July 2008

Yesterday I admitted I was a luddite, at least in part.  This morning The Wife informed me that the ‘Gimp tag’ posted on my ‘wall’ on the social networking site by Sabine requires me to post 5 things about myself that are not commonly known.  Hmmmmmmmmmmmm.  Let’s see, in no particular order:

1)  I was awarded two Air Medals during the little confict in  Southeast Asia back in the early 70’s.

2) I have six siblings, four sisters and two brothers.  I am second in the pecking order with a sister two years my elder.

3) I survived malaria in the early 80’s, contracted while working in Peru as a field biologist.  While awaiting official diagnosis and treatment my fever cycles would peak at over 106 degrees F (BTW, at that time number one factor leading to death from malaria was inability of medical folks to properly diagnose; I knew what I had but the doctor did not want to believe and was chasing other exotic diseases).

4) I have walked away from two helicopter crashes, one in western Texas and the other on the side of Mt. Pinatubo in the Philippines.

5) My temporomandibular joints (both sides) are so loosely connected that I can disarticulate them at will.  Or more correctly, they disarticulate so freely that they do so unless I consciously work to keep them articulated.  If I do not control it, the joints will alternately disarticulate and rearticulate as I chew, each movement generating an associated loud popping sound.  Great party trick, but it freaks out a  lot of folks so I need to keep it under control.  The problem was caused when I was struck in the jaw by a shoulder during a football game ca. 1970.

Enough of  baring my soul for today.  I see Chris from Austin was just tagged on his blog and I will be interested to see what he divulges.

There was a group ride and BBQ on Sunday on the peninsula. And no one noticed until folks were going home that there had been an early fatality. The victim, a T. Squirrel, had been run over by the front tire of the car of one of the participants. It is unknown if T. Squirrel was an innocent victim or had committed suicide by placing themself in front of the car as it pulled into park.

A couple of weeks back we were at a 50th birthday celebration, just a few folks gathering in a backyard for some food, wine, and socializing. Listening to the conversation it became clear that I was probably the only person in the group that did not have a presence on either of the two major social networking sites. Someone working in tech being the luddite in a group that included building contractors, PR folks, and the like? I am 5 to 20-something years older than everyone else in attendance, but can I use age as an excuse?

Last week I did sign up on one of the sites, the one that seems less focused on the teenage crowd. Still find myself hesitant to go blasting everyone I know with invites to be friends. But at least it gave The Wife the opportunity to tag herself as married on the site.

This past Sunday evening we happened to catch the CBS network news.  In general I am not a big fan of CBS News these days; things have gone steadily downhill and I think the signal that they were really struggling was the annointment of the queen of fluff journalism as their regular weekday anchor.  But the TV was sitting on that channel when the news came on and one of the headlines caught my attention enough for me to keep the set and that station and watch for a while.

The story of interest was about the ‘new’ drug of choice for athletes who dope, with a slant towards the coming Olympics.  So what is this ‘new’ drug which led them to tack on the story to the national news?  EPO!  (of course we know they mean a synthetic form of EPO).  ‘EPO’ as a new drug?  Is CBS caught in some kind of time warp?  Do they forget that it was EPO that Bjarne admitted last year to having used in 1996, a full 12 years ago?  Or that EPO was front and center in 1998 in the ‘Festina scandal’?   Lots of other times it has made the news in the past 10+ years, so I am at a loss as to how CBS could think that this is a ‘new’ drug of choice.  Of course the story had to mention the failed test of this year’s Italian bad boy, Ricco.  The only thing of real interest in the story was that some researchers in Denmark claim that doping with low levels of synthetic EPO can have a physiological effect that lasts for a while but that any trace that could be tested will disappear rather quickly.  Almost a challenge to dopers to start trying mini-doses to amp up the hematocrit a bit and stay under the testing radar.

Wonder what the next major ‘news’ story they will hype more than a decade too late?

We watched the Michael Moore documentary on healthcare, Sicko, on Friday.  It was rather timely since the bills for my crash last month just started appearing in the mailbox.   Moore is always over the top, but he usually puts some light on the craziness in our society, and the healthcare industry in this country definitely is out of whack in many ways.

The first bill I have received is from the hospital for my treatment in the ER (but not for the trauma doctors, all billing separately), the operation (but not the surgeon), and my 61 +/- hour stay.   The total is tickling, hard, the six figure range and some of the charges seem a bit excessive.  The 30 min or less with PT on my second day, basically them watching me get up and hobble on a walker then crutches, comes in at a bit over $500.  The OT person who followed along but did not really do much other than say ‘good job’ is apparently worth almost $700.  The PT person the next day, the one who took me for one lap of the floor and a couple of steps, is charged at $600.   There is a full body CT scan at $25K, and a separate head CT scan at $5K.  Isn’t the head part of the body?  Couldn’t they do it all at once for one price?

The craziest part of it all is how the numbers change due to my insurance.  There is a ‘contractual adjustment’ to the near six figure price, an adjustment that deducts 80% of the price from the total, with the remainder being allocated to the insurance carrier and to me.   Which is a bit scary; if I am John Doe without insurance I would be on the hook for nearly $100K just for the hospital, but since I have insurance yours truly and the insurance company together only have to come up with 20% of that amount.  Now that is truly ‘Sicko’.   And it really points to the need for healthcare/insurance reform with universal coverage.

Yesterday I remarked that the TdF riders were not likely to have snow on the road as they climbed the Col du Tourmalet. And that was the case. But if the race had been 600 miles to the ENE from Tourmalet the story may have been different. Snow at the top of Passo dello Stelvio on July14th!

This morning we watched the Tour de France train cover some territory with which we are familiar, bringing back memories from three years back when we danced around in that section of the Pyrenees. Tomorrow the TdF will continue in that region giving us another opportunity to remember our experiences. But I do not think the TdF riders will face some of the obstacles we encountered in the area around the Col du Tourmalet. In Ste. Marie de Campan we found the road completely blocked by a herd of cattle and the herders did not seem to feel that moving their charges along was a priority.

Near the top of the climb to Toumalet we found a rather deep snowbank blocking the road about 100m from the top. I got to try my cyclocross techniques to get our bikes across this barrier. At the bottom of the climb we had been assured that the road was clear, bicycle accessible, but closed to cars. I am relatively certain that there will be no snow on the road tomorrow.

When you are housebound, for the most part, you have to live a bit vicariously. Tomorrow morning we get the opportunity to revisit part of our honeymoon, a cycling tour through southwestern France and northeastern Spain. The mid-part of that tour involved dancing across some of the high passes of the Pyrenees, a spectacular region I wished we had spent a bit more time exploring. Tomorrow’s stage 9 of the Tour de France will visit two of our favorite passes, the Col de Peyresourde and the Col d’Aspin. Look for the restaurant advertising crepes at the top of Peyresourde, where we spent some time chatting with an Aussie who was spending some months in the region having some fun. Time for some memories.

Went out this morning and had the first post-operation x-rays taken of the right hip. Last x-rays I saw were taken right after I arrived at the ER back on June 18th. The scanner does not want to pick up a lot of detail from the new ‘pictures’, but it is obvious that a bit of extra hardware has been added. Time to take a trip and see what happens when I go through the metal detectors.

My daily ‘range’, the area in which I can move freely, is a bit restricted at the moment. The maximum travel distance is say 60-70 feet. I feel a bit like an animal in a cage at the zoo; no matter how nice the surroundings the limitations on movement start to grate on you. Much of my day is spent either at my desk in the office or on the couch. Pretty boring.

At least I timed things so the ‘Tour’ is going on during the time of forced confinement. And it has been interesting so far. I watch the Versus live feed as soon as I get up until the stage ends for the day. We did not watch that much of it last year, but in 2006 we watched a whole lot, much of it while in Portland. The place we stayed in Portland did not get OLN so we had to find an alternative spot for watching. Chris King sponsored viewings of the recaps/rebroadcasts at a local watering hole but then we found St. Honoré Boulangerie, a local bakery that showed the OLN coverage live each morning. The bakery was about a mile from where we were staying so the ritual was to get up, get on the bikes, roll to the bakery for the opening, then jostle with the locals for a seat with a good view of the large flat-panel TV. Once settled, part of the ritual was to watch for favorites breads and pastries coming out of the oven so we could get them while they were hot and tasty. Sure would be nice to have a warm chocolate croissant with my coffee in the morning. Might make the confinement seem less ornerous.