Salam Brother's and Sister's,
Sister Aapa posted a thread about the experience of driving while being a Muslim, which was very funny indeed. It got me thinking about the thread where you show your country in pictures. Well, We all have had funny experiences while driving. Sharing them, and how we view our interactions within our world tells alot about who we are and how we view see ourselves within it. I encourage everyone to share a story. Here is mine.
Last month I had to visit the neurologist as a new patient (with this doctor) and I wrote about the experience on facebook. This is the "note" I wrote.
My Brain's Trip Around The World And How It Took My Body With It
Ok, so, today my brain took a trip around the world....and used my body to get there. If you have ever driven in and/or around my old hometown of Boston, then you know well what it's like. The one-way signs, the construction detours (without signs), the roads that say South when you are actually traveling North, the parking that's either non-existent or just in the middle of the street ("Hello North End...love your pizza! Please give my regards to the Don") and neighborhoods that require that you ignore traffic laws just to escape alive! Well, it seems that 'Balt-Moore' (as its pronounced down here) isn't all that different.
With a Johns Hopkins provided map in hand, I was traveling down I-95 to my new 'big city'. First, I pass the Howard County Fairgrounds. According to the sign, I found out that they will be selling children on 9/11. It read "kid sale 9/11"....hmmmm...yup. I live in the south. Home of the drawl, mint julep, and though we fought a war where 620,000 people died to destroy it....it seems that slavery is still alive and well. This Union girl is SO proud to be living down here in the Confederate South!
Friday, a work day, with its normal mid-day traffic. Lots of trucks and cars hauling around the products that make our lives so much easier. What do my wandering eyes see? An articulated dump truck (my son would have been sooo thrilled!) being carried on a tractor trailer followed by, get this, the propeller arm of a wind turbine! You know the kind I mean. The kind that the Cape and Islands residents who sail Nantucket Sound are trying to prevent from being built. The thing seemed to go on for miles! I mean, they look big in the air, spinning around and around, reminding me that I REALLY can't do spinning rides at amusement parks, but to see the them up close and personal...WOW! And I had the distinct pleasure to have seen TWO!
Down here, we have a lot of wildlife. It seems that Maryland actually LIKES having animals living in their state and does its best to preserve a place for them to live anywhere they can, be it in the city or the country....or along highways. I nearly jumped out of my skin when all of a sudden, these two humongous birds with wingspans longer than I am tall (5'5"/1.65 meters btw) came swooping out from the trees on my right, into my line of sight not more than 60'/18.288 meter off the ground and not more than 60'/18.288mtr from the hood of my car, crossed the highway and away! I yelled "HOLY MOTHER OF HEAVEN!". I thought for sure I had seen eagles. As a Native American that would be like seeing Christ himself. Nope. Cranes, Blue Heron Cranes I think but they were back-lit so I couldn't be sure, the bird of the Medicine People. Then, after getting my car back into the correct lane.....
Ah, Balt-Moore. I had arrived. Map in hand, reading each turn, flipping off the people I had cut off because I had no idea that those cars in front of me just past the light, the ones in MY lane, were parked in a parking zone...
I was lost. It seems that Johns Hopkins University, with its wonderful buildings, first class hospital staff, world renowned educational knowledge bank, diverse population... doesn't know how to make a map accurately. They never made ONE mention of the fact that at a certain point, at a certain IMPORTANT ROAD TURN, it is split by another road into Noooorth and SOOOUTH. EEEEEAST and WEEEEEEST. Nope. Not one mention. I would have had liked to have known that little fact. I would have saved myself about 15 minutes of driving around in circles. I traveled from Little Italy, which made me hungry, to Meh-he-co in East L.A, which made me scared, to Evangelical Florida, which made me angry. I think I went to Nepal but it's such a small country and the lights were all green that I'm not sure. I had no idea where China was but I imagine it was somewhere. After pausing to ask a telephone repair man what continent I was on, I eventually made my way to a sign that said "Patient/Visitor Parking". Hallelujah! I found paradise!
Spinning. Spinning. Spinning (didn't we already cover this topic?). Up to the third level of the parking garage I went, stomach in hand, a space I did see. The heavens open up and angels sang. Good thing too because I was 15 minutes late! After wondering if I was ever going to find my way to the right building, I go in through the door. Swallowed by the building of medicine where the patients walk around scared and confused, the doctors walk around asleep and the other staff run at breakneck speeds. Into the elevator I go..."floor 2...ding...floor 3...ding...floor 4...ding...floor 5...ding" says the elevator's computerized voice that reminded me of Steven Hawking. I exit.
Left turn and HEY! Neurology! What happens, "Here, may I give you a number and I'll be right with you". The white ticket says "we respect your privacy"....I think, 'Can I have a pound of smoked turkey and a half pound of land-o-lakes white please'? I sit down in chairs that I seriously thought about stealing because I found them deeply 'enveloping' and start to fill out the rest of the pre-mailed medical health book. I can't really call it forms because it was six pages long!...."with lines and circles and a paragraph on the back"! "Now serving number...78". I was number 80. Quick phone call to mom for some information.
Keep in mind, this is her father I'm asking her about and she attended his death.
ME:"Hey mom, at the neurologist and I need to fill out health history. When did Papa die"?
MOM:"I don't know"
ME:"How old was he when he died"?
MOM:"I don't know."
ME:"What was his cause of death"?
MOM:"Um, it was complications from cancer."
HEY! Something she could answer..... My mother, the medical employee. So wordy. So informative. So delightfully warm.
ME:"Do you know what kind?"
MOM:"Hmmm...It was prostate cancer that had gone into his bones and into his brain"
ME:" Ostio-mystytus."
I had a patient while working in hospice that had that....not a good thing. Makes osteoporosis seem like a head cold in terms of bone density.
MOM:"Yeah, that was it."
ME:"Thanks mom, gotta go."
No matter how many forms you fill out, I've noticed that in some cases, they just can't cover everything in a a persons life that's medically related.
Now serving number....80. Whew! my turn. Ok, so there I am, new patient, new state, new health card, new accent. I chat it up with the clerk taking my order...I mean my information. Pleasent lady. I mentioned how I had never lived outside of Massachusetts before and she told me that she'd never lived outside Maryland. I was much younger than she was...hehe. I felt better.
I return to my seat to await sentencing...
DOCTOR:"Jennifer Go-v"?
ME:"PRESENT!"
As I walked to the principal's office I see a man who strangely, looked exactly like I knew he would. Did I see him in a dream at some point? It's happened before.
DOCTOR: "Is it Go-v?"
ME:" Gee-o-vee...everyone gets it wrong"
DOCTOR: "I'm sorry. I'm Doctor Krauss, nice to meet you."
This Doctor was an older man who walked around like half the school had been on his shoulders for too long. White hair. White beard that needed a trim. White coat. Yup. Standard issue Doctor. My previous Neurologist, the handsome and kind Dr. Andrew S. Blum, had done his residency with this man. Talk about a patient going up in the world! I'd read online some reviews that were not so....kind about this man. I wondered how hard he would be to control....hehe! Dr. Blum pretty much let me control my own care, guiding me when I needed it but realizing that I actually HAD a functioning brain and was well versed in www.wikipedia.org.
Dr. Krauss and I chatted about Dr. Blum's current employ as the Head of the Neurology Department at Brown Universaty (yup, I only go for the VEEERY best) and was in charge of clinical side. Dr. Krauss remembered the lad. COOL!
We finally got down to business after he looked over my records quietly and then he had me do all the diagnostic-hands-on-touch your nose-follow my finger-pull my arm-walk ten paces kinda stuff. Have you ever seen the movie "Space Cowboys"? The scene where they are all doing the eye test and all pass, even though one is blind as a bat and the others just compete with each other to see who can read the chart the fastest?....Sometimes, like this time....
He takes my CDs of my MRI's that I had brought and goes into the other room to look at them......and the verdict is?
DOCTOR:" Well, as you know, you have a cavernoma. An impressive one..."
ME:"THANKS!" I was so proud! My little baby bundle of blood <sniff>.
It seems that in the doctor's opinion that I had several things going on. He thinks that the neurological events that had been happening were due to medicine toxicity. Sometimes the medicine isn't metabolized the same as normal and so the half-life (don't ask me to explain it, because I'll just get a headache) is extended and so instead of a half-life of say, 22 hours it changes to up to 60 hours. You know how when you drink to much, your liver shuts down and can't process any more till you get rehydrated? Same process with drugs. My half-life was too high and I'd take my next dose, thus suppressing my neurological synapses TOO much. The facial pain. Yup, phantom pain caused from the facial fracture at the time of my first seizure. Options....live with it OR take a really big fat needle, shoot drugs into the maxillary nerve and deaden the nerve. Yup, lets just change the sensation from pain to NOOOTHING! I really enjoy walking around like I just came from the dentist, numb and unable to slurp my own spit...uh huh...yup. Granted, I'm exaggerating but hey, this is MY story! Writer's privilege and all that.
DOCTOR: "You are on a massive dosage. Normally we have people on 300mg and you are on 630mg."
ME, thinking to myself: "WooooHoo! I'm just impressive all around! I don't normally get this many compliments."
DOCTOR:"We also have a 'Life Stresser's' scale that we use to evaluate a persons level of functioning compared to the level of stress they have. You however are off the chart for stress but are managing quite remarkably".
ME:" You have a scale for that?!" Wow, another score for me!
So in the end, my migraines are normal hormonal menses-related pains in the...head. My face is phantom pain, my neurological events are basically from an overdose of anti-seizure drugs and I'm doin' juuuuust fine. Hmmm...I think he wasn't with me long enough. Just wait till he gets to know me better! lol!
Out the door, down the hall, down the magic room otherwise known as an elevator, around another corner and I discover sunshine. Inhale. Exhale. ahhhhhhhhhh. I get to my car, try to read the map in the dark that does NOT have reverse direction directions. Ok, I'll just stop outside and read them. No problem. Do you sense something or a pattern happening here? Spinning. Spinning. Spinning...ugh. Anyone got any Dramamine?
I read the directions. Suuuure, no problem. Left, left, right....oh no! A one way! Where's the street I missed. So, once again, I take a tour of the world. This time, I asked a man outside an Italian restaurant who was wearing a shirt that was white with pink pinstrips, white collar and red tie who was just standing around smoking a cigarette. Yup, ah huh, thank you sir'! ZOOOOOOOOOOM! The postman in Me-he-co was more acurate, and safer! lol! ok. I know the highway I need is in THIS direction. "HEY! It's not MY fault the road became a parking lot! Don't honk at meee!". HEY! I-95 North! Home, Here I come!....95 to 695 North. Um....Um...I see 695 east and west. Um...! which way do I go? I'll stay on 95 and hope.
Twenty miles later, at a welcome center in Savage, Md...yes, an Indian in SAV-AGE, Maryland (do you see the irony here?) asking a......black woman for directions. She had been helping a German man. So, with a fresh "I've gotten lost" map in hand and hand writen directions on a piece of paper, I set off south, so I can go north which will bring me west.
Police cars have a certain look. State police have monster cars that look like bullies, town cops have highly visable cars that you couldn't hide behnd a barn and sherrif cars are kinda a mix of the two. How about a "county police" with a bike on the back, lights and sirens ablaze? Little towns, they have their own version of reality.
.....and that my friends.....is the end of this story. <sigh>
Sister Aapa posted a thread about the experience of driving while being a Muslim, which was very funny indeed. It got me thinking about the thread where you show your country in pictures. Well, We all have had funny experiences while driving. Sharing them, and how we view our interactions within our world tells alot about who we are and how we view see ourselves within it. I encourage everyone to share a story. Here is mine.
Last month I had to visit the neurologist as a new patient (with this doctor) and I wrote about the experience on facebook. This is the "note" I wrote.
My Brain's Trip Around The World And How It Took My Body With It
Ok, so, today my brain took a trip around the world....and used my body to get there. If you have ever driven in and/or around my old hometown of Boston, then you know well what it's like. The one-way signs, the construction detours (without signs), the roads that say South when you are actually traveling North, the parking that's either non-existent or just in the middle of the street ("Hello North End...love your pizza! Please give my regards to the Don") and neighborhoods that require that you ignore traffic laws just to escape alive! Well, it seems that 'Balt-Moore' (as its pronounced down here) isn't all that different.
With a Johns Hopkins provided map in hand, I was traveling down I-95 to my new 'big city'. First, I pass the Howard County Fairgrounds. According to the sign, I found out that they will be selling children on 9/11. It read "kid sale 9/11"....hmmmm...yup. I live in the south. Home of the drawl, mint julep, and though we fought a war where 620,000 people died to destroy it....it seems that slavery is still alive and well. This Union girl is SO proud to be living down here in the Confederate South!
Friday, a work day, with its normal mid-day traffic. Lots of trucks and cars hauling around the products that make our lives so much easier. What do my wandering eyes see? An articulated dump truck (my son would have been sooo thrilled!) being carried on a tractor trailer followed by, get this, the propeller arm of a wind turbine! You know the kind I mean. The kind that the Cape and Islands residents who sail Nantucket Sound are trying to prevent from being built. The thing seemed to go on for miles! I mean, they look big in the air, spinning around and around, reminding me that I REALLY can't do spinning rides at amusement parks, but to see the them up close and personal...WOW! And I had the distinct pleasure to have seen TWO!
Down here, we have a lot of wildlife. It seems that Maryland actually LIKES having animals living in their state and does its best to preserve a place for them to live anywhere they can, be it in the city or the country....or along highways. I nearly jumped out of my skin when all of a sudden, these two humongous birds with wingspans longer than I am tall (5'5"/1.65 meters btw) came swooping out from the trees on my right, into my line of sight not more than 60'/18.288 meter off the ground and not more than 60'/18.288mtr from the hood of my car, crossed the highway and away! I yelled "HOLY MOTHER OF HEAVEN!". I thought for sure I had seen eagles. As a Native American that would be like seeing Christ himself. Nope. Cranes, Blue Heron Cranes I think but they were back-lit so I couldn't be sure, the bird of the Medicine People. Then, after getting my car back into the correct lane.....
Ah, Balt-Moore. I had arrived. Map in hand, reading each turn, flipping off the people I had cut off because I had no idea that those cars in front of me just past the light, the ones in MY lane, were parked in a parking zone...
I was lost. It seems that Johns Hopkins University, with its wonderful buildings, first class hospital staff, world renowned educational knowledge bank, diverse population... doesn't know how to make a map accurately. They never made ONE mention of the fact that at a certain point, at a certain IMPORTANT ROAD TURN, it is split by another road into Noooorth and SOOOUTH. EEEEEAST and WEEEEEEST. Nope. Not one mention. I would have had liked to have known that little fact. I would have saved myself about 15 minutes of driving around in circles. I traveled from Little Italy, which made me hungry, to Meh-he-co in East L.A, which made me scared, to Evangelical Florida, which made me angry. I think I went to Nepal but it's such a small country and the lights were all green that I'm not sure. I had no idea where China was but I imagine it was somewhere. After pausing to ask a telephone repair man what continent I was on, I eventually made my way to a sign that said "Patient/Visitor Parking". Hallelujah! I found paradise!
Spinning. Spinning. Spinning (didn't we already cover this topic?). Up to the third level of the parking garage I went, stomach in hand, a space I did see. The heavens open up and angels sang. Good thing too because I was 15 minutes late! After wondering if I was ever going to find my way to the right building, I go in through the door. Swallowed by the building of medicine where the patients walk around scared and confused, the doctors walk around asleep and the other staff run at breakneck speeds. Into the elevator I go..."floor 2...ding...floor 3...ding...floor 4...ding...floor 5...ding" says the elevator's computerized voice that reminded me of Steven Hawking. I exit.
Left turn and HEY! Neurology! What happens, "Here, may I give you a number and I'll be right with you". The white ticket says "we respect your privacy"....I think, 'Can I have a pound of smoked turkey and a half pound of land-o-lakes white please'? I sit down in chairs that I seriously thought about stealing because I found them deeply 'enveloping' and start to fill out the rest of the pre-mailed medical health book. I can't really call it forms because it was six pages long!...."with lines and circles and a paragraph on the back"! "Now serving number...78". I was number 80. Quick phone call to mom for some information.
Keep in mind, this is her father I'm asking her about and she attended his death.
ME:"Hey mom, at the neurologist and I need to fill out health history. When did Papa die"?
MOM:"I don't know"
ME:"How old was he when he died"?
MOM:"I don't know."
ME:"What was his cause of death"?
MOM:"Um, it was complications from cancer."
HEY! Something she could answer..... My mother, the medical employee. So wordy. So informative. So delightfully warm.
ME:"Do you know what kind?"
MOM:"Hmmm...It was prostate cancer that had gone into his bones and into his brain"
ME:" Ostio-mystytus."
I had a patient while working in hospice that had that....not a good thing. Makes osteoporosis seem like a head cold in terms of bone density.
MOM:"Yeah, that was it."
ME:"Thanks mom, gotta go."
No matter how many forms you fill out, I've noticed that in some cases, they just can't cover everything in a a persons life that's medically related.
Now serving number....80. Whew! my turn. Ok, so there I am, new patient, new state, new health card, new accent. I chat it up with the clerk taking my order...I mean my information. Pleasent lady. I mentioned how I had never lived outside of Massachusetts before and she told me that she'd never lived outside Maryland. I was much younger than she was...hehe. I felt better.
I return to my seat to await sentencing...
DOCTOR:"Jennifer Go-v"?
ME:"PRESENT!"
As I walked to the principal's office I see a man who strangely, looked exactly like I knew he would. Did I see him in a dream at some point? It's happened before.
DOCTOR: "Is it Go-v?"
ME:" Gee-o-vee...everyone gets it wrong"
DOCTOR: "I'm sorry. I'm Doctor Krauss, nice to meet you."
This Doctor was an older man who walked around like half the school had been on his shoulders for too long. White hair. White beard that needed a trim. White coat. Yup. Standard issue Doctor. My previous Neurologist, the handsome and kind Dr. Andrew S. Blum, had done his residency with this man. Talk about a patient going up in the world! I'd read online some reviews that were not so....kind about this man. I wondered how hard he would be to control....hehe! Dr. Blum pretty much let me control my own care, guiding me when I needed it but realizing that I actually HAD a functioning brain and was well versed in www.wikipedia.org.
Dr. Krauss and I chatted about Dr. Blum's current employ as the Head of the Neurology Department at Brown Universaty (yup, I only go for the VEEERY best) and was in charge of clinical side. Dr. Krauss remembered the lad. COOL!
We finally got down to business after he looked over my records quietly and then he had me do all the diagnostic-hands-on-touch your nose-follow my finger-pull my arm-walk ten paces kinda stuff. Have you ever seen the movie "Space Cowboys"? The scene where they are all doing the eye test and all pass, even though one is blind as a bat and the others just compete with each other to see who can read the chart the fastest?....Sometimes, like this time....
He takes my CDs of my MRI's that I had brought and goes into the other room to look at them......and the verdict is?
DOCTOR:" Well, as you know, you have a cavernoma. An impressive one..."
ME:"THANKS!" I was so proud! My little baby bundle of blood <sniff>.
It seems that in the doctor's opinion that I had several things going on. He thinks that the neurological events that had been happening were due to medicine toxicity. Sometimes the medicine isn't metabolized the same as normal and so the half-life (don't ask me to explain it, because I'll just get a headache) is extended and so instead of a half-life of say, 22 hours it changes to up to 60 hours. You know how when you drink to much, your liver shuts down and can't process any more till you get rehydrated? Same process with drugs. My half-life was too high and I'd take my next dose, thus suppressing my neurological synapses TOO much. The facial pain. Yup, phantom pain caused from the facial fracture at the time of my first seizure. Options....live with it OR take a really big fat needle, shoot drugs into the maxillary nerve and deaden the nerve. Yup, lets just change the sensation from pain to NOOOTHING! I really enjoy walking around like I just came from the dentist, numb and unable to slurp my own spit...uh huh...yup. Granted, I'm exaggerating but hey, this is MY story! Writer's privilege and all that.
DOCTOR: "You are on a massive dosage. Normally we have people on 300mg and you are on 630mg."
ME, thinking to myself: "WooooHoo! I'm just impressive all around! I don't normally get this many compliments."
DOCTOR:"We also have a 'Life Stresser's' scale that we use to evaluate a persons level of functioning compared to the level of stress they have. You however are off the chart for stress but are managing quite remarkably".
ME:" You have a scale for that?!" Wow, another score for me!
So in the end, my migraines are normal hormonal menses-related pains in the...head. My face is phantom pain, my neurological events are basically from an overdose of anti-seizure drugs and I'm doin' juuuuust fine. Hmmm...I think he wasn't with me long enough. Just wait till he gets to know me better! lol!
Out the door, down the hall, down the magic room otherwise known as an elevator, around another corner and I discover sunshine. Inhale. Exhale. ahhhhhhhhhh. I get to my car, try to read the map in the dark that does NOT have reverse direction directions. Ok, I'll just stop outside and read them. No problem. Do you sense something or a pattern happening here? Spinning. Spinning. Spinning...ugh. Anyone got any Dramamine?
I read the directions. Suuuure, no problem. Left, left, right....oh no! A one way! Where's the street I missed. So, once again, I take a tour of the world. This time, I asked a man outside an Italian restaurant who was wearing a shirt that was white with pink pinstrips, white collar and red tie who was just standing around smoking a cigarette. Yup, ah huh, thank you sir'! ZOOOOOOOOOOM! The postman in Me-he-co was more acurate, and safer! lol! ok. I know the highway I need is in THIS direction. "HEY! It's not MY fault the road became a parking lot! Don't honk at meee!". HEY! I-95 North! Home, Here I come!....95 to 695 North. Um....Um...I see 695 east and west. Um...! which way do I go? I'll stay on 95 and hope.
Twenty miles later, at a welcome center in Savage, Md...yes, an Indian in SAV-AGE, Maryland (do you see the irony here?) asking a......black woman for directions. She had been helping a German man. So, with a fresh "I've gotten lost" map in hand and hand writen directions on a piece of paper, I set off south, so I can go north which will bring me west.
Police cars have a certain look. State police have monster cars that look like bullies, town cops have highly visable cars that you couldn't hide behnd a barn and sherrif cars are kinda a mix of the two. How about a "county police" with a bike on the back, lights and sirens ablaze? Little towns, they have their own version of reality.
.....and that my friends.....is the end of this story. <sigh>
LOL.