You got to shop around

My mother's illness inspired me to be more aggressive in looking to find health care. Last month my Cobra coverage ran out and so I logged in to Blue Shield to see about buying my own heath care. It makes me want to pack my nags and move to Canada, where they have national heath care! The best package was found by contacting Blue Shield directly but I couldn't help but feeling like I was buying auto insurance, buying a product you pray you never have to use!
Here is another rub. This year my Internal Medicine doctor retired! Rats! He was a damn good doctor and I've been with him since my freshman year of college. I feel like I lost a best friend! For he knew more details in my life than my family and friends!
Now I have to shop around for another doctor and what a nightmare for how do you go about finding a good doctor. My mother has a wonderful doctor, Doctor Sy Oang! He was wonderful during my mother's follow up from the hospital. But he is very popular and I don't think he's able to handle more clients. The hospital assigned my mother with an excellent cardiologist, Dr. Aditya Ambegaonkar but I don't need a heart doctor. Due to my mother's stay at PIH I was greatly impressed with her Internal MD Abbid Shah but I don't know if he has his own practice and wouldn't go to him anyway. He's very young and handsome and i just wouldn't feel comfortable allowing this attractive man to see me in a state of undress , under those unflattering lights of an examining room , looking at me warts and all. (I don't have warts but you get the idea.) It's just such a roll of the dice finding a truly good doctor to put your life in their hands, Don't know what I'm going to do to find one but at least I have bought health care!

Back by popular demand

 

Since my mother's bout with pneumonia, I feel like I've been derailed from the tracks of my so called life, I just can't seem to get back into my regular routine. Last Monday was the first times in weeks I actually put pen to paper and began notes for a novel I started last summer, it felt wonderful but strange. I haven't been to the West Hollywood for a month, spending most my time in Pasadena, wandering around like a zombie through my old haunts. Trying to reconnect with my old self, dreams and ambitions. Today I had to pick up stuff for home repairs at Home Depot which made me drive by Presbyterian Intercommunity Hospital (the Home Depot is right across the streeet from the hospital). Just seeing the place made me feel like I've been kicked in the gut. I hate that place.

What is strange, it's truly a wonderful hospital. The rooms have a feeling like a warm, modern hotel. Even the ER is rather a nice for an ER, very clean and comfortable. The medical staff not only performs with sheer professionalism but with compassion!And I'm not just talking about the nurses or staff of doctors, such as Abbid Shah M.D. and Aditya Ambegaonkar M.D. (damn is that a mouth full!) but the volunteer staff at PIH are lovely and ever so kind! Still, that place brings back such painful memories, such as my father dying there, and he didn't go gently into that final rest. I just never want to re-enter that place! I admire anyone who works at a hospital for all hospitals in my eyes have the charms of Dante's Inferno!

When I got home I just wanted to detach myself from all memories of hospitals, doctors, illness and decided to book my tickets for the San Diego Comic Con 2010! I was shocked that opening night preview was ALREADY SOLD OUT! Damn: the Comic Con is not until July and already some tickets are sold out? Not that I mind, I can care less to be among the first groups of geeks and freaks to hit the floor. Last year I felt like a salmon fighting to go up stream.

Due, to my mother's health I'm not certain I'll be able to make it to next year's Comic Con but I can always sell my tickets if I had to. But I just feel I need get in touch with something playful and fun and connect with my inner geek!

Doctor, doctor, give me some news

Thank you for those of you who send my mom good wishes for her recovery. She had to be hospitalized for pneumonia. She was in Whittier's Presbyterian Intercommunity Hospital for five days! She was lucky that she had the same doctor assigned to her case. Last time she was in the hospital for Congestive Heart Failure II kept meaning one doctor after another. This time only had to deal with one during most of her stay. He was a wonderful doctor, always checking in on her each morning and also taking time to make an extra visit to address my issues and concerns. I know I can be a bitch on wheels and very demanding but Doctor Abbid Shah, M.D. was always considerate of my feeling and answering my questions. hey, I have only one mother! Doctor Abbid Shah,MD was always very detailed with his supervision over my mother's case, he was also as handsome as a prince from the Arabian Nights yet spoke with an English accent which was rather surprising. Poor man must have a nightmare when he and his family travel by air! I had a gal pal with the last name of Said and she was always having to go through that extra baggage check experience. He may sound like Ringo Starr but looks like a Shah but he does not look like a terrorist! But iI don't want to get onto my beef with this so called HomeLand Security. I was very pleased with how the whole staff at PIH treated my mother. The hospital is very clean and the offer great services like Free Valet parking but no matter how lovely a hospital is there is something so depressing the whole atmosphere in a hospital. I don't know how people handle working in one. I don't understand why there are so many TV shows about doctors and hospitals, for I see nothing glamourous about hospital or the people who work in one. I had a college girlfriend who's main ambition was to married a doctor, so after she graduated she moved up to the Bay Area and sure enough I got an announcement that she was engaged to a doctor. Talk about the power of the secret! Still, what a shallow dream! I don't dream of being married to an award winning writer such as Neil Gaiman, I want to BE an award winning writer like an Neil Gaiman! Be the dream don't marry the dream! Besides I think marriage and relationships can be dream killers! Does anyone watch the TV show "Madmen"? Last Sunday's show was great, it showed Betty Drader drinking wine, smoking with the intensity of Ibsen"s Hedda Gabler and dreaming of a love affair like a 1960 Madame Bovary. It showed how the frustrated house wife isn't interested in have a sexual affair (like her lustful husband Don), the show showed she wanted the adventure of a romance. If you wonder about why we had a woman's movement watch that show, for poor, cold Betty Draper is detached from her husband, children and most of all herself! Well, I guess I got off the subject again! I just want to say my mother is home and thank you all for your kind words of support!

Excuse me?

Our President Obama has just won the Nobel Peace Prize! EXCUSE me! He has just escalated the war in Afghanistan! What part of peace don't they get! I support our President; I voted for him! But damn: the man isn't walking his talk! I want all our troops HOME!

Catch 22

Damn: the nightmare never ends. Today my mother is weak and her breathing is labored, the home nurse says her pulse is low and we called the doctor to make an appointment. Eight thirty a.m. Wednesday morning. Asked nurse if I should take her to ER but I know if I take her to the ER it will wear her out more , waiting around for hours just to admit her! He said to monitor her so it's no sleep for me tonight! I know that the ER would be very hard on her. Feel like I'm caught between the proverbial rock and hard place!

A pretty face is like a melody

I was going through the photos I took while at the World Con in Montreal and noticed this one I took at the signing wall, that gave a quick bio of each writer, (as if people at the con needed to read a bio of who Neil Gaiman was!) I remember this photo gave me a good laugh, for that man hasn't look that pretty for at least a decade! Made me wonder why they used such an old photo of the Dream King? I must admit, when I first saw the talented writer, five years ago, I was impressed by how handsome he was! He was showing signs of aging, there was white hairs in that famous jet black mane but still a damn, rock-star handsome man! I had seen him often from a distance but due to his huge fan base never bothered to go through that pain in the proverbial ass of waiting in a signing line (God Bless you DreamHaven Book Store!). So not until I went to the world con in Montreal did I notice how much that poor man has aged! And not in a good way! I was shocked to see how haggard and gaunt his face looked! He looked like a man in his mid-fifties pushing sixty than a man who is going to be 49 this year! Plus he had a bit of a gut, which was real odd for his arms were very slim and lacked muscle tone. It was so depressing! The first day I saw him walk by me, I wanted to break out in tears, for it was so sad to see once such a handsome man change so.

So why did they post this glamour shot? It reminded me those flyers I get from yoga studio, advertising a workshop and on the flyer they show a youthful, buff , sexy man and when you attend the workshop you realize that this photo was taken YEARS ago and the yoga teacher is no longer young and often a bit heavy set. Do they they think we woman are as shallow as men and are only interested in a pretty face?

Love among the ruins

This is my favorite photo of the Dream King Neil Gaiman, for he's wearing color! Not exactly an unattractive man but far from the glamour short above. The poor man bags under his eyes had excess baggage and his complexion was so swarthy and blotchy. After seeing him I wondered what a 33 year old Amanda Palmer saw in him, but then when one is a 48 year old famous, talented and wealthy man, it's easy for a man to attract a much younger woman. Then to be fair , Mr. Gaiman can very very charming. Still, I was rather shock and depressed to see how much he had aged!