Snoopy

...from Charles Schultz's Peanuts. It's too bad I cut off the top of his head as it's the cutest part. I had to go to this rather dreary medical building to have blood drawn for testing prior to my pre-op meeting with the surgeon. There is a series of these peanuts characters, dressed appropriately for their locations, all over town. I suspect that it was some sort of fund raising thing that started it and that they could be 'dressed'  appropriately by the donors. Snoopy does seem to be appropriately dressed for his location.

It's a terrible picture, but I was in a rush and didn't check my results before going down to what is rather grandly called the 'Garden Level' but is actually the basement. The small waiting room was full and I was wishing I had worn a mask, but they were quite efficient and got people in and out in a hurry. I have already gotten the results although it's never clear how the 'abnormal' ones, there were a couple too low and one too high, will be interpreted by the doc. I noticed a sign on the wall that said they are closing in 46 days. Nobody seemed to know what this meant...will there be another, newer facility in their much more posh building next door or will we just have to find someplace else to go?

A stop by the pharmacy to pick up prescriptions for John confirmed my suspicions that they don't sell narcotics. I'm not sure what this will mean in terms of the meds I'm supposed to get prior to surgery. I don't know why this last privately owned pharmacy in town has been baned from selling narcotics and everyone there is pretty tight-lipped about it. The big chain pharmacies are demanding that if we are refugees from Tuttles we will have to transfer all our prescriptions to them before they will fill a prescription for narcotics. 

Despite twenty pages of instructions and forms and directives there are still unanswered/unanswerable questions. I can remember the days when these things were solved for us by the medical system, but no more. We are supposed to buy some sort of ice machine from the orthopedic office for $175, not to mention procure the aids such as a walker, crutches canes, etc. 

I spent most of the afternoon entering everything including the name of my firstborn child onto yet another medical portal site for the surgery center. I thought that was why doctors offices were mandated to computerize their records so the everything could be entered into a universal database and we wouldn't have to go through this every time we see a different doctor. but the different medical groups, there are basically four big groups and dozens of unaffiliated doctors, each have their own database and they don't talk to each other. 

My computer has exhausted itself from all the form filling and is threatening to go to sleep soon. I feel the same way....