BLOOD PRESSURE RISING

WARNING: RANT AHEAD

A few weeks ago I tried to get a refill on a prescription for my low dose blood pressure medicine, but my request to my mail order pharmacy had been ignored when I was on vacation.  I returned home early this month and tried again, and finally heard from my (newish) doctor that he would refill it but I had to come in for a recheck on BP and labs.  OK, fine.  Made the appointment and went in.

First the nurse confessed there was a screw up along the line and my meds should have had a whole year of renewals instead of none.  Uh-huh.  Agree.  Then as she reviewed my med list she rattled off a bunch of supplements I had been taking but at my last visit the doc told me to stop some of them.  Guess they had not made that note in the electronic records (which were supposed to make things oh so much easier!)  When I told her he took me off them, she sort of rolled her eyes and said she still takes the supplements she wants to; she tries never to go to the doctor; her supplements are her business, etc etc.  Hmmm...team approach to health care?  When I laughed and said I would follow her advice, she did try to backtrack, but the damage was done.  Nurse undermining doc -- noted.

Then the doc came in and immediately after saying hi, without taking a breath, started telling me about his recent trip to NYC.  He went on and on about this and that person, event, meal, site, death in family, family birthday, Uber experience, income inequality in NYC, tips for being safe on the street, price of restaurants, gentrification of Brooklyn and his dislike of Queens ....  Interspersed was some minimal attention paid to why I was there, but really I learned MUCH more about his life than he about mine.

He reviewed the lab results and I think he was ready to leave me on the lower BP med dosage, in spite of my numbers being intermittently a little high and also seemed to want to ignore my rising cholesterol numbers since going off the previously prescribed statin from which I had some minor side effects.  He also said those labs shouldn't really have been done yet, since he'd need to repeat them in a few months, but he was out of town and, well, someone approved them.

I was actually glad we had the labs because with the new results I insisted he take the numbers seriously.   I have a family history of cardiac disease and vascular dementia/stroke and I want to be well-controlled, not borderline.  He said OK, but not to worry about dementia because most people don't get it and all you have to do is challenge your brain with new learning which is why he is learning French and then he showed me he has the French version of Harry Potter on his Kindle.  Sigh.

What I think should have been a 15 minute visit strung out to 40, but there was the value added travelogue and brain exercise tip, so no complaints.  And I got a good laugh out of the whole experience.  (Also, after two visits with this guy I'm looking yet again for a new doctor.)

Since that appointment last Friday I've waited for an email from the pharmacy to let me know my meds were on the way....thinking he'd called them into my mail order place.  No word yet, so today I went online to check.  No orders pending.  Then I thought maybe he called them into the local pharmacy so I called them.  Sure enough they had his order.  I asked why I hadn't received a call from them.

The tech on the phone said, "We didn't fill the orders because we didn't know if you wanted us to."  What?!?  Of course I wanted them to fill my prescription.  She said they often just wait to hear from the patient.  I was so confused, I let it go, telling her to fill them asap!

But the more I thought about it, the madder I got.  What the hell?  I called back for an explanation of the delay and the protocol for filling prescriptions.  A new tech told me they often get orders from docs that people do not intend to fill at that pharmacy if the patient isn't already in their system.  They don't have the staff or stock of medicines to fill orders that will never be picked up.  So they just hold the order until the patient calls in...eventually...as I did.

I let her know I've been using that pharmacy for 30 years on and off and I definitely should be in the system.  Turns out they were recently sold to another outfit and my information was there, but "old".

I fell into the category of "don't do anything until the desperate and/or irate patient figures out we aren't filling their prescription."  "We will go ahead only when the patient calls from their deathbed  due to untreated this or that because BY GOD WE, THE PHARMACY,  WILL NOT TAKE 2 MINUTES TO CALL AND GET THE PATIENT'S OK TO FILL A PRESCRIPTION CALLED IN BY THEIR PHYSICIAN!"

I do not have dementia (no foreign language study notwithstanding) and I speak English; I have a college education and fair degree of confidence in dealing with authority figures.  And I know how to navigate an infuriating health care system (with persistence).  What of those who have any number of difficulties that preclude figuring all this out?!?  I sort of ranted to the pharmacy tech that I hear loudly and clearly that it is obviously the patient's responsibility to coordinate their health care needs among all the various entities involved.  She basically agreed, but assured me I'm now current in their system.

I simply cannot fathom trying to negotiate all of this as a person who is critically ill, disabled, alone, hearing or vision impaired, mentally ill, maybe with a touch of dementia, whatever....  You have to be the picture of health to get appropriate health care!   And I'm not dealing with some back country mom and pop GP office.  This is the largest multi-specialty clinic in the region, with the ridiculous marketing slogan, "We're Here for Your Health".  Are you?  Are you really?

At least, that's the view from here...©

THE REAL DEAL

I TAKE IT ALL BACK!  The reason sappy and maudlin is so silly is that it's often based in fantasy.  (See post from 4/21/19).

Real deal on yesterday's Easter gathering:

I spent early Easter morning putting the finishing touches on the Easter baskets for the girls and hiding them.  I made sure all the stuffed eggs were ready to be hidden outside.  I set the table and pulled together a craft project for the girls to help decorate the table when they arrived.  I put on a pretty, frilly, lavender tunic and even earrings(!) instead of my usual hoodie.  I looked pretty!

Hub is the cook and he started to prep food.  Then we had a slight disagreement over whether he should prepare veggie-free eggs for the grandgirls who are picky about any weird things in their "normal" food.  I thought they'd balk at the veggie scramble and lobbied for plain "cheesy eggs", their favorite.  I won the argument, but the oldest decided to eat the scramble and the youngest decided not to eat her eggs at all.  (Well, except for plowing through the whites of 4 hardboiled eggs of various dyed colors.)  He was later happy to point this out to me and I recognized my tendency to anticipate and mitigate any possible discomfort others may experience.  (Apparently I will never learn to let well enough alone in that regard.)

Son One's family arrived first with smiles, hugs, and a giant fruit salad.  Son Two and his fiance arrived late with biscotti, their puppy, and what I perceived as a surly attitude from Son Two.  I went in for a hug, which was brief and returned without enthusiasm as he brushed by, mumbling, "I just need some coffee..." and made a beeline for the pot.  OK then.

I got the girls busy on the craft project as the adults gathered in the kitchen for coffee, biscotti, and mimosas.  Soon it felt the youngest granddaughter had been gone too long.  I went searching and found her alone in the bathroom, door closed.  Uh-oh.  I had hidden her Easter basket in the tub, thinking she wouldn't need to use the bathroom right away before the basket hunt commenced.  Well, she had found it and, alone, emptied it all over the bathroom floor.  My fantasy of all the adults going on the basket hunt, encouraging the girls, then sitting around them and oooing and ahhhing as they discovered the cool things the Easter Bunny had brought was dashed.

I was not upset with her, just asked her to bring her things out for all to see.  She refused.  She gathered them up, and decided to head to the closet in the Girls Room and wouldn't let anyone else see her things.  We left her to it.  Then again, it seemed she was gone a long time.  Oops.  The door had closed and she'd become "locked in" and no one heard her calling out.  It was only a brief time, but likely scary.  Once rescued, she still refused to let us all see her Easter things.

Big sister decided not to hunt for her basket right away and wanted to wait until after eating, at which point she went searching alone and unannounced and brought her basket to the kitchen and unloaded it on the countertop with only her dad and me standing by to watch; again thwarting my idea of having this be one of the highlights of the morning.  Oh well.

Brunch was yummy, although my meal was interrupted by youngest granddaughter needing to go potty and she strongly believes only I can help her.  This is a common occurrence and I don't mind at all; I've grown accustomed to eating cold food. 😉   At the end of the meal, our two family Game of Thrones nerds spent considerable time going over every plot point and fan theory of how it will all end.  I watch and enjoy, but had no idea the depth of knowledge and thought others put into it!  They were alone at the table by the time they'd realized the rest of us had moved on to other things.

After brunch Son Two, fully caffeinated at this point and in better spirits, went outside with me to the yard to hide plastic eggs.  Puppy came along and went wild running and rolling in the grass -- and finding the eggs!  We had to extract a couple from his excited jaws, but he'd downed the gummy worms and yogurt covered pretzels and was on the hunt for more, so we dashed around gathering up the lowest lying eggs and repositioning them, hoping the youngest would be able to find and reach them.

The hunt was mostly successful except for the puppy getting super excited to see what was in the baskets and at one point the youngest raised her basket over her head to protect her stash from curious pup, but she tipped the basket and all the eggs came tumbling down just at the edge of the yard where it drops off precipitously, but not too dangerously since there are thick bushes there.  Still, the eggs rolled out of sight, down the hill and under the bushes, necessitating Son One to go bush-whacking to retrieve them.  (We suspect a few are still down there since we came up short in the end.)

The girls brought their eggs inside and emptied the goodies into bowls but I soon discovered my attempt at "healthy treats" was not met with enthusiasm.  Guess nobody really likes dried banana chips or candied fruit.  The yogurt covered pretzels and cranberries were a hit, as were the Cheezits and gummy worms.  Good thing they each got one chocolate bunny in their baskets with toys, books, crafts, and clothes.

While the adults settled into various combinations of adult conversation, I spent time playing pretend with the girls (especially the little one) in a different room.  It was fun and the stuff of memories, but I also wanted to be part of the adult conversations.  I stole away from fantasy play for awhile to join in, continuing to take photos as I'd done all day, already planning my Facebook photo montage.  But at one point the talk turned to social media and Son One admonished me for my prolific posts.  (He who posts NOTHING, but obviously still looks at FB!)  My feelings got a little hurt, told him so, and he apologized, but point taken.  I only posted one photo of the day that night and let it go.  I've been told before by him (and others) that I post too much, and I realize more than hurt, I feel embarrassed, so again I'm going to limit my FB participation.  My desire for connections there with people I care about are rarely reciprocated anyway -- take a hint, Donna!

By mid-afternoon we were winding down...Son Two and Future DIL had other plans so they hit the road back to Seattle.  The grandgirls had been up at dawn for Easter baskets at their house, so they and their mom and dad were tired and ready for quieter family time and headed home too.  Alone, Hub and I looked at the remains of the day -- Easter grass everywhere, some tracked in mud from the garden, a stack of dishes to go in the dishwasher, Easter decorations to be dismantled and put back in the attic.  We had some work still to do.

As I went about the clean up tasks, I had to admit, it had not been perfect.  But my minor disappointments were just part of the experience.  I was grateful to have a family where no one yelled; no one hit their kids (we don't do that in our family!); the pup didn't run away or poop on the carpet; no one slammed doors or left in a huff; no one got drunk or fell asleep or turned on the TV to escape; no one even looked at their cell phones for any length of time -- only mostly to take photos.  As family togetherness goes, we do a pretty darn good job.  At the end of our time together, everyone eagerly got out their calendar to schedule the next family gathering, which will likely also be imperfectly real...and on it goes.

At least, that's the view from here...©
Photo Credit:  www.pixabay.com

ALL IN THE FAMILY

I don't write about my family all that much, as much as to protect their privacy as to not bore my readers.  But sometimes if feels there is a whole, important swath of my life I'm leaving out.  Lots of bloggers use their families for regular fodder, I just don't.   But, oops, here goes....

First, it's hard to write about them without getting sappy and maudlin, which reminds me of when I used to drink.  That was me after my third glass of chardonnay.  That or self-pitying.  Either way, not attractive, so I try to avoid sappy and maudlin.  Still....I do love my family members to the point of tears, which I try to keep private with moderate success.

I really am so lucky to be married to the same man for almost 47 years.  We met in high school; such a cliche to say "my high school sweetheart".  I don't know that we were ever "sweethearts", which has such an innocent ring to it.  Saying we were high school "mutual lust objects" might be closer to the truth.  That lasted awhile.  But by the time the initial "blush" wore off, we were basically unable or unwilling to disentangle our single selves from our coupledom, which had grown to include families, friends, common experiences, a few tragedies, and lots of fun times.  You know, relationship stuff.  There were stress points for sure and brief "time outs" but 4 years into it all we got married and on it went.  We had MANY stress points in our early married years and one big year-long time out when we lived separately, but then, well, we were still us and we decided to move to the East Coast together and take it one day at a time.  Then we moved to the West Coast and began our true "adult" lives and I guess we are still doing that. 

But sometimes things are still hard.  We haven't had the very best start to 2019.  It seems we've been drifting a bit, butting heads a bit, feeling our way into what I think is a new age and stage of life and marriage.  Neither of us is blameless just as neither of us is to blame either.  Life just gets messy and we've never been on this road before.  It's like when we travel and don't know where to turn, where to eat, where to find lodging; tempers flare for a time, then calm down, then we laugh, then it all starts again until we get familiar with the new territory.

We just returned from a vacation where one night, in the midst of another of our marathon 'processing' conversations,  I went into non-alcohol-fueled self-pity mode and decided he was a saint for putting up with me over all these decades.  I cried and told him I would understand if he was just finished with me.  I told him I'd understand if he wanted to just divorce, move on, and have the life he deserved.  I was obviously out of my mind, and he knew it.  He looked at me and with a weary sigh, said, "Now why would I want to do that?  I love you."  See?  Sainthood.  We are now past that storm; there will be others.  But we are still us.  Still here.  To the end, no doubt.

My sons.  I worry that I'm forgetting details of their childhoods that I thought I'd always remember.  I really need to get my old photos out of the box and remind myself of our lives back then.  I was a faithful journal-keeper too, but those journals likely make me sound like the most depressed, pissed off, overwhelmed woman on earth.  They were my place of catharsis when times were hard.  And times tended to be hard for a woman/wife/mother who was trying to be "supermom" and emotionally and physically exhausted from it all a lot of the time.  That said, those boys were my world, and seeing them now as adults, one with children of his own, is a little disorienting.  In their early 30's, successful, happy, independent, in loving relationships, eager to be part of family life with the rest of us, excited to gather for our weekly Family Dinners and holidays and birthdays...it really does bring me to tears of gratitude....

....which are different tears from those shed over childhood sibling battles (there are literal scars);  calls from frustrated teachers, teenaged broken hearts, alcohol and pot experimentation, college "antics" (that's not at all the right word and I'm sure I don't know the half of it), and times when the necessary separation from "mommy" made me feel kicked to the curb (and broken hearted) in spite of all my efforts to always be close to them.

There are no insurance policies against the bad stuff happening, so I'm glad those years were full of great and wonderful and fun times too: First girlfriends, school dances, football and crew, smart, funny friends hanging out at the house, long conversations, and many, many family trips and outings.  I'm grateful we moved through the hard stuff and came out OK, actually great, on the other side.  I'm thankful for every moment of the good stuff....and I still miss it some as the "boys" have moved their allegiances, experiences, and confidences to share with their women, as it should be, but still....

Grandkids.  I never really thought about having grandchildren.  I guess there is the whole 'circle of life' thing where on some level if you have kids you might assume one day there will be grandkids, but that's no guarantee, especially these days when any number of people forgo marriage and/or children.  It's all good.  So I just figured I'd sit back and see what happened.  What happened is Son One married a woman who had a baby girl from a previous marriage.  Instant Grandma.  Then they had another daughter together.  Son Two is getting married next year and ... well ... we will see.

For now the two granddaughters I do have have stolen my heart in a way I never would have thought.  And I also love that I can plainly see they are not perfect.  They are perfectly human with foibles and lovable aspects and so much to learn.  They delight and exhaust me and sometimes even make me mad.  I'm grateful they live nearby and I get to see them often, having them be part of our lives.  Selfishly, at their young ages I love how much they currently love me and want to be at our house all the time.  I know (having gone through this separation once with our sons) that one day they will not be so enamored of Grandma and Grandpa and might want to be anywhere but here.  But for now, I'm making it a priority to play pretend, do crafts, read books, volunteer in classrooms, host sleepovers, mend clothes, buy treats, go shopping, listen to problems and fears and joys, answer "life" questions, share family stories, act goofy, laugh at silly jokes, learn about kid music, dance together, sing loudly, and applaud their two-person plays put on for an audience of family adults.

So on this Easter Eve, I'm thinking of family....partly of the one I grew up in and realizing again that I am the only one left of my family of origin, my parents and brothers gone on to wherever we go when our bodies are finished.  That's a lonely feeling.  But also of the new "family of origin" I've created.  We are all still here; each in our own age and stage of life, each with our own joys and challenges, all gathering tomorrow for Family Brunch at our house, Easter Egg hunting in our yard, creating memories that may last for awhile before they fade.  Hopefully the feelings of sappy and maudlin love with remain.

At least, that's the view from here...©
Photo Credit:  www.pixabay.com