My Day in the ER

Recently I spend practically a whole day in the ER.

I had a Zoom book club meeting the day before and was eating a tuna fish sandwich as I sat at my computer talking with my book club friends.

I made the tuna salad myself and in fact my husband was eating it downstairs while I was upstairs Zooming,  and he later told me he thought it tasted fine.   But it tasted off to me,  and a few hours later I felt sick to my stomach and that night spent more hours in the bathroom than in bed.

The next morning I still felt awful and called my wonderful primary care physician Dr M.  His nurse told me it sounded like a case of food poisoning and rather than come to the office I should go to the ER as I’d need fluids after throwing up all night

And so I went to the local hospital in the Connecticut community where we spend half our time.   It’s a wonderful hospital,  and there’s usually no wait in the ER and there wasn’t that day.   I was immediately ushered into a private room,  quite unlike the narrow bays separated by curtains that I’ve seen in the crowded ERs in many New York hospitals.

Then a kindly staff treated me with state-of-the-art medical equipment.  But when I mentioned I had a slight pain in my abdomen,  a red flag went up that sent me for an MRI – not the usual  protocol for someone in the ER with food poisoning.

And the results were a bit alarming – it seems the MRI revealed a cyst on my pancreas as well as something suspicious on my breast.  The MRI results were shown to the surgical team who deliberated for awhile while I worried, and although they concluded that nothing was urgent, they strongly advised me to pursue those two incidental findings with my doctors.  And so of course I continued to worry.

After six hours in the ER I was discharged,  and the next day I called my New York gastroenterologist and my New York gynecologist with the Connecticut ER story.   Each asked that my medical records be sent from Connecticut to New York,  and I made appointments for further tests with the results to be sent back to Connecticut so my doctors in both places were kept – pardon the expression – abreast.

And so my inter-state medical saga continued as I worried for a few more weeks while awaiting those test results.  Then finally I got a clean bill of heath from both doctors.  The pain in my abdomen that had sent me for that MRI was now chalked up to gastritis caused by all my vomiting that fateful night.

Back in Connecticut I went to see Dr M.

“Isn’t it lucky that when I went to the ER for food poisoning they did that MRI and uncovered those incidental findings!”  I said.

One of the things I like about Dr M is that he’s not an alarmist.

“Actually my dear,  it might have been better had they not been so conscientious and not done the MRI,”  he said,  “It would’ve saved you all that unnecessary worry.”

You know,  he was right.

– Dana Susan Lehrman

My tried and true approach to all problems with technology: Turn it off and turn it back on. Nine times out of ten, the problem is mysteriously fixed.
Read More

Scammed!

I thought I was pretty smart but the scammers out there are even smarter!

A few years ago I got a call telling me my Verizon bill was overdue and my cell phone service would soon be discontinued.

I thought I’d paid that bill and could easily have checked,  or  I could have hung up and called Verizon directly – but for some stupid reason  I did neither.  Apparently the thought of losing my cell phone service was so daunting I inexplicably did what the practiced voice on the phone told me to do –  I very stupidly Zelled $1400 (!!!) to a number I was given to supposedly cover what was due on my Verizon account PLUS several months of advanced payment to insure that I wouldn’t fall behind again and risk having my service interrupted.

But as soon as I hit the send button the horrible realization washed over me that I’d been horribly  scammed!  I called my bank,  I called Zelle,  and I even called the police all to no avail.

Then I remembered that at the suggestion of our computer tech we’d recently gotten a LifeLock insurance policy.  So I called our Lifelock agent.   who explained that I was covered for identity theft and other dire contingencies.  but not for stupidity.

And so I learned a very valuable although rather costly lesson,  and the next time someone tries to scam me,  or sell me a bridge,  I‘ll tell them to fuhgeddaboudit!

– Dana Susan Lehrman 

I used to love the evening cookouts or sleeping under the stars that we did lakeside throughout my summers as a camper at the National Music Camp (now Interlochen Arts Camp) in Interlochen, MI from 1964-1969. The girl’s side was by Lake Wabakanetta (Duck Lake) and we had a large expanse of sand with a building which housed fireplaces and equipment for fun in the sun. Here we were not competitors, vying for the best chairs in the orchestra, leads in the plays or operettas, or solos in the dance recitals; we were friends in the cabins, just kids enjoying ourselves. We built safe campfires for cookouts, then, as the sun set over the lake, sang songs, roasted marshmallows, ate s’mores. If we were sleeping out, we might tell scary stories, do “finger lifting” (“you are as light as a feather”), sing folk songs, but always end the evening with this favorite (which I just learned while writing this story is known as “Canadian Taps”; we learned slightly different lyrics):

Each campfire lights anew…
The flame of friendship true.
The joy we had in knowing you
Will last a whole life through.

And as the embers die away,
We wish that we might always stay.
But since we cannot have our way,
We’ll meet again, some other day.

This would be followed by a hushed version of Taps (Day is done, gone the sun…) as we snuggled in our sleeping bags and drifted to sleep while gazing at the stars.

The counselors ensured that the campfire was safely extinguished, trash disposed of, and all was right in our corner of the world. Camp was built (in 1928) on the edge of a pine forest, now a state park; the air was pure and delicious. Sacred memories.