“Sarge,” Scott Carrino’s truck has been her a few weeks, we dumped a huge pile of donkey manure in the truck bed and Scott says he will come and get Sarge soon, hopefully before the winter snow (Scott has his own sense of time and space) and ice set in. I like having the old military truck here, he fits right into the farm’s eclectic nature.
Today, November arrived, rainy, cold and gloomy, we’ve been enjoying a faux Spring, it couldn’t last. The only thing to do on a day like today is write, and have lunch with Scott at his own Round House Cafe. When I called him up and asked him out to lunch he was shocked. “Lunch?,” he asked. “What for?” Men typically are shocked at the idea of a social lunch, there is so much work to do. “Friends have lunch all the time,” I said, “let’s try it.”
This morning, I went for my quarterly check-up at the Hoosick Falls Health Center in Hoosick Falls, one of the best names for a town I have heard. My nurse-practitioner and friend (and writing student), Karen Bruce was manning the store, patients were stacked up in examining rooms like jetliners on a runway in New York City.
Karen works hard, she seems at least 20 patients a day. She has saved my life at least twice now, and guided me through near death experiences. She has bludgeoned and reasoned me to good health. She doesn’t need to yell at me any more, I get it, I am taking responsibility for my health. I just do what she says as soon as she says it. She is a take-no-prisoners kind of health care professional, dedicated, honest, caring and unrelentingly honest.
Karen says many of the patients she sees for diabetes will not take medication, change what they eat, or exercise. And many of her heart patients don’t like to get checked either. They just won’t. I will. I am. Nearly dying in July of 2014 focused me on not nearly dying again until it is unavoidable and inevitable. That will come soon enough.
My check-up was great. I continue to shed weight, hard to do on some heart and diabetes medications. My blood pressure is “textbook,” said the nurse, 120/70. My cholesterol level is terrific, my pulse and heart strong. I can’t do a thing for you today, said Karen, you are doing it for yourself.
I love getting a good report card (Karen even gave me a Panda Bear sticker), I never got many in school.
I avoided my health for some years, and it avoided me. We have a better relationship now. open heart surgery is a persuasive motivator. My basic health care philosophy is holding up. Understanding what you are eating, avoid male health care professionals whenever possible, and blend holistic and conventional care into one thoughtful program for yourself.
The health care system is crazy, but I don’t speak poorly of it, they brought me back from the dead, killed me again for a few hours, took out my heart, refurbished it, and sent me home after three days. Somewhere in all that madness and money, if you can find them, are caring and skilled people who care very much and often work miracles.
How can you squawk about that?