Tag: Physician

Oh – My Toe

How do you know if you’ve broken your toe?

After I slammed mine into the side of the bathroom cabinet&#185, I started writhing on the floor in pain. That seems to be sign number one.

Swelling, which began almost immediately, is probably sign two.

To me, the clincher was when Helaine asked me to look at the toes in question. Instead of being parallel, they were making a “V”. It looked something like the intersection of Broadway and 7th Avenue in Times Square.

I pushed the toes back together with the ‘pinky’ toe making a snap sound as it went back into place.

They are currently taped together. It is my understanding toes don’t get professionally set after they break. Tonight, I am the physician pro se.

&#185 – This cabinet has been in our bathroom for 15 years. I should know where it is. If asked, I will claim to my dying day, it jumped out at me.

Blogger’s note: This morning, while at the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation kickoff breakfast, Steve the doctor called. He was looking for computer tech support… and I asked about my toe. Maybe it’s not broken after all. Possibly it was only dislocated. It still hurts like crazy. Not my week for pain.

Help, I’ve Been Shot

This is the year of the flu shot tease. First everyone was hyped to the danger of flu… how it was imperative that those at risk (now featuring me) take a shot. Then… oops… we won’t have enough.

The cause was contamination, though the type of contamination was never specified. Did they cook this stuff up in a bathtub? Were open vials of vaccine stored in someone’s car? No one’s telling me.

All of a sudden I went from a prime candidate to an unnecessary burden on the overtaxed system. There would be no flu shot for me.

On the news, we did a number of stories showing seniors (a group I’m getting much too close to) waiting in line, outside, to get a shot. It was despicable. This was an insult to those seniors, making them queue up and wait. Even then, often the shots ran out before the line was through.

This was really no better than having them beg for medicine. Even with a paucity of serum, the distribution was so poorly organized that a bad situation became worse.

There still aren’t enough shots to go around, but the real panic has eased.

Recently my physician let me know he had two shots left. In many ways our email conversation resembled someone with hard to get tickets to the Super Bowl or a hot concert. I was quiet about it, lest I set off some flu vaccine frenzy.

I wasn’t taking vaccine that was otherwise needed. He couldn’t send them to a health agency, because they didn’t take ‘sing;es’. He had serviced all his high risk patients. Helaine and I could be his last inoculations for this season.

Today we went and got them.

I think it’s well established that I am a wuss as far as needles are concerned. This was relatively painless. Compared to the blood I often have drawn for cholesterol tests and the like, this was over in an instant. And now Helaine and I are safe from flu.

This pretty much guarantees the shot was unnecessary, right?

Treadmill Time

Along with dieting, I had promised Helaine that I’d spend time exercising. Exercise is something I have successfully avoided my entire life.

I am not an athlete. When I was a kid, and sides were being chosen for punchball (In Flushing, a hugely popular baseball derivative played with a hollow pink rubber ball), everyone hoped for an odd number of kids so I wouldn’t have to play. Even I knew my limitations.

The older I got, the more sedentary I became. That’s probably true of most adults. I know I should exercise, but… well, if it was fun, everyone would do it – me included. Plus, there are other more important things to do.

OK – I pretty much felt anything was more important. Look, it’s a new Ron Popeil infomercial.

But, as I said, I promised. So, over the past few weeks I have been hitting the treadmill. I had written here on the blog that when I finished, rather than feeling better, I felt like I was going to die. I got an email from my physician, Steve. He had read the blog and told me how wrong I was.

Sometimes I hate the truth.

OK – I hear you all. I’m trying. Honest I am. At least 3-4 times a week I’m moving my legs, sweating like a pig, feeling like George Jetson over the closing credits.

I haven’t increased the time I spend on the treadmill, but I have increased the time I spend sprinting. A few days ago, while going for coffee, I picked up the sidewalk pace and was surprised to not be winded. In fact I am sure I have more stamina when jogging on the treadmill than I did when I started.

Is this life extension? Who knows. There are statistics that say it should be, but individuals don’t live statistical averages. Our lives are comprised of what scientists call anecdotal incidents, each of which could easily diverge from the average.

What I’m saying is, if I keel over from all this exercising I’ll really be upset.

Blogger’s note: I am now down to 174 pounds. I have passed my weightloss goal, but will continue at least until our July vacation.

Tech Support

Wednesday night was tech support night. Between shows I drove to my friend Steve’s home, no more than 10 minutes from the station. He’s a great guy, and his wife is nicer.

He’s my physician, so I fix his computer and he fixes me. It seems like a decent arrangement, though there’s probably more downside risk to me should a problem go unfixed.

He had muddled along in computing for years. With the birth of his first grandchild, his computing needs increased. There were photos to tweak and upload – which led to a scanner and DSL connection (I’m much more a fan of cable modems than DSL, but that’s another story for another day).

What had been a reasonable, older Gateway system has become a problem. The photo work pushes it to its limits – slowing him down. The screen is a 15″ CRT, running at 800×600 resolution. After all the menus and taskbars are drawn on the screen, it’s got the spaciousness of a New York City efficiency.

For most applications, any old PC will do. I hear stories all the time about people buying new computers, sending old ones to the trash heap. It drives me nuts!

I’ve gotten call telling me how a computer is running slower, as if computers atrophied. “Malware” can make a computer slow down, but it’s curable.

The dirty secret of the computing world is, most CPU speed is wasted. For Internet browsing, word processing and email, the vast majority of computers up to four or five years old are fine. All they usually need are a little more memory and hard drive space – both of which are easily added. Why spend big bucks if you don’t have to?

Steve’s computing problem relates to an incompatibility between a driver for his video card and the new scanner. Every time you set the scanner in motion, you get an error message referring to NV4DISP.DRV. Then the program just shuts down, as if nothing had happened.

There is nothing as cryptic as a Windows 98 error message. It offers little information and no hope.

My first line of defense is to go to Usenet via Google. Usenet is where nerds go to find other nerds. NV4DISP.DRV has been cited often on Usenet. Still, my first looks didn’t bring me a solution – and I still don’t have one.

It is possible that this old computer, with the video subsystem an integral part of the motherboard, has a fatal dislike for the scanner and they will never play well together. I don’t have my hopes raised. I will keep trying.

Physician – Heal Thyself

All week I’ve been talking about the cold temperatures and that you’ve got to respect the “3 P’s”: Pipes, People and Pets.

In the past, when the temperature has approached zero, we’ve had a problem with one pipe – bringing the hot water to our kitchen. The way our house is built, the kitchen juts out past the foundation, and the hot water pipe is right against an outside wall between the basement and first floor.

We drip a little water, and it’s just fine. And, when I came home, the water was dripping.

I had to wash out a dish I had brought to work for my dinner. As soon as I turned on the hot water, I realized the dripping had been on the cold side and the hot was frozen! Uh oh.

I went upstairs to get a blow dryer. It’s possible to thaw a frozen pipe, if the freeze isn’t too far from the exposed part of the pipe you’re heating, and if the freeze isn’t all that long in the pipe.

The cord on a blow dryer isn’t made to reach from a counter level outlet back under the sink. Up to the (very, very cold attic) to get an extension cord.

I had to clear the cabinet beneath the sink and pile our little home chemistry lab (well, that’s what’s under there) on the kitchen floor. I wedged the blow dryer on the pipe an turned it on.

Within a few seconds there was a drip. Thirty seconds later it was a tiny stream. Within a minute water (cold water) was flowing from the tap. Not long after that, it was hot. I washed the dish.

The one time our pipe really froze, we called Frank the plumber. It took him about 30 seconds, using what looked like an arc welding transformer to heat up my pipes by using them to carry high current electricity. To this day Frank is my hero.

Right now, the thermometer out my office window reads 0.3&#167! Sunrise doesn’t come for another 5&#171 hours. We might hit 5&#171 below zero – maybe more!