Nobody has ever accused me of being on the cutting edge of anything. But I must say that I have missed some golden opportunities. In fact, when I first hear about new things, I generally think that whatever it is is stupid. It’s a trend that began years ago. If I had invested in some of these things when I first heard of them, well, I wouldn’t be wasting my time blogging — I would be paying someone to write my blog for me. I’d be that rich.
It was about 1979 when my then-roommate Elizabeth announced her brilliant idea.
“What if they made Coke without caffeine?” she said to me one night after she decided not to have a Coke because she was tired and it would keep her up.
“What would be the point of that?” I responded, no doubt looking at her like she was stupid.
OK, so I was wrong.
At the time, Elizabeth was considering going to business school for an MBA. She would today be a brilliant executive at a Fortune 500 company if only I had been more encouraging. Instead, she went to medical school and became a psychiatrist.
When CNN first came on, I thought
“Who needs news 24 hours a day?”
Strike 2
When C-Span began showing House and Senate floor debate, while I was actually working as a lobbyist, well, I couldn’t believe it.
“Who is going to watch that unless they get paid to? It is sooooooooooooooooo boring!”
I STILL think I was right about this one.
I never had a Walkman.
“I want to listen to the birds when I’m out walking!”
I thought iPods were stupid and besides I could never figure out iTunes. I still get emails from them and they still haven’t figured out that I hate disco.
Smart phones? “How stupid.”
But I decided that it is time to capitalize on my knack for thinking huge money makers are stupid. In fact, I’ve suggested to John that we should invest our retirement savings in the next product I think is completely inane. It’ll be an uphill battle, though. He doesn’t trust my investment instincts since I started investing in 72 packs of toilet paper.
But I’m going to see if he’ll go along with me on this invention. Because I have to admit, it is possibly the stupidest thing I have ever heard of. We’ll make a bloody fortune.
If I were to wear anti-rape underpants, something would absolutely get into my pants. But I’m quite sure it wouldn’t be a rapist. And it wouldn’t come from outside, either.
The voice inside my head is getting louder and louder. It has been happening for over three weeks now. I have to let it out or my head will explode.
It’s not what you think.
I haven’t been trying any of the products I research, or no more than usual.
I haven’t become a schizophrenic hearing demons that chant “kill, kill, kill.”
I haven’t even become a Tea Party member muttering “screw the poor, screw the folks who don’t look like me, don’t touch my Medicare.” Nope.
It’s just my Dad’s voice. But he won’t shut up. He keeps on saying:
“For Cryin’ Out Loud, Lease, What Did You Expect?”
It’s no use telling him that I agree with him and that really, I didn’t expect this whole thing to go smoothly. He was a hard man to beat in an argument before, but since his death it has been absolutely impossible to win an argument with the man. He’s gone all passive-aggressive on me, the bastard.
But in point of fact, I figured that the roll-out of Obamacare would be just like it has been since October 1. Full of problems that lead everyone to bang their head on their desk, throw their laptops out the window and threaten bodily harm to anyone who interrupts them when they’re just about done. I could have told you that before the bill passed either House of Congress, was signed by the President. I could have told you there would be huge problems even before the Supreme Court deemed it constitutional.
Remember how I am an expert patient? An expert patient who has had health-and-therefore-insurance issues for 40 years? I am pretty sure I have fought with each and every single insurance company that has done business in the United States, and a few in Europe. And this includes the six hours I spent online and on the phone with CareFirst this past Monday trying to figure out the fine details of the two different policies I had to choose from. The recordings of my running commentary would not be suitable for training purposes.
So really, I think the folks who set up Healthcare.gov did the folks who qualify for insurance under the Affordable Care Act a favor by having so many problems on the website.
Because they’ve gotten just the first taste of what it’s like to deal with a god damn insurance company.
* * *
With heartfelt apologies to my Dad, who was an insurance agent and would have been able to tell everyone that this is exactly what they should have expected.
Apologies also to my favorite live insurance agent, Peg of PegOLeg.com who is probably too busy working on getting folks covered to read this post anyway.
Thanks to both List of X for his two funny posts on the rollout here and here, and Moe of Whatever Works for inspiring me to comment on their blogs and inspired me to write this one.
We arrived in Old Town more or less on time, and I parallel parked the VW. I’d already learned not to let Goliath out on my side of the car, so I got out and walked around to the sidewalk side to get him. As always, I held tightly to Goliath’s collar while I attached his leash. The moment he heard the “click” of the clasp on his collar, he pushed past me. He was ready to go. And so naturally, he went.
As usual, he dragged me along. He’d stop suddenly whenever anything smelled particularly good (Dog pee! That smells great!) Then pull me to the other side of the sidewalk (Look, a French fry!) and back to the original side (Hey, a different dog’s pee – smells great too!)
After about 5 minutes, I managed to haul Goliath the way I wanted — to a storefront on the corner. We’d arrived for his first obedience training class at The Olde Towne School For Dogs.
A Truly Great Place (Google Image)
The Olde Towne School for Dogs was (and is) the best obedience school in the DC area. Several of the dogs I knew from Lincoln Park went there, as did Phoebe, my friend Jean’s Chow-chow. They offer private lesson with a trainer, and everybody I knew raved about the place.
I’d called earlier the previous week to see if they could help me with Goliath. Because after 4 months of trying to manage him, I finally admitted I needed help with my crazy dog. I had never trained a dog, and I was failing miserably at my attempts to get Goliath to obey me. To the extent any of our dogs growing up were trained, Dad did it. I played with them, taught them tricks, but really, I didn’t have a clue even where to start training. And I knew that I should have started training much earlier than I did with Goliath.
I simply couldn’t have a dog that dragged me around the way Goliath did.
Because, of course there was the other issue that I pretended wasn’t there. Sooner or later, somebody was gonna cut me open.
You see, in spite of my reluctance, Dr. C kept mentioning surgery for my colitis. It was progressing and not in a good way. I was getting sicker. My flare ups were getting more frequent and more severe. And while I was dead set against it, I had to face reality. There was a very real chance that sooner or later somebody would operate on me. And I was pretty sure that my recovery would not be enhanced by being jerked down the road by an over-eager crazy dog who didn’t know how to heel. Or listen. Or obey. In fact, I was pretty sure that being dragged down the street on my belly wouldn’t be part of any doctor’s post-surgical instructions.
And so I called Olde Towne School for Dogs and spoke with Carlos, the owner. I explained my situation, and he agreed to take Goliath on as a student. Equally important, he agreed to let me pay individually for each lesson. Unfortunately, I couldn’t afford the $200 their training classes cost back then, not all at once, anyway. Equally unfortunately, my crappy health didn’t let me not train my dog. Carlos was a lifesaver, even before we met.
Goliath and I arrived at the white storefront of Olde Towne School for Dogs that hot summer day, and I opened the door to the combination school and dog boutique. Goliath, delighted that he could go inside, dragged me inside full speed.
Google Image
He yanked me to the left — (Look! Treat Bins!) To the right — (Look! Toys for Me!) To the big bags of rawhide and other chew toys — (Oh Yeaaahhhhh! Mommy this place is GREAT!). In his excitement, Goliath yanked me to just about every single display in the store. Then, blushing, I yanked him up to the counter and the cash register, where a tall, dark and handsome man frowned at us.
“This must be Goliath,” Carlos said.
“How did you guess?” I responded with a smile. Carlos didn’t smile back.
Carlos took Goliath’s leash, held him tightly, and led us to the back of the store and into a training room.
“Sit,” he said. I sat. Goliath did too.
Carlos silently examined Goliath, scratched his ears, rolled him over, rubbed his belly. Got to know him a little bit.
“The first thing this dog needs to learn is that you are not wrapped around his paw,” Carlos said.
I chuckled. “But I am.”
Carlos stared at me for several seconds before turning back to Goliath.
“The first thing that you need to learn is that you are in charge.”
“OK.” I didn’t try to make any more jokes. Carlos didn’t seem to appreciate my sense of humor.
“And never, ever again let me see this dog drag you into my store. Never.”
“OK,” I said sheepishly.
Then we got to work.
Carlos pulled a choke chain collar and a six foot leather leash out of a wicker basket in the corner. He took off Goliath’s leather collar.
“This won’t work,” he said, handing me Goliath’s old collar. “Fabric collars look great, but they don’t help in training or restraining a dog. And Goliath needs both.” Carlos kindly didn’t mention that Goliath needed both training and restraining desperately.
Carlos didn’t like my leash, either, a drug store special with 10 inches of cheap leather at the top and chain going down to the clasp. I knew then that it was going to be an expensive training course –10 minutes in and I already needed a new collar and a new leash — that’d cost me at least 25 bucks. And there was no way I’d get through all those dog toys and chew bones without getting my baby something.
Carlos demonstrated how to put on the choke chain in a “P” formation, so that when not being used to correct Goliath, gravity would let it fall into a loosened position. Putting the collar on backwards could be uncomfortable and even possibly dangerous for the dog.
Then Carlos stood to Goliath’s right, and our lesson really started.
While explaining to me that each command should be clear and one syllable, Carlos gently tugged Goliath up from where he was lying into a sit position, saying “Sit.”
“Goliath knows that one!” I said proudly.
Carlos just looked at me.
“Up!” he said, getting Goliath to stand.
Goliath, however, didn’t realize that he was only supposed to stand up, and lunged for the door.
“No!” said Carlos as he immediately corrected Goliath with the choke collar and leash. Carlos had been expecting it.
Goliath was shocked. (What do you mean I can’t do what I want!) Goliath sat attentively, looking up at Carlos with respect he’d never shown me.
“That’s what you have to do every time he lunges like that.Hemaynotdothat.” Carlos said to me looking at me in the eye. He then showed me how to keep to Goliath’s right, how to hold the leash properly, in two hands with the right thumb through the loop, and how to position him right next to me, walking at my pace, not Goliath’s. I looked at Carlos with respect, too.
We went outside and started walking the streets of Old Town, Alexandria, Goliath falling into step with Carlos when Carlos held the leash, and less so with me, when I took my turns. That first lesson, we taught Goliath to stop and sit at street corners instead of charging ahead into the street — an important lesson for a city dog.
As Goliath began to learn, Carlos began to relax, although it was took several lessons before Carlos let me know it. Years later when I saw him, he remembered Goliath’s first venture into the store with a chuckle. “That dog was something else,” he said, “yes, I remember him dragging you into the store.”
Goliath mastered Heel in minutes when Carlos held the leash. Right from the start, Goliath idolized Carlos and did exactly what Carlos told him to do. Every time.
It took me much longer to get the hang of the commands. In fact, I’m not really sure I ever did. Especially the one that said I was in charge.
Goliath, the Goose
* * *
This is another chapter in the memoir I’m writing about my psychotic, alcoholic German Shepherd. Other posts about Goliath can be found on FiftyFourAndAHalf :
It was about 5-1/2 years ago when I first recommended canonization of my husband, John, to the Vatican. Even though I am a very lapsed Catholic, I’m sure they’ll go along with it. Because he really does deserve it. Good spouses of many people with chronic diseases deserve special recognition, but I’m pretty sure only John deserves sainthood. Because all the good saints have been tortured, haven’t they? And John absolutely fits that bill.
Saint Sebastian by Il Sodoma, c. 1525 (Image from Wikipedia) I couldn’t find any saints who were suffocated, so John has a good shot
Let me mention that I’ve been reluctant to write about this subject. But after multiple requests following my last post about good hygiene and the New Jersey Turnpike, I figured I’d just get it over with and get on with my life.
I knew from an early age that there was one moniker I never wanted to have. I never wanted to be a “Pooter-Pack.”
It’s a bad thing, being a Pooter-Pack. Nobody likes them or wants them around. And nobody wants to be called a pooter-pack.
In fact, in possibly the only instance where my brother was caught doing something wrong, Fred’s mouth was washed out with soap for calling our paperboy a “Pooter-Pack.”
What, you might ask is a “Pooter-Pack?”
It’s a pack of pooters, DUH! You know – farts. Butt burps. Cutting the cheese. “Fluff” as my childhood best friend Liz’s family called them for no logical reason.
I did not want to be a pooter-pack. No-sirree Bob. And for the longest time, I wasn’t. Those were golden years that I did not fully appreciate.
To set the record straight, I did not become a pooter-pack that day when all the kids in my 6th grade English class thought I did. I was viciously maligned. Tagged. Ridiculed. It was a hot spring day and my young, innocent, bare leg stuck to my plastic seat. When I moved, I made a nasty fart-like sound with my leg.
Let’s be clear about this: I did not fart. I would have died first.
I wanted to disappear. Disolve. Die. It was so unfair. I didn’t! Not even so much as an SBD! And it had no smell at all because I hadn’t farted. It was a leg, umm, fart. They’re different. Somewhat pleasant, even.
I tried to defend myself, but the whole class heard the noise and believed the boys, not me. I hate them all still.
Fast forward past many fart-free years.
In the early 1980s, I had a severe case of colitis-that-was-really-Crohn’s disease. That was when I really started tooting my own horn. Quietly, though, thankfully. SBDs.
One of the treatments for many kinds of bowel disease is a drug called prednisone. One of prednisone’s most notable symptoms is flatulence. Prednisone does not give a girl delicate lady-like whiffs of something vaguely unpleasant that might induce a brief nose wrinkle.
Nope. Waves of heavy, inescapable stink accompany a person taking prednisone. Like Charlie Brown’s friend, Pig Pen, a smelly cloud hung around me wherever I went.
(Google image. Done by Charles Shultz, of course. Who, I am quite sure never had gas.)
In the Metro. On a bus. In an elevator. In my office. I was engulfed in my nasty, stinky cloud.
In spite of the evidence of everybody’s senses, I never admitted I had a problem. That it was me polluting the air. Nope. I didn’t say a word to anyone. I just couldn’t bear another bit of humiliation. (But frankly, unless there were a whole lot of lucky people around me suffering from anosmia, loss of smell, people were polite or stupid.)
I’m going with polite. Because my friends and co-workers were truly terrific. And they knew just how embarrassing life was for me. You see, when you have bowel disease, you are constantly in humiliating, compromising positions. I’ve written about that many times, including here.
I didn’t mention that I’d become a pooter-pack to my parents, who were, luckily for them, safely in another state. I couldn’t mention it to my sisters, including Beth, the nurse, who would have known the reason (I didn’t) or Judy, who would have laughed herself silly and taken me along with her.
I also didn’t mention it to my roommate, Keily. Keily lived with me. She was exposed to the ill effects of the prednisone but never once broached the subject (she is the biggest-hearted person in the world, my friend Keily is).
I’m pretty sure that my dog, Goliath, loved me more because of the smell. Dogs are gross.
The only person who ever mentioned flatulence to me was my gastroenterologist, Dr. C., the guy who gave me the damn fart pills.
“Are you having any gas?” he’d ask. It was always the last in the usual lineup of embarrassing questions.
I would look him straight in the eye and say:
“Gas? Me? No,” I lied, everysingletime.
Dr. C would tilt his head like Goliath and look straight at me as we sat together in my stink cloud. Every time he’d wait for my answer to change.
It never did.
As far as my medical records from that time are concerned, I have never ummm, fluffed. Dr. C surely wrote me up in a medical journal somewhere. Or perhaps he went to a doctor to have his own sense of smell assessed.
Anyway, I had my surgery and for years I lived up to what I told Dr. C. I did not pooter. Truthfully this time.
I’m not sure that that was what first attracted John to me, but I’m sure the fact that I did not have a stink cloud around me didn’t hurt. We’d been married about 20 years when my Crohn’s symptoms, ummm, re-erupted in about 2006.
I felt fine, actually. But something peculiar happened whenever I would go to bed. It started out slowly, gently, and then progressed to putrid: Whenever I lay down, my bottom end erupted. The most noxious substance passed out of my body and into the air in the bedroom.
It never happened if I was upright. Ever. Only John had to deal with it.
“There’s actually some comfort in it,” John said towards the beginning. “Not every husband can be sure that their wife won’t lay with another man.”
I pursed my lips and glared at him.
Still, I couldn’t imagine what could possibly be happening. But then I started to worry. You see, when I had my surgery in 1982, which was for documented colitis, the doctors disagreed after the fact about what I had. If it came back within 10 years, it was Crohn’s; if it didn’t, it was colitis. It turned out that it was Crohn’s that came back over 20 years later. And it came back with a bang.
The first person I told my gaseous problem to was my late sister, Beth. Beth was a nurse, and she was incredibly smart. Amazing, in fact. She could diagnose any malady in a nano-second. So I told her about my problem, and that it was getting worse.
“I really don’t know what to do,” I told her.
“Gee, Lease,” she said sympathetically, “It sounds like you could clear Walmart.”
“Thanks, Beth. That helps.”
“Try some GasX,” she recommended a bit more helpfully.
And I did. GasX works. It really does. It even works on weird gas problems like mine. Sort of.
At that time, GasX was available in two forms. One that claimed it kept gas away for 4 hours, and the other said it kept it away for 6 hours. Never was a drug label more accurately written. Because exactly at 4 hours plus one second, all that stored up flatulence would burst out into my bedroom, like a neutron bomb. In the middle of the night, and into the place where my poor husband tried to sleep with me.
He never complained. Occasionally, he would moan “Oh, Lease,” but I’m sure that was just his way of searching for oxygen.
My boss, a physician, noticed me researching flatulence one day, and asked me why. I confessed my problem to her.
She stood in my office and laughed until her belly hurt.
It’s never good when a doctor can’t stop laughing after you’ve described your symptoms. Unfortunately, she couldn’t help me either, and she’s brilliant. She’d never heard of reclining flatulence, either. Nor had Google, my bible.
Unlike my previous time as a pooter-pack, this time there was no cloud of stink. Instead, this time the stink formed a curtain, a wall around the bed. It was truly horrible laying there in the poisonous air. But I would, being the good wife I am, try to rid myself of the gas by going to the bathroom.
When I came back? Getting back was like walking through a brick wall. There was literally a physical wall of stinky bricks.
Which brings me to the reason my husband should be canonized. Because for 2 years, and until the third of three different doctors poked and prodded and tested, did the third one figure out what was wrong with me (an internal abscess that required surgery), my husband did not complain that I was not exactly a dream wife.
And never once did he call me a pooter-pack.
* * *
In a last-ditch effort to save a little bit of my nearly exhausted pride, I will tell you that since that surgery, I have not been a pooter-pack. Honest. Would I lie?
Normally, I don’t get personal hygiene tips from the rest stops on the New Jersey Turnpike. But these are not normal times for me. Yes, you might say that a lot has changed.
In fact, I’ve become one of those people other people make fun of. One of the people I used to make fun of. One of those people that Bill Maher makes fun of on TV.
Yes, I am an OCD Germ-a-phobe. I wipe down the grocery cart.
I also use hand sanitizer — 539 squirts per day (hereinafter “SPD”) unless I pump gas or use a public restroom, and then I hit more like 845 SPD. [Please note that that middle letter is a “P” as in Peter, not a “B” like in “Silent But Deadly.” While that subject is related to the concepts in this post, SBDs will be addressed in a separate post.]
I wasn’t always this way. In fact, I became OCD just a couple of months ago. It’s a side effect of a medicine I’m taking.
You see, I’ve been holding out on you. I haven’t told you everything. In fact I have told you almost nothing.
I haven’t told you that I’ve been sick.
Not “go to the hospital” – sick. Not “gotta have surgery” -sick. Not “I’m gonna die” –sick.
Nope, I’ve been “I gotta do something”-sick.
I’ve been “I can’t live like this” -sick.
And I’ve seriously been “pain in the ass” – sick. Literally.
My Crohn’s Disease has been partying in the lower 48 overtime since last fall. In fact, it is trying to bust out of the joint (and the internal organs, too, as a matter of fact). Mostly, it’s bustin’ out of my butt by eating little tunnels into itself to get out.
I sort of have my own Great Escape going on down there. Only without Steve McQueen or Illya Kuryakin.
I know this isn’t Illya. I’m keepin’ him for myself. (Google Image)
Basically, my Crohn’s disease is attacking my body. You would assume it would have better manners, wouldn’t you? You’d think it would spring for a pizza instead of abusing my hospitality.
Now, there aren’t a whole lot of options with these tunnels – called “fistulas,” probably because they punch their way out. They hurt. As does the entire nether region. Have you ever done anything without using your butt? It’s the center of gravity — that and the feet. That’s where all your weight is except when you’re lying down.
My primary symptom is a sore butt. A very sore butt. A butt that doesn’t like anything but the softest, thickest cushions to come in contact with it. That Princess with the Pea ain’t got nothing on me.
She even has my hair.
I had two options.
Option 1: Surgery. Been there, done that. The surgical procedure was perfected during the Spanish Inquisition*
They gave me 60 Percocet after the operation. That should have been a clue that I would be unhappy with the outcome.
[Oh, there’s not need to break into my house lookin’. The Percocet is gone.]
Option 2: Drugs — Biologics, to be precise. Expensive, intravenously administered drugs that suppress the immune system, making you, well, me, susceptible to all kinds of communicable diseases. Which was why I didn’t want to take them to begin with.
Because I didn’t want to live like this:
I especially didn’t want to be in the version with John Ravolta
I didn’t want to live in a bubble. I wanted to be able to go out. Go to work. Go to the grocery store, a movie, a play without risking my life. Because I was afraid of being infected by someone who was out with the flu, with pneumonia, with any one of a thousand communicative diseases that might be communicated to me by air or by touch.
But it got to the point where I really didn’t have any choice. I could not sit without pain. I couldn’t stand without an aching butt. Bending over hurt. Breathing hurt.
And so I reluctantly agreed, and my doctor put me on one of those drugs with the really long commercials listing warnings and precautions. Don’t worry though: The risk of Priapism is quite remote. And who knows, I might enjoy having an erection.
The good news about this new medicine?
I feel good. I am getting better. So those risks? Yup, I’ll take em. Because the medicine gave me my life back. I just need to wash my hands a lot, do everything I can not to come in contact with sick people (Ha!) and then wash my hands some more.
Which brings us back to Jersey. What does this all have to do with the Jersey Turnpike and hygiene?
Well, it occurred to me in New Jersey while I was at a rest stop, trying to not breathe or touch anything, that those soap dispenser thingy-s are relatively germ free. I mean, you don’t have to touch them at all with your dirty hands after you, well, you know. And I decided that I should buy one of them just as soon as I got home. Who cares if I’d laughed at those gadgets for years – I needed one now, and that made it moderately less stupid to spend money on a battery operated soap dispenser.
And so I did!
Only there’s a difference between mine and the ones on the Jersey Turnpike. You know how those don’t turn on? You go down the line of sinks, moving your hand up and down, backwards and forwards, left and right, in front of each one and get nada. Not so much as a bubble.
Mine? You will be happy to know that mine does not have that problem. In fact, mine won’t turn off. And let me tell you that today’s interior designers should consider suggesting the idea of a red soap encrusted sink to all their upscale customers.
I think I need to go back to New Jersey to find out how to turn it off.
So I’m off on a Road trip! To The Vince Lombardi Rest Stop to learn more about good hygiene.
* * *
Sorry I’ve been holding out on you. It’s not that I don’t love you, really. It’s just that, well, bowel disease is boring. And messy. And uncomfortable. And did I say “boring”? Yeah. Blogging is my escape from poop. Except of course when I write about it. That’s when I laugh at it. So help me do that.
I am looking for the “funny” in bowel disease again. It has been harder to find lately.
And next time you’re in the grocery store or the movie theater? Breathe somewhere else.
* Yay! That’s the only search term that ever comes up on my blog. And I get to see these folks again!
FiftyFourandAHalf 