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Neta would enjoy this...
Jul. 1st, 2009 09:29 amA satire on how bad Canadian health care is provokes an angry defense of US healthcare from poorly informed Americans ... and a Canadian.
Jul. 1st, 2009
tick update
Jul. 1st, 2009 04:19 pmI called my old medical firm in Virginia this morning and got an appointment for 2.10 the same afternoon. I think (especially after going tot heir office in Arlington, which is about 15 minutes from work) that I'm giving up looking for a dr in MD and going back to them.
The PA who I saw looked at the bite, and the tick, and questioned me about how long it had been on before I removed it. He said he didn't think I needed to take the prophylaxis but the he would prescribe it to me if I wanted to be on the safe side (since it's just two pills, once, I did and have taken it). He said I should watch out for symptoms (the same ones on the websites I found about Lyme), but he said for the amount of time it was attached (less than 24 hours) and how small it was (not only a deer tick, but a very junior one at that) and the fact that it clearly hadn't been doing the suck-up-spit-back thing, it was highly unlikely I would get Lyme from it. (I will be taking better anti-tick precautions in future, though, when I go out in the woods.)
He did ask whether I'd had a physical since the last time I'd been in there (nearly two years, I think); I explained about the failed quest for a doc where I live but that I had been physicalled. He said "Well, you should schedule another one with us sometime soon. I don't know what your cholesterol is like now, but the last time we checked it, it looks like your levels were worse then Tim Russert's." So I got an appointment for a physical in two weeks. And I'd probably better start taking those damn fish oil pills again...
At this rate I might as well make an appt with my old dentist, too, the one I got from Mel with the SCARY dental assistant. Since I've trained myself to floss almost every day now (my one good thing for my health I've done lately), maybe she won't be quite so brutal...
OK, another couple of hours here, then home to do a lot of laundry...
The PA who I saw looked at the bite, and the tick, and questioned me about how long it had been on before I removed it. He said he didn't think I needed to take the prophylaxis but the he would prescribe it to me if I wanted to be on the safe side (since it's just two pills, once, I did and have taken it). He said I should watch out for symptoms (the same ones on the websites I found about Lyme), but he said for the amount of time it was attached (less than 24 hours) and how small it was (not only a deer tick, but a very junior one at that) and the fact that it clearly hadn't been doing the suck-up-spit-back thing, it was highly unlikely I would get Lyme from it. (I will be taking better anti-tick precautions in future, though, when I go out in the woods.)
He did ask whether I'd had a physical since the last time I'd been in there (nearly two years, I think); I explained about the failed quest for a doc where I live but that I had been physicalled. He said "Well, you should schedule another one with us sometime soon. I don't know what your cholesterol is like now, but the last time we checked it, it looks like your levels were worse then Tim Russert's." So I got an appointment for a physical in two weeks. And I'd probably better start taking those damn fish oil pills again...
At this rate I might as well make an appt with my old dentist, too, the one I got from Mel with the SCARY dental assistant. Since I've trained myself to floss almost every day now (my one good thing for my health I've done lately), maybe she won't be quite so brutal...
OK, another couple of hours here, then home to do a lot of laundry...