My father was not much of an advice giver, and for many years I was grateful for that trait of his. One thing he said did stick with me - as you get older, make sure your physicians, lawyers, financial advisors, and such are younger than you are, in fact, much younger than you are. That way, when you probably need them most, they won't have retired.
To a great extent, I have taken that advice, and it has worked out pretty well. With one exception.
My internist. His parents and mine were friends, and we've known each other for - well, a very long time - and when I returned to the Twin Cities in the late 1970s, he became my physician. And that relationship has been an excellent one in every respect.
Except one. I haven't much enjoyed my three adventures with him in matters colonoscopic. It's not the procedure; it's the preparation. Once that's over, and the happy juice starts flowing at the beginning of the long trip up and back, it's just a question of time. Not much discomfort, some amusing conversation, and then you toddle home and collapse for the rest of the day - or nowadays - for that day as well as the next.
In early June, I survived the preparation for what well may have been my last colonoscopy, and all things considered, the procedure went well, and the report turned out to be excellent.
At the end of the first procedure, I came out of the fog, sat up and looked at all the medical equipment surrounding me and said to Nurse Jennifer, "This place looks like a scene from a James Bond film." She asked me which one, and apparently I replied "The Riddle of the Sphincter." I don't remember it very clearly, but others apparently did.
Five years after that, I knew I had to come up with some sort of similar line in case Jennifer was on duty for my next procedure. She was, so I said I had kind of a silly question to ask her; that turned out to be, "You know, Jennifer, that powder in that gallon size plastic jug was really hard to get down...should I have mixed that with something? [Yeah, well it was more successful than you might have guessed....]
This year I approached the event with the usual reluctance, but knowing that my doctor was cutting back on his practice and eliminating colonoscopies, etc., from his repertoire, I wrote him a letter of appreciation and made sure to include an observation about my thanks for his always approaching his task with rectitude.
Maybe he appreciated it.....
Friday, July 20, 2012
Facebook, et alia...Bah! Humbug!
After dipping my big toe very tentatively into the worlds of facebook, linkedin, twitter, and the like, I have decided to make a U-turn and head in the other direction.
No doubt that those in mid-career find use in these online experiences, and no doubt that teen-agers relish their 2700 messages a month as a proxy measure of their popularity, but persons of my age cohort ought to have different and more productive priorities.
Frankly, I am surprised when I am invited, cajoled, emailed, contacted, to acknowledge electronically that someone over 70 - like me - wants me to "friend" them. We should be doing volunteer work, weeding the garden, reading a book, canning peaches and not fretting about how many online "friends" we may have accumulated purposely or accidentally.
We're already friends, and thus far we seem to have managed to contact each other regularly or irregularly as circumstances require through more traditional means from telephone to the very occasional written note.
I have enough trouble with all the damn telephone solicitations which arrive daily from just after 9 am to just before 9 pm...so much so that sometimes I forward my phones to a completely fictional Mary Margaret McLain, an older Scottish woman, and - miracle of miracles - she takes virtually no messages, except from old friends who know that underneath that old lady's voice is nothing more than me.
It is not that I wish to be a hermit...just that I wish to have some sense of control over what's left of my life. So you might find me on Facebook or LinkedIn, but even I won't be paying attention to me.
Thank heaven.
No doubt that those in mid-career find use in these online experiences, and no doubt that teen-agers relish their 2700 messages a month as a proxy measure of their popularity, but persons of my age cohort ought to have different and more productive priorities.
Frankly, I am surprised when I am invited, cajoled, emailed, contacted, to acknowledge electronically that someone over 70 - like me - wants me to "friend" them. We should be doing volunteer work, weeding the garden, reading a book, canning peaches and not fretting about how many online "friends" we may have accumulated purposely or accidentally.
We're already friends, and thus far we seem to have managed to contact each other regularly or irregularly as circumstances require through more traditional means from telephone to the very occasional written note.
I have enough trouble with all the damn telephone solicitations which arrive daily from just after 9 am to just before 9 pm...so much so that sometimes I forward my phones to a completely fictional Mary Margaret McLain, an older Scottish woman, and - miracle of miracles - she takes virtually no messages, except from old friends who know that underneath that old lady's voice is nothing more than me.
It is not that I wish to be a hermit...just that I wish to have some sense of control over what's left of my life. So you might find me on Facebook or LinkedIn, but even I won't be paying attention to me.
Thank heaven.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
