On The Record, Part One

73

When I first went to the community health clinic I was asked what had made my health better and I noted a time that I had antibiotics and things improved until the antibiotics ran out. Yet, given a long acting injection of penicillin, it had no beneficial effect. And the consequences of receiving the injection had ruined a good relationship I had started to build with the nurse practitioner there.

I had spent the subsequent year thinking this over and theorizing why the injection hadn't worked while the oral antibiotics had. Was it a case of what was wrong with me was something in my intestines themselves and not in the rest of me? That would explain it as oral antibiotics would have direct contact with whatever was in my intestines while, with the intramuscular injection, things hiding in my intestinal space would float protected while the antibiotics flowed through the rest of my body carried by the blood stream. I knew we were supposed to have various types of 'intestinal flora' in our guts, could it be that I had a bad variation that was causing my persistent weight loss and painful bathroom bouts? If that was the case, though, wouldn't I have been infecting other people, especially all of the friends I saw most often? Clearly they weren't having the same problems as I had so, then, what did that mean?

With my new health insurance coverage and newly assigned doctor at the community health clinic a few months later, I decided to make an appointment and discus my long term health issues with her. She greeted me with a smile, but otherwise wasn't interested except for the news as to whether the fat enzymes had been helping. The answer was ''Yes'' and I had in fact gained one pound during the two months since I had last seen her. She concluded that was good enough and otherwise didn't take my other thoughts seriously.

And so I concluded that I needed help with that. Given my new insurance coverage, I called various doctor referral helplines in search of a counselor who wouldn't be put off by my 'situation' and could help me find why medical doctors didn't take my weight loss issues seriously. I finally got a recommendation for someone who was taking a limited number of patients as he was finishing up his education in psychology. I called his number and left a message and he was willing to see me... An appointment was made.

Arriving at a central building that hosted many mental health professionals, I provided my insurance card and found out the co-payment amount and figured I would only be able to afford an appointment once every two weeks. And then I saw him, his room was in the lower level of a hillside building, he was young and trim with the classic Freudian goatee and glasses. He had a slight limp left over from a construction accident before he decided to change fields. He wasn't sure how he could help me and when I told him of my problems establishing a constructive relationship with medical doctors and I wanted help with that, he was more interested in my 'situation' and childhood experiences.

When I tried to explain to him my mixed sex nature, he just couldn't get it, but at the same time I wasn't going to show him either as he wasn't that type of doctor and he wasn't familiar with the intersex label and what it meant, nor did he seem interested in looking it up. When I tried to explain it to him I thought that perhaps I was supposed to be a girl given what happened at puberty. He couldn't understand why as I didn't seem ''prissy'' to him. It turned out the reason he had been recommended to me through the doctor referral helpline was because he had done a paper on transsexuals, but as that wasn't my 'situation' he concluded that I had been referred to him by mistake. Still, he was willing to make a go of it.

While still not interested in my experiences with medical doctors, he did perk up when I told him of my experience with the vocational rehabilitation psychologist and the never ending bubble test he had me take which resulted in such bizarre findings. It turned out he was coming up to speed on giving that test himself and wondered if I'd take it for him. I explained the problems I had filling in all the bubbles given my writing by hand issues and then also my confusion over what the meaning was of the cultural terms many of the test questions relied on. He came up with a proposal to address both of those issues: I could take the test home with me for the two week period until my next visit and fill it out a little at a time, for those questions where I didn't understand what the terms meant, I could just save those for our next appointment when we could talk them over.

I returned to the office two weeks later with all but a quarter of the bubbles filled in.  We discussed the questions I hadn't yet answered due to not understanding the terminology and then he told me what he thought those questions meant. Based on that I finished filling in the bubbles and he took the bubble sheet and told me he'd have it scored by my next visit. When I returned, he said he couldn't have it scored by computer as he wasn't yet certified to give the test and he hadn't finished scoring it by hand and so it all came to nothing... As did a few more follow-up sessions and we mutually decided to end our visits, in my part as it seemed a waste of my time and limited money, and in his case as he would be graduating soon and didn't know if he'd establish his practice in town or somewhere else.

I was back to the doctor referral phone numbers again and got the name of a woman whose office was at the other medical hospital in town. I thought this might be a good sign as, if she was working at the hospital, she must be deemed good enough to be there! Making an appointment with her, the first meeting seemed to go well and we found a good date for the second appointment where we would get into the meat of my issues dealing with medical doctors. When I arrived for that appointment she demanded to know what 'psychiatric hospital' I had been confined to in the past... I told her I hadn't been. She told me she knew I had because she had found out about it from my doctor. What doctor was that? I asked. She wouldn't say, it was a secret. Well I assured her that I had never been to any psychiatric hospital, let alone confined to one. She just glared at me and decided that we should move on to other topics.

She wanted to come up to speed on my family background and childhood. So I began and I mentioned my brothers and sister and she yelled at me, ''YOU DON'T HAVE A SISTER!'' This startled me and I assured her I did and she yelled back that she knew I didn't. I sat there dumbfounded trying to imagine how she felt she had a better knowledge of my family than I did. When I asked her where she had gotten that information from, she again stated that she had sources of information that I didn't know about, but wouldn't say who or what they were. She concluded that to properly start our relationship I should get the records from the psychological student I had been seeing and provide them to her as a starting point. I agreed to.

When I called his answering machine and left a message about the request, he called back and was more than willing to provide me a copy but asked that we have an official close-out session as part of it. An appointment was set and I went to his office to see him, talk about how our sessions hadn't been fruitful and tried to determine why and then he handed me the folder of his records and that was that.

When I arrived at the other counselor's office a couple days later to hand her the paperwork, she angrily called me into her office and then yelled at me for ''two timing her'' with another counselor. She didn't tolerate anything like that and wasn't going to put up with it! When I told her that I wasn't 'two timing' her she glared at me and told me she had witnessed me at the other psychological office just a couple of days ago seeing someone. When I pointed out to her that it had been the student counselor and I had gone there to get the records as she had requested, she fumed and reminded me that she didn't allow 'two timing patients' and then asked for the records. I handed them to her and then all was quiet for the majority of our time as I sat there as she read them. She then declared them to be worthless as they didn't state what psychiatric hospital I had been confined to.

At this I once again pointed out that I had never been confined to any psychiatric hospital and she once again sternly noted that she knew I had as she had heard it from somewhere. I decided to also note how she was also under the misimpression that I didn't have a sister even though I did. ''I KNOW YOU HAVE A SISTER!'' she yelled back at me. When I said that she had repeatedly assured me I didn't at the last meeting, she told me it had been a mistake and to drop the subject. We made an appointment for a follow-up meeting but I was starting to think that perhaps she was the one who most needed the appointment for mental health issues.

For the third appointment, the bus had a mechanical problem and rather than getting me to the bus stop fifteen minutes early, it bought me to her office ten minutes late. I checked in with the waiting room receptionist and went straight to the office to see the counselor but it was locked so I assumed she had something she was finishing up and would call from the waiting area once done. I went back and took a seat. After a while I flipped through some magazines and then after five minutes I returned to her locked door and this time knocked. And knocked. I drifted to the receptionist to ask about it and as far as she knew she should be here. When I asked about my checking in and hadn't she let her know, the receptionist explained that all she does was press an intercom button and say the next patient is here but never expects an answer back from the doctors, she just lets them know. I asked if she could use the intercom again and she pressed the button and called back and this time waited for an answer but none came. Perhaps she had gone to the bathroom or something the receptionist guessed. Either way, as the buses at this end of town ran on the hour and a half, I still had the rest of my appointment time to kill and went back to looking through the old magazines available to use up my time. When it was time to leave for the bus I again asked if the receptionist had ever heard back from the couselor and she hadn't.

The following day I got a ranting phone call from the counselor and she was pissed at me because when she'd gotten back into the office that morning the fact that I had an appointment with her and she hadn't shown was the talk of the office. HOW DARE I EMBARRASS HER LIKE THAT! I told her I didn't know what else to do, once I arrived and she wasn't there. She informed me that she had actually been there but since I wasn't in the waiting room at the start of my appointment time she decided to leave early, so it was my own fault. I told her that, actually, it was the bus that had broken down and I had arrived at the office only ten minutes late. THAT DIDN'T MATTER! I had embarrassed her and gotten her in trouble with her supervisor and the next time the bus is even as little as one minute late I was to not check in for the appointment, I was to not even enter the building, but stay outside until the next bus came! She then wanted to confirm the time for our next appointment. I did.

But after the call, I continued to be disturbed by her attitude and the way she had been treating me during all but the first appointments. I decided to write her a letter detailing my reasons and canceling our following appointment. I never heard back from her and I was once again back to the doctor referral helplines...

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Hiding Dead Bodies

72

By the Spring of Nineteen Ninety, the friendship between me and Daina had grown with our partnership running the local science fiction club and the subsequent regular dinners she had been treating me to a few times each week. She had also been inviting me on occasional errand trips when they involved passing my end of town and with the warmer weather she noted that she liked to hike. Having grown-up with the ski area my father managed, I was used to hiking as well and this soon became a Saturday morning routine for us. Sometimes it would be in local parks, other times on the edge of the mountains with steeper, but more scenic terrain. And we'd spend this additional time talking about ourselves.

I avoided all topics of concern such as my 'situation' and my problems with the medical community. I would later find out she was holding back on some issues as well. So we talked of our family backgrounds and previous jobs. In her case, growing up in Denver, she had concluded to be a teacher in her final years of High School and, as the awareness of the need for Special Education grew, she had decided to specialize in it as did her two closest sisters in age. She was a student teacher at a Denver public school as part of her last year in College. She then moved to Yuma, Colorado, where she had landed two part-time jobs as the special education teacher for two rural schools, spending half a day at one school, then the other half day at the other. She noted how one of the school's gave her a room, but the other gave her the back of a semi truck in the parking lot. One school paid for minimal supplies while the second insisted that cost was included as part of her pay and she should buy what was needed for the students. Daina quickly found herself using the supplies of the better school to squeak by with the other school. After two years of it, the better school offered her a full-time job and she didn't look back.

For the next seven years of her life she lived in Yuma while teaching at that one rural school. As all new teachers starting out, she had formed part of a group of new girls in town and then one by one over the years each of the other girls found a local boyfriend and eventually settled down to marry and make a home. But in Daina's case this didn't happen, she didn't explain this much other than how she had gradually become lonely as these friends she used to do things with were now focused on their husbands and coming children and no longer had time for her. By her ninth year living in Yuma she had decided that there would be no future for her there, beyond what she already had, and decided to let the school district know she was leaving at the end of the school year.

She assumed she'd find a replacement teaching job pretty easily in the Summer of Nineteen Eighty-Six but soon discovered that school districts had been locking up new special education teachers from the coming college graduates during the Spring and by the time she started looking in the Summer, the job openings were few and far between. Often, if there was still an opening it was for a reason, a bad administration or job location. She finally had her first solid job nibble in Commerce City, Colorado, a suburb of Denver. It served as the city's industrial district and according to her had all the ambiance of a polluted gravel pit. The interview went well enough and she soon had a call on her answering machine saying that they wanted to hire her. Rather than return the call that day, she decided to wait until the morning.

When morning came, she got a call from my town for an interview at one of our school districts and she accepted it and was soon there. She liked the neighborhood and the interview went well and she was offered a job on the spot. She accepted, then returned home to let the Commerce City school know that she had already accepted another offer. And that was what brought her here. She soon joined the other new teachers who had started at the school that same Fall and one of them, Rochelle, had decided to explore the social opportunities and had stumbled across a listing for the science fiction club and brought Daina along...

How about me? She wondered. What about me? I bounced back. She was curious about my own personal history and social life and I pretty much told her about my computer programing skills and being part of the club, but offered little else that she already didn't know. Remembering how much fun it was to discover the thoughts my high school friends had about me based on what was in our year book, I instead asked her what she thought I was like, and up to, in my spare time?

I soon discovered that Rochelle had been talking about me as part of her long line of past boyfriends as if I were another notch on her bedpost. I found that very funny and assured Daina nothing of the sort had happened. For if it had, Rochelle would have had a much bigger story to tell about me! I laughed to myself. I wanted to know what other rumors were out there about me. Daina didn't have much else other than to share that I seemed to fit the profile of a serial killer.

This brought another laugh for me as I was curious why. Well, my being a single male, the feel of the 'trashy tale' I had written and brought to the Writers' Group as my first submission, etc.. All seemed to fit the preconceived notion of what a serial killer would be like. ''And so you decided to spend more time at my place and take up hiking with me?'' I asked with a huge smile. Well, she had concluded that I probably wasn't...

''Probably?'' I echoed back and then spent the next couple of years during our subsequent hikes pointing to little copses of bushes & tress, gaps between large boulders and saying to her, ''That'd be a good place to hide a body!''

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Back On The Horse

71

I was reaching the point that I needed to write more Doctor Who stories to serialize in the newsletter. While I had realized how to get beyond my agraphia problem by mentally spelling out all of the small words as I typed, I still wasn't completely confident that I could write a full story and proof read it enough to ensure it was error free. As I had roped the sponsor of the writer's group, Suzi, into assembling the monthly newsletter for me using desktop publishing software, I asked if she would be willing to be an 'Associate Editor' of The Doctor Who Report and serve as a second set of proof reading eyes for my stories. I didn't tell her why I felt I needed a second set of eyes on my work, instead explaining that I wasn't worried about the smaller bits of the newsletter, just the serialized story. She agreed, though the writers' group itself would soon be in trouble.

Elizabeth, the member of the group who always gave us feedback of 'what other professional writers' would think of our stories instead of giving us her own thoughts, invited a new person to join our group. The newbie was a published writer in that she had written a romance story and it had been published by a romance novel company under one of their corporate author names, not under her own name. Or so she told us. Yet joining our group, rather than giving her thoughts for improvement or noting areas of confusion that needed to be clarified, she instead found the core point of each person's story and insisted it should be cut out, thus leaving the stories pointless. At first this was taken as a coincidence until one by one she reviewed each of our subsequent works and the only consistent thread in her feedback was, if followed, our stories would be much worse. At one point, with her saying the science fiction premise of my story should be cut out of my science fiction story, I asked her if she had ever read any science fiction before, given how senseless her suggestion was. She returned that she had Isacc Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine delivered to her house every month. When I jokingly asked if she read it, she became quiet and finally let out that it was her husband's and she didn't read it as she didn't care for science fiction. After that confession in front of the group, the rest of the core members no longer took her seriously, instead drawing doodles as she gave her input at future meetings, but as she had become a good friend of Elizabeth none of us could bring ourselves to tell her that she couldn't bring her friend anymore.

Still, in order to bind the group closer together, we agreed to write a blended novel. In the style of high fantasy, the first two chapters were started by Suzi and her writing mate Martin, Daina took her turn, I did mine and then delivered it to my software start-up friend Pat in Denver for him to write a chapter. For my subsequent trips up to Denver for my three month supply of fat enzymes, I had sussed out that, rather than making the trip all in one day, I could make the trip as two. One day I'd visit Pat and his family and crash over night on his couch, and the next I'd go to the hospital for my appointment and then take the national bus home in the early afternoon ensuring I'd be back in time for the final local bus runs. He read over the first four chapters of the book and liked where it was going and the little surprise twist I had added in my chapter and would write his segment and return to the following month's writers' group to deliver it. When he did, the book was next passed to Elizabeth.

The next month she returned it, pointed out that we had all been writing it 'wrong' and she had devoted her efforts to correcting all of our work to make it 'right'. In her mind there was only one high fantasy plot & group of characters allowed and she had fixed our blended novel to match it. Ignoring the extensive rewrites to our work, her own chapter was more of an outline than a true chapter of a book. None of us were willing to affirm her changes by writing the chapter that followed what she had written, and so the book was dead. While none of us could bring ourselves to explain why to Elizabeth, Suzi vented her frustration by no longer allowing us to have the writers' group meetings at her home.

Suddenly the rest of us had to scramble and make arrangements to rotate the meetings at our own homes, though the most consistent volunteer of her home was the newbie who no one else respected except for Elizabeth. Soon Suzi & Martin stopped coming to the meetings, Pat had given up coming from Denver after the blended novel debacle, and finally Daina & I gave up as well. With the collapse of the writers' group by the end of Nineteen Ninety, the club's science fiction Quarterly no longer had any steady supply of short stories to feature and Daina & I had to bring the publication to an end the following year.

As for myself, I was hard at work on my next speculative script for 'The Other Show' I watched and liked, but had to find myself a new agent. While I sent off for a fresh copy of the Writers' Guild List Of Registered Agents, I knew I couldn't afford to send out another hundred query letters as I had the previous year. To my surprise, they now had a Colorado based agent listed in Boulder and I decided just to start with her. That lead to a phone call where she explained that, actually, her husband wrote for television and movies and she had become an agent simply to represent him and keep the agent's cut of the money in their home. Still, if I was interested, she was willing to expand her clientele and give a try at representing me. I was game and sent her my newly finished script. She liked it and sent it in.

A few months later she got the reply back that the show had declined to buy the script and she let me know of the bad news, but noted that they were open to new ideas if I should have some more in the future. The thing was, I didn't and so the news hit me hard and I actually ended up going to Suzi's house just to hang out and visit with her family for the rest of the day as a distraction. Once night came, the local bus routes were closed and her husband thankfully gave me a ride back to my apartment.

My short story submissions to pulp magazines also didn't sell and I decided that a paid writing future wasn't in the cards for me, at least for now. So I focused all of my efforts into the coming issues of TDWR. At least there I had recaptured my spirit and the artist was once again pleased with my scripts for the unfolding comic serial...!

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My New Doctor(s)

70

Early into Nineteen Ninety, my Medicare coverage kicked in and I decided to get back on the doctor visiting path. As I had a friendly enough visit with a new doctor, 'Betsey', at the community health clinic I thought I might as well start with her and see if I could get her interested in my long term health problems. It was always a question of finding focus, I felt, rather than walking in and noting everything that was outstanding and unaddressed in my health issues. Two examples of things I wouldn't think of bringing up were the sudden brief bursts of fever I had been having, first once a day, then twice a day since the age of sixteen, and the recent lumps I had been finding underneath my skin. When I had mentioned the newly forming lumps to my mother she took a look at one on my arm and told me they were cysts, but then she became incensed and told me I couldn't have cysts as only women got them. Either way they didn't hurt and so I wasn't going to bring them up to my new doctor on my visit with her, I was just going to focus on my weight loss and intestinal issues.

The community health clinic had moved to a brand new building about a half mile from the forgotten stretch of the main road. Smelling of fresh paint and spaciously spread out, we now had to get to the front desk to be sorted out. When it was my turn in line, I noted my appointment and new insurance coverages and I was sent to the financial department to affirm my insurance and recalculate my co-pay. As my original co-pay had been a couple of dollars given my tight income versus expenses, with the insurance coverage, my visits were going to be effectively free. Then I was sent to the west wing of the building to the waiting area where I got to announce myself again to their reception desk and note my appointment time and with whom. I was asked to wait in the open concept waiting area which featured the first televised endless loop of a medical infomercial I had ever seen.

My name was called and I was lead back to one of the many doors and asked to sit in an exam room. My temperature and blood pressure where taken and I was told to wait for a bit until the doctor came. Betsey was young compared to most doctors I had ever met, perhaps just under ten years older than me, and she came in with a smile which was a huge improvement to many of my recent experiences. She asked why I was there and I told her that I would like to review my years worth of weight loss and she gently assured me that she had been told it had all been looked into and nothing had ever been found. While she may have been told that, I told her that hadn't been the case and pointed out the fructose intolerance and fat malabsorption diagnoses I had gotten when Premier Medical Center had looked into my health two years earlier. I had given copies of those records to Michael when I had first come here including a follow-up Qualitative Fat Analysis that had affirmed the findings. She was flustered for a moment by my confidence and started looking through my file to find those pages in it. And no one has ever treated you for these? She asked with a touch of surprise. No, was the answer. She said that, while avoidance was the only option for the fructose intolerance, she could give me a prescription for 'fat enzymes' which I could take before each meal and it would break down any fat in my diet into more easily digestible forms. That sounded good to me and she wrote the prescription for it and asked if there was anything else. I decided to take this minor win and not bring up any other items at this time. I was out and directed to the on-site pharmacy to get my prescription filled.

It happened to be at the far end of the same building and after my time in line, the pharmacy filled it and, while my appointments were now free, the prescription took-up the money I had brought for my presumed appointment co-payment...

After the first month of taking them, I was surprised that the first thing I noticed was that the lumps that I had been finding all over my body in the preceding months had all vanished by the second week on the fat enzymes. Had the lumps been some form of fat that was broken down by the enzymes? I wondered. While I hadn't noticed anything diet wise from taking the enzymes, I decided to stick with them as they had done something beneficial for me. A quick follow-up appointment with Betsey to confirm I'd like to continue with them and then back to the clinic's pharmacy where they told me they only had a few left and then I'd have to take a different type of fat enzyme after those were used up. They called back to the clinic area to have the doctor approve the change in the script for the different pills and, annoyingly enough, I had to pay a double co-pay, one for the partial bottle of the first type of pills and then again for the partial bottle of the other type of pills to finish up the month. I tried to argue as my money was precious but they assured me that, as it ended up being two different prescriptions, I needed to make two different co-pays.

Back at the apartment I finished the remaining original pills in nine days, then started the other pills only to have an allergic reaction to them. It was like my red food color #3 reaction where the insides of my body itched terribly and all I could do was take a cold shower to numb my entire body down until it finally went away on its own. These new pills did have a number printed on them in red, but I couldn't imagine how that little bit of red coloring could cause such a whole body reaction. Still, before returning to the clinic and complaining, I wanted to be sure it was the new pills and waited for the second day of taking them. The next day I had the same reaction and called up the clinic to make an appointment about it, I didn't take any more of the pills until I heard what the doctor had to say.

Betsey agreed that it was probably an allergic reaction to the new pills and I shouldn't take them any more, I had hoped to return them and get my co-pay back but was told that wasn't how it worked. Betsey looked through the Physician's Desk Reference in the room and confirmed that the pills did have red food color #3 and then looked at the page for the original enzymes I had been taking and we looked through the list of ingredients to find nothing in there to which I had a known allergy. She decided from that point forward she should always have me review the PDR with her for my future prescriptions, to be safe. So the question was, how could I continue to get the original fat enzymes as their on-site pharmacy was no longer going to carry them? Given my finances, getting them at a regular pharmacy at full price was out of the question, but Betsey did find out that, not only did they have a partnership with the other hospital in town, they also had a partnership with Preimier Medical Center in Denver where I could go and get the prescription from their discounted pharmacy. But I'd have to see one of their doctors to clear it. She had the front desk call and make an appointment there and I was given a slip of paper with the appointment time and date.

Walking out of the clinic with this good news, I then realized I no longer had a car to drive to Denver with, nor a driver's license so borrowing a car wasn't an option either. What the hell was I going to do?

It occurred to me that there might be a national bus line that passed through town on their way to Denver and I looked into it and found one had gone out of business, but the other was still running. Calling their local number to find out their schedule the bad news was: While they did have a bus that could get me there in time, it left for Denver at six fifteen in the morning. The local buses would not be running in time for me to get downtown to the national bus terminal. While I could buy my ticket over the phone, I decided to buy in person once I got there and my new question was how...? I couldn't afford a taxi, it was too early in the morning to ask friends for a ride, so the only answer was to walk from my apartment to the downtown area in time for the bus to Denver. Gauging the distance and the speed of my emaciated shuffling, I figured I'd need to have at least two hours to walk there, plus another thirty minutes spare time in case I was slower than I thought as well as to account for the time it might take to get the ticket once there. So I set my alarm and was out of my apartment a three forty-five in the morning in my winter coat as I began my long walk to the downtown area.

Rather than stay on the grid of the main roads, I had found a more direct, diagonal route to the bus terminal taking neighborhood streets. As I was already use to nighttime walks in fields and neighborhoods, this was not a big change for me except in the length of time walking. There's something comforting walking through a neighborhood at night, everyone tucked asleep and you drifting by, entertaining yourself by admiring their yards or house decor. About halfway through the walk, it became a challenge and I sat on one home's retaining wall to rest up for a bit as I had planned time for it. Unfortunately, once I was on my feet again, I realized I'd need another rest stop before reaching the downtown area and forced myself to at least make it halfway further before I did. After another few minutes resting on a street side bench, I was again on my feet and swore not to stop until I reached the bus terminal. I actually did, twenty minutes early, and I was the only one needing to buy a ticket so I didn't spend any time in line, just burnt through two months worth of pizza and music money to afford the round trip ticket. The tickets were good for the route without any date or time specified so I didn't have to worry about what time I had to be back at the national bus terminal in Denver.

The ride was comfortable enough and let me sleep, but I wasn't prepared for all the side trips we took making the just over an hour trip into a two & a half hour trip. Once in the city, I found the Denver bus that would take me to the main office of the Denver bus service and there figured out the routes I needed to take and they even gave me a discount pass for having a Medicare card. I finally got to Premiere Medical Center with forty-five minutes to spare, but then had to go through their financial department given my new insurance coverage. By the time I reached the clinic waiting room they were actually waiting for me but fortunately I wasn't going to miss my appointment as the financial people had called to let them know I was there.

Fortunately, too, the doctor I was to meet was another new face and I didn't have to worry about seeing the less than pleasant people I had met there before. This doctor was even younger than my new doctor back home, he was a resident there as part of his training and asked what brought me here. I told him about the prescription issue and asked if I could get the one that I wasn't allergic to, from them. He looked at the prescription slip from the community health clinic and decided ''there was no harm in it'' and called their own pharmacy to see if they carried it. They did and I was given their prescription slip and sent down to the pharmacy in the basement of the complex. When they saw my address, they asked why I had come so far. I explained how the local clinic's pharmacy no longer carried it and so I was sent here and briefly noted the process of getting here. The doctor had written the script for a month but the pharmacy called him up and asked him if they could change it given my circumstances.

I had to stand aside as they filled scripts for other patients until the doctor called back and approved the change. Rather than give me thirty pills for a month, they were going to give me the wholesale supplier bottle of one hundred pills to last me a bit over three months. I told them I didn't know if I had enough money for a co-pay for something that large, but they told me there was no co pay, I could just take it. It was the biggest pill bottle I'd ever seen in my life, but I didn't worry about it as I had to rush and get the local bus back to the national terminal in Denver with the hopes of getting back to my town before the local bus routes closed for the day.

I didn't.

Arriving a bit over half an hour after the local buses had stopped, I couldn't face walking all the way back to the apartment and instead used the bus terminal's payphone to call Daina. The bus terminal was closer to the south side of town so it made sense to call her. She was happy to pick me up and, as I had hoped, she offered to take me out to eat on the way back to my place. I got to tell her of my very long day and she told me of her school day. She wondered why I hadn't asked her for a ride to the bus terminal that morning but when I noted the time I had to be there, she realized she didn't want to get up that early, herself.

The next time I'd see my new in-town doctor, Betsey, it'd be for something different.

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Feeling The Heat

69

As my apartment had a cracked bathroom faucet which I decided to replace on my own, it also had a broken 'zone control' on the baseboard hot water heating system. The zone control allows the thermostat to open and close the hot water flow when the space needs more heat or less. I discovered this problem when I got home one day in the Fall and the apartment was roasting. Changing the thermostat didn't help and, always being one to try to figure things out myself when possible, I found a rubber coated hand lever shut-off valve, I was able to pull it out and stop the water flow. As I knew that couldn't have been the way the thermostat controlled the pipes, I searched the rest of the baseboard piping until I found the zone control, wired up and making soft 'zzzzzzz' noises as I changed the temperature setting, but not turning its valve when the noises came. So it seemed clear to me it had stripped gears and the little motor needed to be replaced.

In the meantime, as the apartment was now cold the next morning, I discovered I could lightly move the hand lever one way or another to slightly adjust the temperature up and down in my apartment and so I did until it was comfortable. A few weeks later I took the initiative to bring the broken zone motor to the largest plumbing & heating supply warehouse in town and ask if they had a replacement. It turned out that the motor had been discontinued and I could order a likely replacement, but as it would be special order I'd have to pay up front and there would be no refund if it didn't fit. I decided to pass on that option and just used the hand lever from now on to control the temperature of my apartment. I actually think it worked better as thermostats turn on when it gets too cold and turn off when it gets too hot. But with the hand valve slightly open at all times, a constant trickle of warm water slipped through the pipes keeping the temperature constant. I'd get up in the morning and if it was a colder day out, I'd slightly open the valve more, if it was a warmer day out, I'd lightly tap the valve more closed. Simple really!

With my first Winter at the apartment, I discovered during my walks to the grocery store and 7-Eleven that my ear studs captured the cold and froze my little ear lobes. In the years since getting pierced ears, I'd been having other problems with them anyhow. If I took a stud out overnight, the hole would close-up and the stud not fit back in, I had found a thinner stud I could still get in and use it to pull and stretch the hole out until the original stud would very tightly squeeze back in. Once I left a stud out for two days and I ended up having to have the lobe repierced. For times I might get wire ear rings, the ear ring place gave me clear plastic spacers that I could put in the holes and then the thin wires of the ear rings would fit inside the plastic spacers. While I never got wire earrings, I soon learned to use the plastic spacers when I would be out walking in Winter, rather than the studs, to keep my lobes warm.

Another problem I had been having with the studs was an allergy to household dust. As I would live and walk in buildings, bits of dust suspended in the air would settle on my skin. With bare skin, I had learned to wipe the area off with a damp paper towel when I had an itchy patch, but with the ear studs, I'd actually have to take them out once or twice each day to rise them off, preferably with a special fluid to clean out bits of dust and relieve the itching around and in the holes of the lobes. I had never planned on pierced ears being such high maintenance and I started to debate what to do about it.

There were more after work visits with Daina to discuss club meeting plans and upcoming Quarterly & book review segments and again Daina asked afterwords if I'd like to join her for dinner somewhere and this time when I gave my canned response of waiting until the after club meeting dinner later in the month, she became upset. ''What's wrong with me?!?'' she yelled. It turned out she had been rejected by a male coworker when she had expressed an interest in him, on top of that she assumed my not wanting to go out to eat with her was a sign that she was not someone to spend time with. I assured her that it wasn't because I didn't like spending time with her, it was simply because I didn't have any money.

This wasn't an answer she had been expecting. And so I explained to her my circumstances of being on a fixed disability income due to my health and associated weight loss and how I only had fifty dollars a month for all my out of the home expenses, of that I saved fifteen dollars for the after club dinner and that was the only time I would go out to eat, with the rest going for household needs.

Daina was stunned by the news, having never suspected that I was living in the poverty range as she worked with low income families all the time as part of her work. Also, she had just assumed I was a natural 'bean pole' and liked being that thin. I assured her I didn't, and while I didn't explain the main reason I had problems getting doctors to address it, I did tell her that I had problems finding a good doctor.

Well, to her mind that clinched it and now she insisted on taking me out to eat, on her dime. I told her I couldn't accept that as I could never imagine being able to pay her back, but she assured me I didn't have to, there wouldn't be any tab I'd have to worry about. With that assurance, I accepted and she took me to the nearby diner a few blocks away. By the following year this would become a two to three times a week treat.

By the turn of the year, I found my cost of living adjustment would net me around twenty dollars extra a month. While it was less than a five percent increase on my overall monthly income, compared to the fifty dollars I had been using for all of my household expenses, it was like getting a forty percent raise. Part of this became quality of life money that I would alternate each month as either a delivery pizza, or a new music album to add to my collection.

Life was looking up!

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