It was a day of tests, as you've read, so I really didn't have time to prepare anything cohesive. But here are a smattering of short thoughts.
+They give you light-up beepers at Mayo radiology. It's just that when your little red box lights up, you're not on deck for a seared ribeye.
+Today I had a fat aspiration. It's a test rarely done elsewhere. It has nothing to do with how fat I am, apparently, which is nice. But I still couldn't help asking the practitioner inserting the needles into my belly if she could take out a little more than planned. I wasn't met with a laugh, sadly. I'm sure I was the 23rd person with that question today. But that's what they get for aspirating my fat. Trust me, it's some cultivated shit. I'm one well-fed, free-range, mostly Kosher bastard (which means a juicey breast). Whether or not I'm stress-free, however, is another matter.
+When I fist arrived, I was given autonomic nerve functioning tests, wherein I was tilted on a bed and given blood pressure tests as well as fitted with little round disks that burn and poke at you like saucers tipped with needles. (Fun? No. But not half as cruel as many of the things here people are asked to do.) During the test, the technician asked me if I knew anything about cold weather coming from L.A. I told her I am an original New Yorker. She then asked me why I moved to L.A. Was it for your job? she asked. Partially, I said. What do you? she asked. I'm a writer, I said. Oooh, she said. Movies, TV, books, or magazines? I do a little bit of everything. Whoa, she said. Do you write under your name? Of course, I said. Are you going to Google me? Not until you leave! she said, violating HIPAA privacy laws in an entirely new way.
+Which led me to wonder: What happens to famous people at Mayo? Are there names called out in the waiting rooms the same way they call ours?
+That didn't seem like much of a concern in the radiology dept. I was left in a long hallway of wooden stalls waiting to be called while a professional dairy farmer who looked to be about 25 ("Won the family's 200 acres when I hit 19," he said) and a machinist ("Shoot, I enjoyed loggin' for a few years in there between working on heavy equipment") chatted each other up, Brokeback-style.This wasn't completely new to me. I'm not some weirdo who's never met people without MFAs in poetry. But it was kind of odd listening to them size each other up, literally, while I stood there text-messaging like a wannabe-man. At the end of the day, it should be noted, however, that we were all wearing big blue gowns and looked equally like fools. And that we were all called for a similar test. Apparently you can need the same test if you write blogs or carry logs. Not surprising, but worth mentioning, I think, if only to provide you the image of the type of men who hit this place up. (I.E. For all of its rep as being a medical destination among the movie stars and America's wealthiest, I really haven't seen anyone here, including me, who doesn't look like he or she will pay through the nose for this care. Said the dairy farmer: "Sure is hard on the checkbook, this place. Then again, there's really no point to the checkbook if you're not kickin'.")
+Apparently, it's crazy in Rochester to ask the one food delivery service which Chinese food is the best. Are you getting a feeling that they don't like those antitrusts up here? If so, it only applies to cabs and Chinese food. Not doctors.
+At any rate, Lina believes word is spreading about us in town as if we're some couple of big-city hardasses who need to be avoided. Huzzah.
+One thing's for sure: Just because you have the checkbook for Mayo doesn't mean you have the brains to understand what disease you've just learned you have. Very sadly, a young mom on our shuttle phoned her friends incessantly this afternoon proclaiming happily that the mystery was nearly solved with her baby and that he "probably just has cystic fibrosis." A dark note to end on, I know, but it had to be mentioned. Her father sat next to her shaking his head in what could have been disappointment. For his sake, I hope he didn't know any more than his daughter--at least not for the moment. (One potential wrong-assessment possibility, of course, is that the baby could have also been up for more dangerous futures than CF. Immediate death, perhaps. Still, it was an odd thing about which to hear a young mom make four happy phone calls. In public.)
+Someone--a young doctor, actually--asked me today how "my axons" are performing. Then he laughed. I felt bad for him so I gave him a half smile and returned to trying to get my phone to provide me some information on the heart attack of known serial killer Alex Trebeck. What is...karma? Oops! Lost a halo...
