A Doctor a Day Keeps the Apples Away
Last week, I banked another pint of blood and saw three different medical specialists. At this point, I am trying to figure out if there is any area of medicine that is not going to get a chance at poking or prodding me.
As I said in a previous post, I donated another pint of blood to myself. That bruised the insides of both of my elbows since it took them two tries to get a vein.
Tuesday, I saw Dr. Han, the radiologist who treated me for my eye problem last fall, for a follow-up session. She is such a sweetheart! I told her about the cancer diagnosis and she reiterated what everyone else has said: that this is common and that a total hysterectomy will take care of it.
She also told me that she had had a hysterectomy and had done well during it.
Wednesday, I started the clear liquid diet for the colonoscopy and I saw a cardiologist. Generally, I have never like cardiologists, or cardiology for that matter. Cardiologists tend to be pompous and, in my experience, not the warmest of individuals. This dates back to my time spent as a staff writer for Cardiology Times. It is the only medical specialty that I have never felt any affinity for.
However, Dr. Jeffrey Fisher was wonderful, and for that matter, so is his office staff. His main office is packed will all kinds of neat knick-knacks, mostly golf and Sherlock Holmes memorabilia, as well as many paintings and art of shore and country scenes. I know a lot of doctors who love golf, but I’ve never seen one before who had a set of clubs in every room of his office, including the exam room!
He and I immediately started discussing such trivia as the friendship between Arthur Conan Doyle and Harry Houdini and other amusements. He said that he was going to administer an echocardiogram in that office and then I would have to go across 72nd Street and down a block to his other office, where I would take a cardiac stress test on a treadmill.
I got into the paper gown and Dr. Fisher administered the echocardiogram, running the ultrasound probe around my chest and commenting on how healthy my heart looked. I told him I was happy to hear that, but that most men commented on my breasts first. He laughed.
Dr. Fisher then gave me a puzzle to figure out. I was to guess what magazine title décor in his two offices represented. I am nothing if not a sucker for a puzzle.
I trotted across the street and into the second office. The décor here was different. The walls were all white and all the art was black and white photographs of New York City. Not a golf club in sight.
At this office, I met a lovely lady named Natalia, who said she was from the Ukraine and had a daughter named Valeria. She explained the whole stress test to me and attached a handful of sensors to my chest. She also double-tied my shoelaces for me. The whole while I pondered the puzzle.
I got on the treadmill and Dr. Fisher came in. I told him that I thought his offices represented Time Out New York, because the first office was all about his hobbies and the second was all about New York. He said it was a good guess, but that the correct answer was Town and Country. Close, but no cigar.
The stress test went very well. If you’ve never had one of these, they start you out at a very slow walk on the level and then increase the speed and incline of the treadmill until you reach a maximum heart rate. You are basically having an electrocardiogram while you are exercising. The test was supposed to end when my heart rate was 146 beats per minute, but he let me go all the way to 160 with no problems whatsoever.
The bottom line is that my heart is in excellent shape.
Thursday, I had the colonoscopy. As everyone said, the test was not bad, but the preparation for it is a pain. I could not have anything to eat that I could not see through all day Wednesday. At 6 p.m., I had to drink a cleansing solution. I had feared that I was going to have bad stomach cramps. I had no cramps but did get intimately acquainted with my bathroom. I also woke up four or five times during the night to go, which meant that I was tired by the time I got to Putnam Hospital Center.
My friend, Gail Kalinoski, picked me up and drove me to the hospital. The only problem was that they had a bit of trouble finding a good vein to use for the anesthesia. The anesthesiologist too two tries to find a good one, adding more bruises to my poor arms.
Less than 2 hours after I got there, my friend, Linda Press, picked me up. I hit Blockbuster and treated myself to three movie rentals. And my lower intestine is also in good shape.
As I said in a previous post, I donated another pint of blood to myself. That bruised the insides of both of my elbows since it took them two tries to get a vein.
Tuesday, I saw Dr. Han, the radiologist who treated me for my eye problem last fall, for a follow-up session. She is such a sweetheart! I told her about the cancer diagnosis and she reiterated what everyone else has said: that this is common and that a total hysterectomy will take care of it.
She also told me that she had had a hysterectomy and had done well during it.
Wednesday, I started the clear liquid diet for the colonoscopy and I saw a cardiologist. Generally, I have never like cardiologists, or cardiology for that matter. Cardiologists tend to be pompous and, in my experience, not the warmest of individuals. This dates back to my time spent as a staff writer for Cardiology Times. It is the only medical specialty that I have never felt any affinity for.
However, Dr. Jeffrey Fisher was wonderful, and for that matter, so is his office staff. His main office is packed will all kinds of neat knick-knacks, mostly golf and Sherlock Holmes memorabilia, as well as many paintings and art of shore and country scenes. I know a lot of doctors who love golf, but I’ve never seen one before who had a set of clubs in every room of his office, including the exam room!
He and I immediately started discussing such trivia as the friendship between Arthur Conan Doyle and Harry Houdini and other amusements. He said that he was going to administer an echocardiogram in that office and then I would have to go across 72nd Street and down a block to his other office, where I would take a cardiac stress test on a treadmill.
I got into the paper gown and Dr. Fisher administered the echocardiogram, running the ultrasound probe around my chest and commenting on how healthy my heart looked. I told him I was happy to hear that, but that most men commented on my breasts first. He laughed.
Dr. Fisher then gave me a puzzle to figure out. I was to guess what magazine title décor in his two offices represented. I am nothing if not a sucker for a puzzle.
I trotted across the street and into the second office. The décor here was different. The walls were all white and all the art was black and white photographs of New York City. Not a golf club in sight.
At this office, I met a lovely lady named Natalia, who said she was from the Ukraine and had a daughter named Valeria. She explained the whole stress test to me and attached a handful of sensors to my chest. She also double-tied my shoelaces for me. The whole while I pondered the puzzle.
I got on the treadmill and Dr. Fisher came in. I told him that I thought his offices represented Time Out New York, because the first office was all about his hobbies and the second was all about New York. He said it was a good guess, but that the correct answer was Town and Country. Close, but no cigar.
The stress test went very well. If you’ve never had one of these, they start you out at a very slow walk on the level and then increase the speed and incline of the treadmill until you reach a maximum heart rate. You are basically having an electrocardiogram while you are exercising. The test was supposed to end when my heart rate was 146 beats per minute, but he let me go all the way to 160 with no problems whatsoever.
The bottom line is that my heart is in excellent shape.
Thursday, I had the colonoscopy. As everyone said, the test was not bad, but the preparation for it is a pain. I could not have anything to eat that I could not see through all day Wednesday. At 6 p.m., I had to drink a cleansing solution. I had feared that I was going to have bad stomach cramps. I had no cramps but did get intimately acquainted with my bathroom. I also woke up four or five times during the night to go, which meant that I was tired by the time I got to Putnam Hospital Center.
My friend, Gail Kalinoski, picked me up and drove me to the hospital. The only problem was that they had a bit of trouble finding a good vein to use for the anesthesia. The anesthesiologist too two tries to find a good one, adding more bruises to my poor arms.
Less than 2 hours after I got there, my friend, Linda Press, picked me up. I hit Blockbuster and treated myself to three movie rentals. And my lower intestine is also in good shape.
posted by Valerie DeBenedette at 8:50 PM
2 Comments:
I rented Dogma, Willow, and Epoch. Dogma was great. Epoch started out good and sank quickly. And Willow was not as much fun to watch as it was when it came out.
Netflix. Not a bad idea. However, I think I will need to get out of the house and go to Blockbuster, just to get out of the house. Valerie
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