Down memory lane

So, yet again, I'm lying to you. I promised to tell you about the bug in my arm and yet again, I'm not going to today. I know, I know. I suck. But actually, this is better, I swear. I was going through some of my old emails yesterday to think about which of my hairy travel stories to include in my little tidbits collection of blog posts. And looking through them, I decided that I'm kind of over that particular string of posts. Cuz, come on, don't you feel like you could pass a few "getting to know me quizzes" by now.

The travel stories are pretty entertaining in and of themselves. I wasn't even sure where to begin, and if you think the last few posts have been long, detailing the random stupid shit I've done while traveling will be novellas. So I thought you might be interested, over the course of the next week, in seeing some of the emails I sent while I was in South America back in 2003. I think they're a pretty good representation of my travels in general, though lately I feel like my trips are few and far between. Sure, you'll miss a few stories with these emails. Like hearing about that time my friend was supposed to meet me in Istanbul and never showed. Or my crazy scary border crossing from Turkey into the former Soviet republic of Georgia. Or getting trapped in Dusselforf with no flight out and being as sick as a dog. But if I didn't have something to keep you on the hook for later on, what kind of of blogger would I be?

In 2003, I was in Peru and Bolivia for 6 weeks, mostly traveling alone. During that time, I sent emails to a long list of friends detailing my adventures. My apologies if you were one of ones who actually received these emails originally. Hopefully, its been a while, so they'll seem fresh. Oh, and I do have pics, but since I just thought of this whole string of posts this morning, I can't get to them. This was before I had a digital camera, so I have tons of prints somewhere. Maybe I'll have some time to scan some and put them up before I finish.

So, without further ado, and with some minor edits, here's the start of that trip on Dec. 26, 2002.

My first meal in Lima turned out to be at a hole in the wall Chinese place. How's that for an exciting South American experience? This guy I've been traveling with is vegan and didn't want to eat anywhere else. You know, I always decide that I'll eat whatever while traveling because there's no point going somewhere and not trying everything there. But this happens to me all the time. . . I end uptraveling with people who have way more dietary restrictions than even I do. I've found vegan kosher meals in Paris, vegetarian restaurants in Turkey and Georgia, etc. all because of the people I've traveled with. It obviously doesn't matter. I just think it's funny. This particular meal was an adventure because we weren't quite sure that we were ordering didn't have meat until it actually came out to the table, despite all of our broken Spanish-filled attempts to ask.

So I guess I've found a temporary traveling companion. This guy Mike who'd been on the plane with me since SFO and we finally started talking during a LONG layover in Costa Rica. His Spanish is worse than mine . . . you should have seen us at the restaurant last nite. He sits there trying to figure out every word anyone says to us by slowly looking it up in his dictionary. It seems to take him forever to get ready to go anywhere. It takes him forever to figure out change, what to order in a restuarant, and all those sorts of things, too. He loses even more stuff than I do. But he seems to be pretty good with a map. He's already pulled me out of the way of crazy Peruvian drivers a couple of times already. And he lets me make fun of him as much as I want. :) So I guess it'll be ok for a while. Besides, I can't quite seem to shake him anway. :-) So I figure I'll hang ontil Machu Picchu which is where'll probably split off. He's an interesting guy though, and a lot of fun. I guess in his real life, he lives in Portland OR and runs a small vegan food cart. Already, in the course of a couple of days, I know a lot more about him than some of my friends. That's the nice part about traveling that I've always loved, the instant bonds that develops with fellow wanderers.

Nothing too crazy so far. Lima's not that exciting. We were offered weed several times, just walking down the street. :) I didn't accept, of course. Someone tried to rip Mike's watch off from his wrist. Mostly, it's just like any other big city. But a lot poorer. Kinda dirty. Street vendors all over the place. Kids coming up to you in restaurants while you eat trying to get you to buy pieces of candy. Everything's really cheap. We felt proud that we walked around after our first night and managed to find a kick ass hotel that wasn't on Lonely Planet.

I'm still trying to figure out what I'm doing next. I want to do the Machu Picchu trek before I meet my friend Daniel in La Paz. So I'll probably head out there tomorrow. Originally, I had been planning on taking a few more days to get there because there's this train that goes part of the way. And it's supposed to be a great ride. It goes throughone of the highest stations in the world. The scenery's supposed to be gorgeous. But apparently they've cancelled that train now. So Imight just head straight for Cuzco and start the trek.

Hope y'all are well. Happy New Year!

NOT about the bug in my arm

A few more tidbits . . .

• Growing up, we never had any pets. I was actually a little scared of animals, probably something ingrained in me through my parents. Once my brother and I had to dog/cat sit our neighbor's pets, and I remember rushing in, doing the obligatory feeding and cleaning up, and getting out, staying as far from the big goofy sheepdog as I could. Poor things, they must have hated those days when their owners were gone. I feel bad now that I didn't even really think to walk the dog. In my defense, they didn't ask us to, and I only sort of rarely remember them doing it themselves. So anyway, its a bit baffling to me that I'm now the avid dog lover that I am. The kind of pet lover that berates lousy pet owners, that gets annoyed by people who get a pet because they succumb to peer pressure or cuteness, play at it for a while, and then return the pet when they realize it might require a slight change in lifestyle. The kind of pet owner that rants against people who raise puppies in their backyard because they're too stupid to spay/neuter their dog and because they want the extra cash. The kind of owner that cries a little when I hear about puppy mills or dog fighting. Well, ok, I guess I'm really only a dog lover. Cats are fine, but I'm allergic. I mostly blame my husband's (now mine too) dog Bandit for my relatively new found dog love. She's one of the most perfect dogs in the world, though she did take a while before she decided I was all right (she's utterly devoted to G and didn't like to share). It took a lot of runs and treats before I won her over.


• Once, my brother and I captured what we thought were caterpillars and stuck them in little sour cream boxes to try to watch them molt into butterflies. We stuck plenty of leaves in the box, poked a couple of holes, and hid the box under a bush in our back yard to wait for the transformation. The next day, the little suckers had mysteriously disappeared, and to this day, I have no idea why. No holes in the box other than the little ones we had poked. Every single one of them, gone. That was about the extent of our "animal ownership" as children.


• The first dog I owned all by myself was this Australian Shepherd mix named Rose. I got her off Craigslist, which I've now realized may not be the best place for this sort of thing. She was an all right dog, I suppose. I got her in the Bay Area one summer and then took her back to school with me in San Diego. She was obsessed with the ball, was a little bit of an escape artist and would freak about random things -- a computer cord I had in my hand once when I was moving, baths (a lot of dogs don't like baths, but she needed to be held down by a 2nd person and looked at you like she was going to kill you the whole time). The incidents of her being a little freaky weren't every day. But the few times I'd gotten mad at her, she looked mad right back at me. I wondered why she freaked me out a little. Figured it was me, I wasn't used to discipling dogs. And maybe it was her too, maybe she'd had a rough background. But things were coming along all right. For about a month or so. Then, it happened. I had just come home from walking her. My little brother was in town, we had taken her to Balboa Park in San Diego. We were hanging out in the kitchen after, making dinner. My roommate (whom Rose knew and loved) walked in, and we were talking about our days. And all of sudden, with absolutely no warning or provocation, Rose lunged at my roommate, snarling and ready to bite, standing on her hind legs, her face almost level with my roommate's. We were lucky that day. My roommate liked dogs and remained calm. She grabbed Rose by the neck and waited for her to calm down and go back down on all fours. Aside from a few scratches where the dog's nails grazed against her, she was ok. But I had never seen anything like that before or since. The dog's eyes took on this glazed look, and it seemed almost as if she was seizing. It was over as quickly as it started, and for the rest of the night, she stayed subdued, looking almost guilty and even slept in my roommate's room that night. But after that, I knew it was a done deal. The next day, I took Rose to the Humane Society, where I knew they would most likely put her down. Before I did, I called the old owner to let her know what had happened and offered to drive the dog back up to her. She swore that something like this had never happened before and didn't even considered the possibility of taking her back, even after I bluntly told her what was likely to happen to her. And I was right. The lady at the humane society said that 1) the chances of that never happening before is pretty zilch, so the old owner was full of shit and 2) Rose was too far gone now to save her, that they couldn't trust her to adopt her to anyone. I had been up all night the night before trying to see what could be up with her and came across a kind of "dog rage" that can be common in some breeds. And the symptoms described were exactly what Rose had demonstrated -- the glazed look, the seizure, etc. Apparently its a genetic condition in dogs and somehow relates to a pituatary malfunction. I don't know if that's what Rose had, but in any event, there didn't seem to be anything to be done. The whole time we were waiting at the Humane Society, Rose put her head on my lap. I think she knew what was going to happen to her. And I couldn't stop crying.


• Despite these traumatic first attempts at pet ownership, I did go on to get a beautiful puppy named Mia, who is only sometimes a turd, and kind of adorable.


• The last thing I would expected though would be to now be the proud owner of 3 dogs.

Sigh. I never did get to the travel stories. Next time? And the next post will be hopefully be more cheerful too.

More random tidbits (Part II)

• By the way, my dad found the porn searches in the internet history, so clearly, the guilty brother wasn't the brightest sometimes. I think some sh-- might have hit the fan that night.


• Being an immigrant, one might expect that I have strong opinions about hot buttons issues such as affirmative action and illegal alients. And as a matter of fact, I do. Against both. My parents came here, worked hard, learned English, and built lives for themselves. . . legally. I have no patience for people who can't. Or for people that come and never bother to learn English.


• The first time I changed a diaper, I was 9 years old. It was my baby brother's. The first time I changed a poopy diaper I was maybe 9 and a half? And I would have left it except that my parents stepped out for a few minutes (i.e. hours, it turned out) and the diaper started to stink and then the poop started to leak, so pretty much I had no option but to figure out how to change it and clean him up.


• My writing career peaked in the 12th grade when I won an award for Creative Writing. The prize was $100, and I think I submitted a collection of one short story and two poems. I have no idea where any of that stuff ended up, which is unfortunate. If I had known that those pieces would be the only thing that drew any attention, I would have held onto them like a kangaroo mom holds her kid (um, ok, I was hoping some funny analogy would strike me; instead I ended up with something that might not even be accurate - sorry). For a while, I could continue to call myself a "writer." I took writing classes in and after college, belonged to a somewhat elite writer's group, and acted generally snotty about my writing abilities. I even (unsuccessfully) applied to an exclusive writing fellowship at Stanford where they pay you to do nothing but write and try to publish for two years. These days, I don't write much of anything aside from legal opinions and this blog. But I'm strongly convinced that I will write the great American novel yet; its sitting inside me and will one day write itself. Absolutely positive of it.


• In the 9th grade, my girl friends and I were at the school auditorium, casually having lunch and arm wrestling each other (there's a couple of things you never thought you'd hear in one sentence, right?) one afternoon, when all of a sudden, we heard a loud snap coming from my upper arm just as my friend was forcing it down. I don't remember a ton after that, except for a lot of chaos, a frantic trip to the nurse's office, some one calling my mom, and her rushing me to the emergency room. In the end, it turned out that I didn't just have a fracture (and it wasn't because my friend was Arnold Schwarzenegger as some hilarious people would try to ask me over the next few weeks). I had a cyst in my arm, a little area where instead of bone, I had no fluid. So the arm had been weak to begin with, and that's why it fractured. Apparently its something old people get. Awesome. They put a cast on my arm and waited for it to heal, then had to go in and inject something that would help the bone grow back. I must have had an x-ray every 4-6 weeks for the remainder of high school and 3 different procedures where they drilled a hole in my arm and injected some fluid (cuz it didn't all grow back on the first shot). My orthodpedist and I became excellent friends.


• My very first car accident was when I was 19, home for the summer from college, and taking a class at the local university. I ran into a biker with my parents' car. It was completely my fault. I spaced while sitting at a traffic light and just slowly mosied up to hit him as he was crossing . Later, as I was walking into my class, I saw the guy I had run into walking into the building next door, telling his friend the story of how some crazy chick ran into him. His name was Jon and he won my heart when several days later, he called to tell me about the damage to his bike and told my mom (who answered the phone) that he was just some one in my class (you know, as opposed to the guy her daughter had hit with her car). Since then, I have been in multiple accidents, some of which have been my fault (including one in Thailand) and some which definitely have not.


• If you noticed that I never said anything about my middle school years anywhere up there, its not a mistake. Frankly, I'd like to pretend my middle school years didn't really exist as they were mostly awkward ones where only the thickness/ridiculousness of my glasses and the atrociousness of my braces/head gear really stand out. Let's move on, shall we?


• Taking my role as big sister seriously didn't stop me from cheating at cards when my brothers weren't looking or blackmailing them with things they had done that only I knew about. What kind of person would I be if I didn't seize a good opportunity when it came my way? The older of my two brothers was particularly accommodating and made sure I always had something to hold over his head.


• As a kid, and actually pretty much until the end of high school, my favorite past time was reading. If anyone is a living example of how reading under the covers with a flashlight can blind you, I'd be it. And I must have gone through every kick imaginable -- a mystery frenzy (starting with the Nancy Drews to Sherlock Holmes to pretty much whatever else came out as I got older), a girly romance phase (hey, don't knock 'em til you tried them), a fantasy flurry. You name it, I was probably into it for at least a little while. Nowadays, I've settled down with the reading, slowly working my way down to a more comfortable level of about a book or so a year.


• When we were young, my brother C and I would create schedules (hour by hour, of course) for ourselves to keep ourselves busy during the summers. I wish I'd kept some for the laughs. Not too surprisingly, I think the majority of each day was usually scheduled as "free time" or "play time" or possibly "tv time." I imagine it was quite difficult for us to squeeze anyone or anything into our busy days -- we were booked pretty solid for 3 months.

Next up: hairy travel stories, or how I came back from South America with a bug in my arm

Getting to know me (Part I)

A while back, I created one of those “How well do you know me?” quizzes on Facebook, and was dismayed to see that no one scored above about 40% or so. Dude, I have a blog! And I talk about myself constantly! How could people not know me? I stop paying attention when the conversation doesn’t revolve around me! So I have a great excuse for doing poorly on other people’s quizzes, but can’t fathom people not knowing me. But since then, I’ve thought about it a bit more. And I can see how it can happen. And really, if one person scores poorly that’s her fault. But if everyone does, it must be me and/or the quiz. In this case, I think its both.

The quiz definitely had something to do it. It was pretty obscure, I’ll grant you that. I’m not even sure G would have done that well on it. Though I’ll never know since he was stubbornly resistant (or lazy) about taking it (just like he is about reading this blog, even though he signed up as a follower just to seem like a loving, supportive husband to the outside world; he’s quite devious that way). Anyway, the quiz was hard. And I guess I don’t actually have a lot of friends who know everything about every aspect of my life. I’m certainly not one of those people who have had the same friends from the time that I was 6 or anything like that. My friends seem to fall in discrete categories: high school friends, college friends, current friends, family, etc. So it’d be pretty impossible to create a quiz that even a couple people would kick ass on. Also, I do a lot of talking about nothing. And I guess my quiz questions didn’t revolve around things like that time G and I demonstrated our incompetence with a kayak. Even among the vast majority of my friends who don’t read my blog, I’m not a really big sharer of other things.

So I thought that it might be a good time to do a few “getting to know me” posts. Probably kick it off today and continue during the rest of the week. Not sure how many exactly. I guess we’ll see how it goes as I go along. If there’s ever another quiz, you guys will have the inside track. You can come back to these entries and use them to cheat on the answers. J

Anyway, in no particular order, here are some random bits and pieces of my oh-so exciting life:

• I come from an immigrant family. I, myself, was born in India also and moved to the US when I was 6 years old. To this day, my parents – aside from the relatively new addition of Italian food and wine into their lives – live in an Indian household. This made for some confusing times for me growing up. From packing my lunch with sandwiches made of orange marmalade and American cheese to sending me to birthday parties in dresses and tennis shoes (bright blue with Velcro because that was what was on sale), my parents struggled with the nuances of American life. Often, the very characteristics that helped them to come to and succeed in the US were the ones that embarrassed me the most – their frugality, their total commitment to the Indian culture, education, and hard work, their stubbornness. It was hard to fully appreciate their qualities when it resulted in me having the same Sesame Street comforter up until the end of high school ("Why get rid of it? It's not in tatters yet." If anyone’s interested in seeing it, come on up for a visit to my folks sometime. They do occasionally bring it out for guest use). Or when we were all sitting in the Disney Land parking lot eating our Indian picnic lunch before going back in for more rides. Or when my brother and I would be stuck inside on summer days, reviewing the next year’s math curriculum so that we could get ahead. Those were all some wonderful times.
• To this day, I’m convinced that I will be permanently scarred by my parents for reasons I can’t even begin to describe. But on the other hand, I can’t imagine anything more amazing or difficult than traveling across the ocean and starting your life in a completely different world. I think of my dad working at 2 casinos in Reno (while on summer break from grad school) so that he could save up enough $ to bring his family to US, or I think of my mom coming out - speaking no English, coming only for my dad - and I'm pretty impressed. I don't think any of travel stories can compete.
• Two of my favorite people in the world are my 2 younger brothers. One shoplifted when he was young. And tried to lie his way out of everything and anything. One of them checked out porn on the family computer (we still don't know who that was, probably both, I imagine). I take my role as big sister very seriously, though these days, they don't seem to need me as much as they used to.

Can you please check my eyes while you're cleaning my teeth?

Sigh. So I spent the morning looking through my insurance paperwork and trying to find a dentist and an eye doctor (one of each, I mean, not one that does both though that would be awesome). After hours of boredom, I'm absolutely sure of just one thing. Insurance brochures are written in some weird code that I can't crack. They are not meant for ordinary people to understand. Dude, and I say this after I've spent the last few years honing my "reading dry and obscure documents" skills. And I'm convinced that the people answering phones for insurance companies have been specifically told to do everything possible to make sure no questions are ever answered. Ever.

Some of you may have already heard of my continuing eye saga. I wear rigid gas permeables (RGPs), which apparently no one else in the world does anymore. I've always worn them, and until about 5 years ago, I never had problems getting myself examined and fitted for them. Until I started law school. Stupid me, I figured I could get by without any eye exams for a while and never got one. I didn't have vision insurance in school, and eye care can get pricey even with insurance. So it was one of those things that just went by the wayside.

Anyway, so in my 3rd year of law school, one eye started to hurt like hell everytime I put the contact in. I think I was in the middle of finals, so I switched to glasses and decided to deal with the problem later. When I did decide to deal with the problem, I went to Costco for my eye exam months later. They gave me the wrong prescription (after asking me if I'd ever considered switching to soft lenses), I got headaches everytime I wore my contacts and so I haven't. For like years. Actually this might have happened a couple of times. What can I say, I'm lazy, and sometimes it takes me a while to learn from my mistakes. And I ended up getting a cool pair of glasses on one visit, so the thought of wearing glasses didn't horrify me as it used to, so I had absolutely no incentive to fix the problem. Now, my glasses are all scratched, so I gotta do something.

So earlier this year, I went in again, this time to the eye doctor down the street. I didn't have vision insurance with my last employer either, but I figured I at least had a regular income, so there was no excuse to not take care of it. I showed up. Oh, and I'd like to point out now that I told them when I called for the appt. that I wanted rigid gas permeables, but I hadn't worn my old pair in a couple of years. They didn't seem to think it mattered one way or the other. Anyway, I showed up, and they did my eye exam. And then the optometrist mentioned that she couldn't fit me for contacts unless I had them in already. Um, they couldn't have mentioned this before I spent an hour there? Not to mention they dilated my eyes while I was there, so I was useless at work for the next couple of hours too, all for nothing! They asked me if I had ever considered switching to soft lenses. Frustrated, and not wanting to walk away with nothing, I said I'd give them a shot. I walked away with some sample pairs, and another appointment (ages later because apparently, I got stuck with the one person at that office who only worked one day a week). And seriously, she looked about 12, and I kind of wondered if she'd ever heard of these kind of contacts before, the way she went on about needing special equipment to measure my eyes for the RGPs, and advanced notice, etc.

I tried them for about a month, decided I preferred the RGPs (I can see SO much better), and wore my old pair when I went to my next appt. Before I went to the appointment, I had faxed over old eye records from my last regular doc, and told them that it was from 5 years ago and they were my last correct prescription. Perfect, they said. But when I got there, the optometrist said no, actually she needed to know the prescription of the contacts actually in my eyes. Dude, really? My eye sight hasn't changed all that much over the years. Sounded to me like she just needed a starting point, and those are probably still pretty close. But apparently not. She decided to make the best of it anyway. So you gotta note that at this point, I was already kind of fuming a bit and just wanting to get the whole thing over with. Seriously, I'd never had these kinds of issues getting contacts before. Did something happen in the last few years that made optometrists completely incompetent?

Anyway, then they decided to start going over pricing with me. And it turned out they wouldn't just write a prescription and let me get the contacts. I had to buy thru them. The optometrist kept saying that she would probably need to make adjustments and couldn't be sure what she'd be getting if we got the contacts from some where else. Um, yes you do. You'd get the contacts that you prescribed. And it wouldn't have been a big deal except that they were charging like 600 bucks from their place, and I could get them from Cost-Co for about $40 apiece. She seemed concerned about me coming back to get re-checked after I got them, but of course I was planning to. I want to make sure they fit, especially after she made such a huge deal about the prescription probably not being right the first time and her needing to make adjustments. Needless to say, I walked out of there (after they ate something like a couple hundred bucks in examining fees) and never went back. Honestly, it was all I could to not throw a fit. It was right around the time I was planning my wedding, so I was already on a pretty short fuse.

Anyway, now, I have all kinds of vision coverage with both my health and vision plans at work. So it should be easy to find some one and get some stupid contacts, right? But no, first, I got the run around when I tried to find out if I needed a referral to see an ophthalmologist (holy H's and L's - had no idea that's how you spelled this word) through my health plan and then use my vision plan to cover the contacts. Then the first place I called had to check, before coming back to tell me that yes, they did carry "my brand" of contacts. Um, well, ok, its not so much a brand name as a different kind of contact lens altogether. So I was a bit worried already. Then the optometrist himself called me to get more info on exactly what kind of RGPs I'd had and asked if I'd ever considered switching to soft lens (which I've now come to realize is code for, I have no idea how to fit you for this, can't you make it easier on me?). He also asked if I could fax over my eye records for the last million years.

I finally found an ophthalmologist (i.e. a real MEDICAL doctor as opposed to a hack") in my vision plan whose office actually seemed to know what RGPs are. We'll see how it goes.

Finding a dentist through my health insurance plan was no picnic either. The online provider directory didn't have any "network" dentists, so I wasn't sure who I could see. When I called, I was given a subscriber number and told that dental reimbursements were subject to their policy. Um, ok. That was as clear as mud, but they did say I could see any dentist I wanted (and then they'll decide if they want to pay for it???). So I went with the first dentist with positive reviews on Yelp (yes! Yelp has more than just restaurant reviews!) who had an appointment before Oct. and assured me that they'd talk to my insurance before I came in.

Keep your fingers crossed!

Passing moments

Within two hours of me opening my twitter account last week, work restricted access to both it and facebook. The federal government employs thousands and thousands of people. Man, I really hope they're not basing what they restrict and don't restrict on what I'm checking out online. Cuz that would mean that they're also fully aware of the numbers of hours each day that I spend on non-work activities, such as email, blogging, booking airline tickets, etc. The thought actually had me freaked out at least long enough to restrict my web activity for a few hours last week. But then I got to thinking of how many emails I might have gotten during that period and that ended that. But anyway, there goes any chance of me keeping everyone updated on the minute-by-minute excitement of my life.

Road rage = driving behind an annoying blond chick driving 40 mph in a 55mph 2-lane highway, unable to pass, watching the huge truck in front of her even driving faster than her and finally disappearing into the distance, while already late for work. Wonderful way to start a Mon morning.

Sitting in on a hearing not too long ago:
A woman came in claiming various mental disabilities. She brought her 2-year-old son with her because of course its a great opportunity to bring in a little boy. Anyway, the claimant was a heavy black woman who seemed to have very little awareness of her own health care. And this fact being amazingly apparent early on in the hearing. The judge had a medical expert on the phone who had reviewed the lady's records and was prepared to reach some conclusions about her abilities based on the records. That's what he was supposed to do in theory anyway. The doctor is confused as to why additional tests weren't done -- I guess she had been referred for an MRI at some point and the results weren't in the record. The judge attempts to ask the claimant if she'd had the MRI done. Response: I don't know. I had some x-ray done for my back. During which time they might have also scanned her head without her knowledge??? Is that what she meant to say? Judge: Well, I can order that an MRI be done. Is that your recommendation, Doc? Doctor: Well, I don't know. The record also says she's HIV positive. Um, come again? Utter silence. The judge asks her if she's been recently told that she has AIDS.

And the woman bursts into tears. Like seriously, sobbing uncontrollably. I mean, I was confused by the relationship between HIV and getting an MRI also, but her reaction seemed a bit extreme. But no, actually, it turns out that the woman had no idea she was HIV positive!! Absolutely none. For the next five minutes, it's complete chaos in the hearing room. The woman is bawling. Fortunately, some one took the kid out of the room before he fully realized what was going on. The judge is trying to figure out how this woman could not know, and anyway, where does it even say in the record that she is HIV positive?

The medical examiner is unable to figure out where he got the information from, so there's a fair amount of searching. Finally, it all becomes clear. The doc was reading one line out of a 150 page record that identified the lady as having HTN (i.e. hypertension) and somehow got HIV out of it. Even though there was no other reference to it in the record, and there were plenty of references to her weight and blood pressure. Doh!

But I'm thinking this might give you an idea of the kind of people that come to our office. These definitely aren't your average I-know-when-I-got-my-last-HIV-test kind of people. Of course we do get the normal people too, who worked all their lives until being struck with some disabling conditions. But so far, most of the ones I've seen appear to missing a few screws. And its hard not to feel bad for them. In this particular case, the doc never even apologized for scaring the lady shitless. He moved on with a simple, "Oh I couldn't read the handwriting. But yes, an MRI might be in order." Fortunately for the claimant, I think the whole interaction kind of ruined the examiner's credibility, and the judge found the lady disabled based on the extensive other evidence.

All a-twitter

So as always, I'm a little late to the game, but I've finally decided to twitter. Because you know, I'm always updating my facebook status but its just not enough. I know there's loads of people just dying to know what I'm up to every second of every day.

Sigh, actually, its cuz I've been a little short on blog material lately. Life's (and therefore the blog) been a little slow. Relaxing for me, but not very exciting for my adoring fans. I'm sure y'all have noticed. I mean, come on, you must have realized that I was digging deep when I had to go back 3 weeks to comment on that one random guy we met at a fundraiser. Anyway, I decided to join twitter for the reason I do a lot of things in life, in hopes of a good story.

I know what you're thinking. Really, twitter was the best, most exciting thing I could come up with? It's a bit sad, I know. But don't dismiss it yet! Apparently, Demi Moore had some exciting stories to tell after she saved some one's life through Twitter! Reading about it, I'm curious. First, really, Demi Moore? You wanna kill yourself and you tweet Demi Moore? That's the first name that comes to mind? I would go for some one cooler or hotter myself. Second, I wonder what Demi was hoping would happen when she retweeted the suicidal woman's message to her fan base. That they'd all descend on her en masse and keep her from killing herself? Seems to me that a simple phone call from her to the cops would have been way more helpful. But I can definitely see how tweeting about it can make for a better story. Clearly, she's in the same boat as I am with respect to her blog content. And then, I wondered: is cutting down your entire arm really more effective? Wouldn't it just leave a longer scar? Isn't the whole point trying to hit an artery in your wrist or something? I'd love it if some one could explain to me the whole wrist/arm cutting thing works. I tried to google it a bit but only got a lot of "don't commit suicide" helpline type stuff. Which is awesome but not very informative.

Anyway, I'm tweeting now. It worked for Demi. Once I figure out how it works exactly, I'm hoping something equally exciting will happen to me. Stay tuned.