Lots on my plate

Just a visit for an quick update. I'm working on a post about an old hotel in town that is being town down ... but the story has proven to have a life of its own. After writing part of it, I remembered a bunch of other things (incidents, anecdotes) that will make it a livelier story. Even if parts of it are a little naughty. But it's going to be a few days before I even get time to write it all up.

(I have done [I]very [/I]little of anything that could even remotely be called "naughty" for a long, long time. That could explain why I've been feeling down lately.)

This was kind of a tiring week. I had two early morning (7 a.m.) meetings with a board that I serve on, so I had to be up, up and away early. The baseball playoff games have been running late--sometimes too long for me to stay up till the end. I've found an AM station in Chicago that carries them, and the signal usually comes in pretty good that late. I try to listen to the end, but I doze off. Fancy that: me dozing off while lying in bed after midnight.

We had some shocking news in the office today. Remember my efforts earlier this year to be taken off some exhausting meeting coverage that I "temporarily" had covered for the last three or four years? In April or May, they made an arrangement with the woman who covers those meetings for the local radio station, and that was what freed me.

The other day, she was working at her real job (at a local realty office) and was complaining about heartburn--she called it the worst she had ever felt. She had gone upstairs and was gone for a while, and eventually they found her on all fours, feeling chest pain. The ambulance took her to the local hospital and from there to the regional medical center in Marquette, where she is being treated/observed. Things are apparently going OK there, but she will be out for a while.

I bet you can guess what thought immediately went through my mind once I heard that: When are they going approach me about covering those meetings again until she returns? "When." Not "if." And what would I say?

I have come up with three answers: No, No and No. After all, the last time I "temporarily" took a regular news assignment, it was three or four years until I could get off that merry-go-round. This time, I'm not getting on.

That brings me to my doctor's appointment this afternoon. All the blood tests came back OK. Blood pressure was fine. My cholesterol was great, as usual. He did the prostate exam. :eek:

Everything was going OK until he listened to my heart. It was beating fast. Normal rhythm, just fast (about 120/minute). They took an EKG and sent it to a cardiologist in Marquette. He said it could be a side-effect of one of my other meds, and adding a beta blocker should take care of it.

But he wants me to go up to Marquette to see the cardiologist. I'm having a problem with that. First of all, that's two hours each way, so that wipes out an entire day of work. Second, my health insurance is of the Swiss cheese variety--plenty of holes. For one thing, it doesn't cover doctor's office calls at all. Not one penny. And it's only a little bit helpful for prescription drugs. We get to pay a group rate for them, somewhat of a discount, but we pay all of that. And by a strange coincidence, that discount disqualifies us from the various discount programs offered by the drug companies. How about that?

(Oh, we have such a screwed-up health care system in the U.S.! Unless you are with an insurance company or a drug company, that is. If you are, then it's heaven on earth.)

So what I think I'm going to do is get the prescription for the beta blocker and start taking that. Then we'll see. If things seem to be working out OK, I'll cancel any appointment in Marquette.

Let's see, what else is happening? I have two important football games to cover, on Friday night (right in town; it's supposed to rain) and Saturday afternoon (about 120 miles away; weather should be OK). One week later, the playoffs start. The all-U.P. football writers meeting is next Thursday, and I learned today that the guy who represents our other school won't be there. For whatever reason. So instead of two votes from our county, we have one. I hate those meetings, but ...

Lots and lots of things on my plate right now. And again, not much of it can be described as "fun."

OK. Covering the football is fun, and writing the sports stories is OK, too. But all the other monkey business--articles for special sections, special meetings with my board, the sportswriters' meeting, the doctor's appointment, lack of progress with the sale of the house--is just adding more and more stress.

Oh, I just remembered one more thing I must do tomorrow! My wife's birthday is Monday, so I have to stop at the florists' and maybe get a reservation so we can go out for a nice dinner. Can't forget that!