Call the Doctor!

They did it!

They upheld the healthcare act! I'm thrilled! I'm beyond thrilled. As a victim of pre-existing conditions that kept our family from buying insurance for 25 years (for us and our seven kids) I know the extreme anxiety of living without the option of healthcare. I know the stress of a $77,000 heart attack with no coverage, making decisions about cancer treatment based on our savings account, digging deep for $800 a month to buy medications. Not having access to affordable healthcare causes panic attacks!

Dee's long-awaited medicare birthday gave us much needed relief last October. But knowing many families in similar straits, I'm happy they won't face bankruptcy fears whenever they notice a mole that looks suspicious. (It's not the pre-cancerous mole that causes fear, it's the tag of pre-existing that scares the daylights out of an uninsured parent.)

Thank you to Teddy Kennedy. I wish he was alive to see this day! This is as important a supreme court decision as granting Civil Rights in the 60's. Universal healthcare is constitutional!

Click here for posts that explain why I'm so passionate:

Obamacare

We're going to celebrate by standing in the fresh air without worrying about an asthma attack!

Congratulations, America!

Brothel Studies

Lecture Series, Garden Park Clubhouse

It was all meant to be.

Dee gave a second lecture in his series called Treasures of the Oquirrh Mountains. Tales from ghost towns that used to line Bingham Canyon fascinated folks who now live in view of Bingham Copper Mine, the giant that swallowed those towns house by house and left just one case in point: Copperton, Utah.

South Jordan's Historian

The architecture of that little burg was the inspiration for Garden Park, our own community. Dee talked about arts and craft, knee braces, and porticoes, and then threw out a teaser for lecture number three: "Bingham Canyon had 36 bars, 18 brothels, and dozens of stories. Come back in April!" I knew the first two lectures had filled his time, and that he still had lots of research to do for the third one—he really didn't have any stories ... yet.

Garden Park Clubhouse

After the lecture Dee shook a bunch of hands and answered a bunch of questions. He made his way over to me and sat down. Suddenly he slumped over and turned white. Several people were still in the room and when he wouldn't revive I yelled out, "Call 911!"

A neighbor, a retired cop, immediately took charge and Dee was carried to a couch, his feet elevated and his color started coming back. He was in and out of it until the EMTs arrived. They put him on oxygen, determined it wasn't a stroke or a heart attack, and hustled us into an ambulance headed to the emergency room.

A nurse asked what he'd been doing when he fainted. "I'm a historian, and I was giving a lecture on Copperton, which is a company town in Bingham Canyon built to house miners from 28 different countries ... " He's delirious, I thought. "The Bingham brothers discovered copper in 1858, but Brigham Young sent them to settle ... " (Obviously, he'd survived.) The nurse listened to his ramblings as she drew his blood, checked his vitals and stuck his arm with an IV. She put him on pause while she went for juice. "Dear, you don't need to give her the whole spiel," I told Dee. "She was just making sure you stayed conscious."

But then she came back with a sandwich. "I want to hear more about Bingham Canyon," she said. "That's where my dad grew up. He used to deliver coal to the brothels. In fact, he and his old Bingham buddies still get together every Thursday for lunch—they're all in their 80s and they love to talk."

Dee at his Garden Park Lecture.

Dee was released a few hours later. Along with instructions to lower his blood pressure meds, the nurse gave him her dad's telephone number. By Thursday they were best friends, and Dee was invited to lunch. And now he has dozens of stories!

"Did you hear the one about Big Helen? She was a madam who paid for us to go to the movies every Saturday. We used to throw rocks at her window until she came out and paid us each a dime to go away!"

My Heritage Associates blog has another good story: Click here.

My Heart-Felt Response

Yesterday I mentioned my defective heart, and I've had a bunch of worried emails wondering if it's still beating. It is. But it's murmuring, too. Here's the whole story:

I had an echo cardiogram in December to see if my heart was OK in case I had to have surgery for adrenal cancer (which it turned out I don't have.) In the echo cardiogram they discovered I have a heart murmur. This was not too alarming because I've ALWAYS had a heart murmur, but I was sent to a cardiologist who wanted to know why I have a heart murmur.

Another echo cardiogram revealed that I have a thick heart and the blood doesn't leave the left ventricle efficiently. The cardiologist wondered if I had symptoms, like feeling breathless (yes, if I run, or climb too many stairs,) lightheadedness (yes, when I get up from laying down,) pain (no,) palpitations/awareness of my heart beating (yes, always.) These are conditions I've had all my life, so I've considered them normal.

He diagnosed my murmur as hypertrophic cardiomyopathy which is a genetic heart defect. (My mom had a heart murmur, too, and so does one of my daughters and one of my sons.) Hypertrophic cardiomyopathy is the heart disease that makes young, healthy athletes drop dead suddenly on the basketball floor when they're 18. "Often the first symptom is sudden death," he said. Yikes!

"The fact that you haven't already died of sudden death is a good sign," the doc said. Sometimes they put in a pacemaker, or a newer device that revs up the heart in case it misses a beat. Or they do some procedure where they put raw alcohol through a catheter and actually burn away some of the thick heart muscle, or they do open heart surgery and cut away the extra tissue.

Or they just watch and wait, and tell you not to worry. He patted my arm. "There's no reason to be stressed about this," he consoled me. Right.

In order to decide my particular treatment I had to have a cardiac MRI, which was a miserable, claustrophobic event, and I go back next week to hear the news. I already know I want to do the watch and wait and die a sudden death when I develop Alzheimer's.

Now I wish I'd never gone to the doctor. I went because I hadn't been for a few years and thought I should have a check up. After 2 MRIs, 2 echocardiograms, 21 blood tests, and an eye exam, I've been told I should diet and exercise, and use Visine for dry eyes. I feel like Naman, that guy in the Bible who went to Elisha to get cured of leprosy and was told to just bathe himself in the River Jordan. It seemed too simple to actually work and Naman was unimpressed. I wanted a more exciting Rx than diet and exercise. But I have to say, it sounds better than rib-splitting surgery.

So there's the whole story—thanks for asking. I'll keep you posted.
Your concern warms my heart!

My Maturation Program

Marty about 12

The biggest thing that happened in 5th grade was the Maturation Program. We all knew it was coming, and even though we acted nonchalant or even disinterested, we could hardly wait. The secrets of womanhood would be revealed and finally, we would be knowing. In my day, the boys stayed in class and did subtraction or something equally boring, and we came back with our Kotex booklets hidden in our skirts, giggling, wiping cookie crumbs from our mouths. We were now wise, and yes ... mature.

Marty, Olympus High School Senior Year

An advanced maturation program took place in my college dorm. We were all virgins (or at least pretended to be) but by then older sisters and former roommates were getting married, sharing details of what doing it was like. In the time-honored way of women, the uninitiated were prepared for the big moment.



A couple of years later I was in a room full of the well-initiated. Twenty pregnant mamas-to-be shuddered as we watched a movie of a woman in labor, and sobbed as we watched her give birth. We'd matured for six months, and attending the labor and delivery class was a privilege of the third trimester. We toured the hospital, learned all the signs and symptoms, and practiced our breathing techniques. We were ready.

Chase, Mack, Hannah,

After that, the conversation shifted. In preschool parking lots and ballet class waiting rooms we discussed our children's maturation instead of ours. Crawling, walking, talking, reading—"When did your kid start?" In Little League bleachers and parent-teacher conferences we worried and wondered if they were on schedule to become all they could become.

Halverson Heroes 1980

Back then I watched my kids get older by the second, but I planned to stay the same. Lancome and L'Oreal promised I could, so I bought eye cream and went to aerobics, hoping to catch the aging process in time. Forty came and went, and although I joked about hot flashes and reading glasses, I knew deep down that I was still pretty cute. Middle-age wasn't so bad. I'd wisely avoided the problems the old ladies at the mall seemed to have. I was through being pregnant and through being fat. Months of chicken breasts and hard-boiled eggs had me trim and youthful, and the fact that I wasn't supporting a developing or nursing baby for the first time in 11 years contributed a wonderful feeling of vitality. I lost 30 lbs in 5 months and was back to my fighting weight, healthy.

Mom and Dad, 1997

About that time my mom started to complain about her hair, her joints, her eyesight, her feet, her stomach, her taste-buds ... I tuned her out. She really didn't complain that much—just enough to bug me. "Hey, Mom! I thought we were talking about me!" (She was starting to sound like my grandma.) Then she died. I was only 48, still in denial about my own impending dotage. Getting old was for the uninformed, I thought. It was actually surprising to me that my own mother had let it happen.

Now I wish I'd paid attention to her ailments. In spite of all my plans, I'm getting old. As crazy as it seems, I'm married to a sixty-five year old Opa! And the girl who does my hair paid me this compliment the other day: "You are so darling! You remind me of my grandma!" (With compliments like that, who needs tips?)

I had an MRI on my heart this week to follow up on a problem the doc detected on an echo cardiogram. "The good news is you're 62. You've lived a good, long life with a defective heart. I'm not worried about you at all." It was good news, of course, but when someone refers to my very unfinished existence with "you've lived a good, long life" it's a reminder that I'm on the downhill slide. I'm in the third trimester, but I don't want to go to the movie and see what happens next.

Aged seems to be another normal stage of life, but nobody's interested in having the aging discussion. I would be. If they passed out booklets and cookies and punch, I'd love to head over to the gym with the class of '67 for a maturation class. Maybe they'd talk about whiskers, (on girls) and forgetting where I put all six pairs of glasses. I'd ask if anybody's feet feel like they're walking on knives first thing in the morning. The guys would come this time (even they are mature by now) and discuss the demise of the prostate, and we'd realize we've circled back to a time when doing it is a big deal again.

Even though my crowd has men and women who lift weights, do yoga, run the treadmill, swim laps and bike the canyons, there's no way around it—we're old. (It's better than being dead, which is the alternative.) I'd love to go someplace where someone acknowledges that getting old is normal, so I can stop feeling guilty about not trying hard enough. Should I have been vegan? Should I have thrown out my salt shaker? Should I have given up coke? I don't really want to know the answer to that question.

Ballou, Robinson Kid's Chorus

I wonder why we marvel that a child goes from a newborn, to a toddler, to a kindergartener who plays violin and piano, to a cub scout, building fires and water skiing, to a 5'6" young track star but we're shocked to notice our bodies have changed, too, in that same ten years.

I need a maturation program where I learn the secrets of this knew stage of life. All about the advantages, stuff to look forward to, tricks to overcome the challenges. And I want to see the folks who've made it to elder statesmen. The ones who are oozing with experience and dying to share it with someone who is interested.

If you hear of a maturation program for the young at heart
(defective hearts welcome) let me know.
I'd love to know how to put a twinkle in my wrinkle!

*P.S. You guys put a twinkle in my wrinkle! Every comment and email is read, gets a smile or a giggle, and a tender thought for what you mean to me! I can't answer them all, because I get carried away and don't have time to eat or sleep or go to the bathroom, get dressed, brush my teeth or bathe. In order to keep myself somewhat pleasant to be around, I read your comments, visit your blogs, and respond by writing my posts. You folks keep my heart beating happily!

New Year's Goal

Dee 2010

Dee was checking the progress of his soup. Feeling reflective, I was rummaging around for purpose and meaning in life. I asked him, "What should be our goal for the new year?"

He suddenly twirled around the kitchen in his socks, struck a familiar pose and started to sing his answer:

"Ah, ah, ah, ah...
Stayin' alive, just stayin' alive."

Good goal, Dear!

(Being married to a man who makes me laugh

is a fun way to live.)

Call the Doctor!

"My hormones are skeewampus," I told the doctor. "I have too much testosterone. I think I might be turning into a man."

He rolled his eyes and I could tell what he thought of women who diagnose themselves on the Internet. "Let's run a few tests," he said. After a battery of blood tests his nurse called and said, "Everything else seems normal, but your testosterone is abnormally high. (Really?) The doctor wants you to see an endocrinologist." (Why? Am I becoming a man?)

The next week I visited an endocrinologist. His interview was thorough: "How did your maternal grandmother's paternal grandfather die?" and "Did your father's grandfather ever have an irregular heartbeat?" Do people actually know this stuff?? Then he gave me a sheet of instructions to take to the lab.


"This is a butt-load of tests!" said the technician. "He'll find something for sure." Then she drew eighteen tubes of blood. "What's he looking for?" I asked. "Everything," she answered. "Does he think I'm becoming a man?" I asked. "One of these tests will tell him," she said.

I went in for the results on Monday. He didn't have everything he needed, he said, so he scheduled me for two MRI's and an echo-cardiogram on Tuesday, and another three blood tests on Wednesday (today.) It was not a reassuring visit. He suspected adrenal or ovarian cancer, and wanted my heart checked out in case I needed immediate surgery.


After the echo-cardiogram the cardiologist informed me I have a thick heart. After scaring me to death with questions and explanations, he told me not to worry. He wrote a prescription, scheduled a follow-up test and patted my hand. "You'll do fine," he said. "But I'd be concerned about a surgery." (So would I, buddy; so would I.)


It was time for the MRI's. I took my prescribed Xanax ("chew it so it will work faster," the lady at the desk told me) and I was strapped on a table. Another technician put earphones on me to block out the loud noise and I was rolled into a long tube barely wide enough to fit me. I kept my eyes closed for the first few minutes, and then when a voice spoke my name, I accidentally opened them. Three inches above my nose was the top of the tube—not a pleasant sensation for a claustrophobe!

The Xanax must have kicked in, because although I thought I was awake, I don't remember much until the guy said, "only five more minutes, Martha." I counted to sixty five times, slowly, (hoping I wouldn't totally lose it and start screaming) and then they pulled me out. He said I'd been in there for over an hour! I was panicked on several levels.

This morning I had to fast, and have three blood tests taken an hour apart, drinking horrible stuff in between. By the time I was through with that, I was weak, bleak and freaked. Dee told me I ought to go shopping (that usually cures me of anything) but I thought, "Why? I'm probably going to die soon. What will they do with my new clothes?"

It's been a roller-coaster of a week. Tonight the doc called and said there were no masses to indicate adrenal or ovarian cancer. I have what appears to be a non-malignant ovarian cyst which could be causing high testosterone levels. He said it happens to lots of women. (Finally he acknowledged that I haven't become a man.) So tomorrow I'm going shopping.

He's sending me back to the original doctor to treat my high testosterone.
I've been checking things out on the Internet.

Eye Popping

Here's a sight for you!

Dee had a coughing fit during the night while we were in California. It passed, and he went back to sleep. This is what he looked like the next morning!

He didn't feel a thing, and he could see perfectly, but a blood vessel had broken in his eye (it's called a subconjunctival hemorrhage) and for a few days he's looked as if blood was going to gush over his eyelid. Finally today we can see a bit of white again, so it must be reabsorbing. The doctor says it's fine, but the horrible sight has caught a few eyes!