Tag Archives: home doctorin’

What is the sound of one hand typing?

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About two weeks ago, I informed Mr. H that it was Canada Day.

“What? Is that why all those French people are driving around waving flags out of their cut-suspension Renaults?”

“No, honey, you’re thinking of Bastille Day.”

And here we are! C’est Bastille Day. Also known as “A baby has been alive for four weeks.” A baby will be a full one month old on Sunday. This week, a baby has learned to smile in response to a smile and make a sound approximating a laugh. She also has some new noises that are sort of screechy, but not crying. More like the caws of a gleeful pterodactyl. She enjoys rolling over to escape the totally bullshit “tummy time” paradigm and following a toy with her eyes. Once in a while she manages to get her hand in her mouth, and that is a good time. Hobbies include “naked butt time” and sleeping up to 4 hours at a time. She also loves to be outside, so I drag my ill-groomed self outside several times a day to walk with her in the sling. Except today, because it is hot as balls.

A baby also broke out in a crusty rash, got diarrhea, and made her distaste for the booger removal apparatus known. Next week a baby has to have a minor surgical procedure to correct a defect in her mouth. I am feeling like a hideous ogre for even entertaining the idea of allowing someone to rearrange my baby. A baby will get a hit of laughing gas for her procedure. I hope they are doing a two-for-Tuesday deal for parents.

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I am never doing this again.

Did I mention I am never doing this again?

This is my last Bastille Day with a four-week-old baby. Phew!

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At some point, I will write her full birth story. It’s a corker. My best theory is that the river flooding scared the bejesus out of her, because she promptly stopped growing and ran out of amniotic fluid (her first version of “I’ll hold my breath until I turn blue,” perhaps). So she sneakily skirted a hippie water birth. I was floating around in the tub and everything, until the midwife basically said “ah, no way, dude” after listening to her heart rate crash. This earned us a white knuckle car ride to the hospital, where a Colombian man I’d never met before cut her out of my belly. I think he yelled “gooooooallllll” when he yanked her out. She also hates baths. No water, plz kthx. She didn’t ask to be born!

Advice! Yes, please!

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I went to meet a pediatrician this morning. I had picked the most attractive person in the practice, but she was busy, which left Miss First Runner Up. So Stunt Double presented me with a photocopied booklet with line art of a demonic teddy bear on it. I knew right then that I would die inside when I opened it. I hadn’t even considered that bad graphic design might muscle in and blot out the sun. But you can’t plan on some things, like nostril pimples or getting audited.

I did, however, expect a blank stare when I mentioned having the baby outside a hospital. I expected the googly eyes when I mentioned that we’d be delaying/selectively vaccinating. Check checkity check. When I got home, I read through the booklet. It had a Dos and Don’ts section, and I was all primed to see photos of anonymous people wearing fanny packs or ripped tights, but it turned out that only happens in Glamour Magazine.

Instead, I read:

“DON’T put baby face down on a waterbed.”

That really hit home. I can’t believe I was planning on storing her that way. The more you know…. ding DING dee….

Then the business card fell out. COMIC SANS. Hi, hi!

I am just not taking the parasite to the doctor, ever. There’s nothing a little colloidal silver and homemade Botox can’t fix, right?

Can I get some unnecessary antibiotics with that condescension?

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The other day I made the big, huge, giant mistake of calling my parents to let them know we moved back into our house after a soggy two-week vacation in crapsville. I see now that I missed my chance to disappear forever, but live and learn. In passing, I complained to my mother about my aunt’s religious forwards, and I left instructions to never give my email address to anyone again, unless that person can prove he needs to contact me to award a genius grant. I mentioned my aunt’s helpful recitation about her grandson’s neck fold infections, and my mom ran with that. “Those kids have been on constant antibiotics, it’s no wonder!”

Wait. A tick. I seem to recall getting dragged to the doctorin’ hut (a walk-in clinic, we never had real doctors) for antibiotics for even a hint of a cold, or possibly seasonal allergies. Dr. Nick would protest “Is virus, no antibiotics,” but my mother would snort like a bull and cross her arms, and we’d leave with amoxicillin anyway. No thermal print out on the care of a sore throat involving mere salt water would be enough for her. Then we’d stop the antibiotics as soon as we felt better, and she’d give us the leftovers on the next cold. I think that’s the definition of how not to take antibiotics, unless perhaps you are also procuring your antibiotics from someone who runs the donkey show in Tijuana.

And let’s not forget the entire year I took tetracycline for acne when I was about thirteen. It never worked, and years later I found out that this was probably because my mom fed it to me each morning with a Carnation Instant Breakfast. She’s always been big on the “you have to eat breakfast” concept, although it’s perfectly OK if breakfast is a Little Debbie snack cake, purchased from the day old store. “As long as you have it with milk, for protein.” Whaddya know, dairy interferes with absorption. If you read the pharmacy label, you find things out sometimes.

I think I’ve taken antibiotics about four times in the last ten years, once I was left to arrange my own medical care.

On the flip side, my dad is now so paranoid about “Big Pharma” that he makes his own colloidal silver with a laser from a kit he bought on the internet. He attributes only daily colloidal silver consumption to his continued lack of death. Colloidal silver is a “natural antibiotic.” It can also turn you blue, but not according to his internet crackpot counter research.

But my mom stood her ground, and told me how babies always need antibiotics for a cold because of “secondary infections in their delicate little passages.” I mentioned that one of my annoying pediatrician interview questions was “Under what circumstances do you prescribe antibiotics,” and how I would rather not see someone who used them for the sniffles. This enraged her, and I got off the phone after that. Well, there was a diatribe about a conspiracy at her periodontist’s office, but I managed to think “meow meow meow meow” through most of that.

Today I finally got around to calling pediatricians. I got scoffed at for being “too close to my due date” to ask questions. I asked “So you mean my baby just doesn’t need a pediatrician then?” No, no, we just thought we’d berate you before making an appointment for an interview. I said “Fine, just assign me to the most attractive person in the practice, and I’ll call you once the baby’s here.” Then I called the next place. Same drill. Finally, I realized I was dealing with biddies, so I mentioned that I meant to do this sooner, but our house flooded. That was just the sympathy vote I needed, apparently. I’m all set up with Dr. Hot. If I’m going to have to listen to crappy mainstream parenting advice, it might as well be from someone incredibly comely.

Homigod

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Housing situation still non-pleasurable. Living in hotel for another few weeks or so. Back story complicated and irritating. Short version: flood, munged up utilities, possible negligence on part of builder, city, who knows. Parasite due to arrive: whenever she wants, at this point.

But but but but….I do not have this Disgusting and Terrifying Skin Disease! SRSLY. Read that article, watch the video, visit the foundation’s website, and prepare to think about never touching another surface again.

Uthless People

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Hello, Internet, hello. Last weekend I took a detour through Boringsville. The main export is bladder spasms and strong antibiotics. While there, we also managed to shop for furniture for the parasite. We actually purchased nothing. Was it because the salesman loomed over us and made disparaging remarks about the one thing we liked? We found that odd, but we’ve never let a hick stand between us and Swedish things that are expensive. No, when we walked out, I read the establishment’s slogan on the delivery truck. “Making things easier for Mom’s.” Something something. You can totally see where I tuned out and started muttering. Dead to me!

Let’s pretend

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Let’s say that there is a lady who runs out of checks. She is a beautiful and kind lady. She has very healthy teeth. Full disclosure: she could use a pedicure. Anyway, this lady says “Hmm, I am out of checks. Although most of my bills are paid electronically, this could pose a problem.” She calls the check ordering company. They assure her that her checks will be there in a few days. They are not. So she calls back and complains. They blame DHL. DHL has never heard of these checks. So the lady waits a few more days, and then the lady has to pay her fucking federal taxes and quarterly taxes with money orders, like poor people. The lady waited til the last possible minute to get the cursed money orders, hoping against hope that DHL would come through. The lady comes home from mailing the money orders (which cost $3 each because she does not have a GOLD account). “Look,” says the friendly three-legged dog. There is a package from DHL! On the steps!

In other news, the teller at the bank thinks the parasite will be HUGE. The dry cleaning lady thinks the parasite will be TINY. Either I am a compulsive overreater, or I am starving the parasite. I can’t be sure. I should have gotten a third opinion from the grocery checker, but she was too busy drawing me in to a conversation on whether or not that was Eva Longoria on the cover of Scientific American. I asserted that it was. Because it was, and it also said “Eva Longoria” under the picture. She felt that Eva normally does not wear so much eye makeup, nor does she traffic in straightened hair. The bagger finally convinced her, and she mentioned that we could all change our looks so frequently if we had as much money as Eva. Damn the system. Some of us are just stuck being ugly.

Explanation of Benefits

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Someone always wants my damn money. Apparently I had $192 of lab work done once. The insurance plan went from “Great, go to the doctor all you want, you beautiful hypochondriac” to “You have a $2,500 deductible.” I think the lab work was the “Is the baby a mutant?” test. Would I have gotten my money back if she were?

My Worst Elm order came today, and dang was that a production. They pack huge, cumbersome things in one box, even though that box contains pieces. But five curtain rods come in five separate boxes. Oh yeah. In the lobby, the UPS man got scared by a three-legged dog of my acquaintance. Who’s a pretty girl!! “Dogs hate the uniform,” he explained. Then we entertained the notion to heave the huge boxes through the window instead. We do not trifle with doors and walking long distances. We care not for hassle nor friendly dogs.

Now I have to go to the accountant to pay more money. Tomorrow a financial planner is coming over to tell us what to do with our no money. I hope he remembers to bring the glitter putty. I can’t financially plan without it. I am not making him any fucking coffee. He can walk over to Top Donut if he wants a coffee.

Putting the fun back in funeral

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I called my parents yesterday since I hadn’t talked to crazy in a while, and my dad answered. He always sounds guilty when he picks up, as if he’s been rudely called away from dismembering a hooker. He said he was just finishing up manufacturing a batch of colloidal silver. Yes, at home, with lasers! Learned on internet! Can’t even talk about it!

I said “OK, that’s great, is Mom around?” He said she was sleeping, and we talked about the murderous dog, how fat the cat is, and all the rotten things the neighbors do. Somehow we got on the topic of bad news, and he said “Speaking of receiving bad news, how would you feel if your mother died, and I just had her cremated and told everyone later?” I said he should probably consult her prior to her death to see if she has any feelings on this topic. He said “Well, she would want a memorial, but I don’t want to see her relatives.” He’s right, of course, I don’t want to see them either. They are terrible. I said I would prefer to be notified in advance of the cremation, and he said “What, so you’d have to drop everything and fly down?”

I asked if he might want support from his children after losing his wife, and he felt sure that he would not. I said that if he’d sweeten the pot and have the dog cremated along with her, that would make it worth my time for a visit. So we left plans along the lines of handling the death of pharaoh, where the household goes too. He’s going to be so disappointed when I don’t agree to club him and burn the house down at the last minute. That house is paid in full; there’s no way I’d burn it down.

When I got off the phone, he said he’d have my mother call back later. She never did, and then I started to wonder if he’d been hinting around the whole time. I told Mr. H, and he thought about it, and we agreed we wouldn’t put it past him. But she emailed me this morning, apparently alive. I told her she might want to make a will and give me a copy if she wanted anything fancier than being put in a paper bag and set in the mirrored fireplace. Of course this is a useless argument if he’s just impersonating her, and she’s tucked in the guest room, A Rose for Emily-style.

Membership has its privileges

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Yesterday I got out of a ticket for speeding through Cow Town*, NH, with the “I have to pee!” excuse. Do give that a whirl! If you aren’t suffering from quick-onset obesity like I am, just slouch and tenderly pat your abdomen. Fucking breeders.

After escaping the law, I was glued to a story on NPR about organ brokers and illegal tissue harvesting. Finally, the profession for me! I’ve always wanted to be a surgeon, but this would allow me to skirt the pesky medical degree. I could do it from a home office. I’ve toyed with the idea of hanging out my illegal cosmetic surgery shingle, but who likes seeing how sausage is made?

Although I’m glad I haven’t had any recent illegal and unscreened tissue implants. I do feel bad for poor Alistair Cooke‘s family though. I used to love me some Masterpiece Theatre when I was a kid. And, oh hell, the families of other less-famous people too. And the unsuspecting people who received potentially contaminated tissue.

Annie Cheney was on the program discussing her book Body Brokers: Inside America’s Underground Trade in Human Remains (excerpt). Among other interesting facts, the hotel ballroom where you are having your wedding reception may have recently hosted a hands-on seminar for doctors, meaning a bunch of torsos or ankles might have been laid out around the room for surgical training or product demos.

Over dinner, I told Mr. H that he is 100% allowed to donate any of my organs, and that he may sell the rest or donate it to science as he pleases. Or have me stuffed and mounted over the fireplace or posed in lingerie. I honestly don’t care. I’ll be dead. I think part of the problem is that people aren’t allowed to just sell their own loved ones. Eliminate the middle man of the shady funeral home, and let people seize commerce as they see fit. No touchy the folks who don’t want to be recycled. Then regulate the shit out of the whole deal to avoid implanting diseased tissue. Someone’s already making money on this, so why not just make it legal and cap the profit margin? Wow, that was a hard-hitting FOX-news-y opinion.

Then Mr. H told me he had lunch with a friend who’s graduating from medical school in a few months. The friend was agonizing over going to his next class, saying it would be boring because all they’d be doing is dissecting a brain. Mr. H said “Are you kidding? My wife would love to dissect a brain!” He knows me well. I need to have our friend over for a home-cooked dinner so I can butter him up for an invite to brain lab. What food is most reminiscent of brains?

*The mayor is actually a goat. Whoa, recycled joke!

Which one of you maggots wants to take me to Paris

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Financial planning has always been a topic near and dear to my heart. It involves less hallucinogens and guilt these days, but I’m still the one who knows where all the bank accounts are, and more importantly, how to extract money from them. My darling Mr. H says “Dee buh dee buh dee?” and gets direct deposit. I am the evil overlord who makes sure his student loans get extracted on the 12th of each month, as opposed to the 12th of never, his previously preferred date.

Normally, our system works well. I improved our credit scores over the years through the folksy homespun wisdom of paying the bills. To allow some illusion of mutual control, he is a guest user on my Amex. It generally doesn’t occur to him to spend money anyway, just as it didn’t occur to him to pay bills. He’s too busy thinking about complicated pieces of code. I don’t spend that much either, since I was brought up by people who believed “Why buy it if you can make it out of chickenwire?” If I must, I prefer to splurge on things I didn’t get in my youth: things like well-made shoes, hotel rooms nicer than my house, and x-rays performed by a licensed technician.

But the other day, I caught him playing with a Bugaboo stroller. This stroller is nearly $900, or about the GDP of Madagascar. It operates on the principles of the Rubik’s cube or a Transformers toy, so after a lot of flipping and clicking, you end up with an amphibious assault vehicle or Optimus Prime or a detachable bassinet. I’d always just assumed that only assholes who live in Park Slope or the aggressively European couple we know would get a Bugaboo, but damned if he wasn’t communing with one. My poor innocent, attracted to the engineering and oblivious to the social status baggage.

The saleslady pounced and demonstrated, including stealing someone else’s kid to show off the turning radius. I’ll admit that it’s lightweight and impressively easy to spin, but it’s still a little SUV-sized and overpriced for my taste. Then again, I spent a lot more than that on the Democratic party in 2004, and I did not get a foot muff for that investment. I got no muff at all.

Now he’s fairly adamant that the parasite should get trundled around in this contraption. The problem is that I had planned on trundling the parasite through Europe in my abdomen, because I want a goddamn last vacation before she starts playing at nonsense like breathing. Once she’s here, I had assumed that she’ll sleep in a file drawer and get carried in a pillowcase with air holes, just like the good old days. I thought about playing the “we have no money” card since he will never actually look at an account, but this will create problems with my recreational goals. So I see that I have no choice but to weave a convincing Bugaboo replica out of chickenwire if I want a chance to eat my weight in croissants before June. Damn you, the Dutch! You and all your industrial designers. Or perhaps I will just go on vacation by myself and leave Mr. H to push the cat around in the Bugaboo. That way we can afford to do both. What would Madagascar do?

Oh, today in cats: Flop-bott of the bottom system. That will probably end up costing an extra student loan payment.