In fact, she has an M.D. and a fancy set of internship and residency credentials and she’s been around for awhile. But she sure doesn’t look it from this vantage point.
So anyway, nothing would do but what I had to run out there for a fishing expedition annual checkup, a profitable custom that has been widely debunked as rarely helpful and often harmful to patients. Ordinarily I wouldn’t do that, but I felt boxed into it, not wanting to be thrown onto the mercy of the local health providers, who like to give themselves annoyingly specious, self-congratulatory corporate names like “Honor” and “Dignity.” {snarkity!}
Other than the waste of about two hours of my time (a five-minute blood draw at 8 a.m. and then sitting around until 9:40 to see the doc), little was accomplished there.
Except her parting shot was “I’d like to suggest you get the newer pneumonia vaccine and a tetanus-diphtheria-pertussis shot.”
Well, I’ve been thinking the same thing for quite awhile, and every now and again figure I ought to raid a Walgreen’s or Safeway pharmacy and demand the same. But by the time I’ve picked up the eye shadow or the potatoes, I forget. Yeah. It’s a function of old age: no focus.
So this was good. The last community-acquired pneumonia shot I had was a freebie we got as a benefit for Great Desert University employees. That type protects against about a dozen strains of pneumonia. The newer version fends off another 23 varieties. The older you get, the more vulnerable you are to this class of diseases. Pneumococcal pneumonia kills about 1 in 20 of people over 65 who get it. Pneumococcal bacteremia and pneumococcal meningitis each kill about 1 in 6 gray-haired victims.
As for the DPT shot (now called TDaP): the last time I had one of those, I think, I was in junior high school. We got them all the time in Arabia, of course…along with cholera, typhus, typhoid, smallpox, and a variety of other horrible shots. In fact, I have quite a phobia of shots, as a result. But with age also comes wisdom…and a certain amount of don’t-give-a-damn-anymore nerve. Whooping cough — that is, pertussis — has made a comeback, thanks to the ninnies who don’t vaccinate their kids. And that disease can make anyone good and sick and can kill older adults. Diphtheria, a nasty disease, can also spirit you away.
At any rate, these two shots gave me a pair of sore arms and an overall stunned feeling. That notwithstanding, I had to trudge back across the city in the heat. Stopped at a gigantic Fry’s to look for some popsicle molds (found them, but they’re DINKY), to buy some popsicles (thereby to plagiarize their recipes by studying the contents lists), and a few other pieces of junk.
Interestingly, this gigantic supermarket did not carry frozen berries and fruits.
From there, race home, put away the food, turn around, and race back out: this time to Tempe, to meet with the business partner over a late lunch. That was fun! We always enjoy Tempe’s ineffable House of Tricks — if you’re ever in that burg, you should have lunch or dinner there.
Ate myself stupid; then proceeded back across the city on the surface streets, it being past the start of the rush hour by the time we parted. The freeway west-bound was dead stopped for several miles whilst I was heading eastward: one wreckie-poo and the damn thing turns into a vast ribbon-shaped parking lot.
The freeway-avoidance route took me past a Costco, where I dodged in to grab some frozen fruit: mango plus a medley of berries. This should make an incredible fruit pop!
Post-script: Ah-hah! New computer weirdness discovered! Have hit “publish” twice on this thing, and it won’t go online. Lovely.
The fruit pops sound like a nice poolside treat!
They are really refreshing on a 110-degree day. Nestle, believe it or not, makes a particularly delicious fruit popsicle thing under the brand name “Outshine.” Some stores sell a line of these Outshine things that do not contain added sugar, or at least not much, so even the dietetic types can eat them. Outshine posts the number of calories on the box for both the regular and the diet varieties.