December 9, 2008
Tuesday
El Milagro: I arrive amidst the beginnings of sleet... yes, sleet in Austin! I am here and welcomed by the angelic face of Amanda the Great. Yes, she has become Amanda the Great. She is the perfectly lovely tech that makes an old geezer like me happy to come to dialysis. It kinda makes me think of the old Red Skelton skits with the bossomy nurses... or, the Lil' Abner cartoons with same... except she isn't really bossomy and there's really none of that Groucho Marx eye-brow raising lustiness of those characters. She is just happy, skilled, sweet, and a real pleasure to have stick you with a horse needle. So, we chat about kids and soccer and school coming to a close: she asks how long it takes me to grade a paper and I guestimate an hour to an hour and a half... why? She turned in a paper and hasn't gotten it back yet and wonders how long it'll take til she gets it back... and we discuss how many variables are involved in getting papers graded and turned back to students.
Mary the Nurse stops by to do my nursing evaluation and Sherri the Social Worker comes by to say that she thinks the $900 bill I got from Da Vita is probably a mistake... just something to get patients to sit up straight and take notice. I say I hope so too... but if it isn't; I've already got my payment plan worked into my budget: $10 bucks a month! I gave that bill to her along with my Medicare Application, which we have to get processed before too long... I am reaching the CAP on my insurance and will have to be Medicare Covered in the new year. This is not good news. So far, my dialysis has cost virtually nothing up until this year, when we finally had a somewhat expensive deductable. But under Medicare it'll cost money every month. Now is that I good deal or what? I'm sure there'll be much more on this subject... which I am gonna hafta learn about now.
I try to settle in to reading a book I found in my garage that I had been looking for off and on for about 10 years... and just couldn't sit still enough to concentrate on it. So, I watched some bad TV and drifted around in my thoughts; mostly about everything I've got to complete before I start my annual holiday vacation on the 18th.
I actually got so busy that I overscheduled myself for next week, finding I'll be in Houston all day on Tuesday. DUH. How could I forget I had dialysis that day? Was it a Jungian Slip? So, I had to tell Jay the Head Boss Nurse that I need dialysis on Wednesday next week cause I goofed up. He seems okay with it.
Before I know it my time is up and Rosie the Tech unhooks me and I am outa there thru the sleety streets shining with the city lights. Onward thru the fog.
Notes: In at 79.5 and out at 76.0
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