Clean Bill of Health

If you're wondering why you don't hear from me, it's for several reasons:

1.) I have no social life at the moment, due to:
a.) Surgery costs => lack of flow (as stated in my previous blog, more on this later)
b.) Everyone is out of town
c.) Lack of taste-buds => lack of dining out

2.) I made the mistake of stopping by the soccer store on Saturday to talk to my new African buddy who works there, causing:
a.) Me to subscribe to the magazine 4-4-2, which is imported from the UK (I have finnacial priorities!)
b.) Me to purchase (and not subscribe - yet - to) the magazine Champion, another UK import.
c.) 1 + 2A + 2B => Sitting on my futon all weekend reading about soccer and anticipating the Liverpool game on TV on Sunday afternoon.

To occupy my time on Saturday, I considered going to a museum that I get free access too, or going to Long Island City in Queens (where I happen to work) to the Harley Davidson dealer to check out a not-too-distant-in-the-future purchase. It's funny how I talk about being so cheap in one paragraph and then talk about major purchases like this in the next sentence. My Uncle Mike, an avid Harley rider and travelling salesman, turned me onto the idea of the practicality of the purchase, especially since he knows people and can get me a good deal. For better or worse, he's always one to offer his opinion on these matters and, like the salesman he is, can pretty much get you thinking like him pretty quick. And, to be honest, I've been thinking about making a purchase like this anyway, though I probably would have waited for the summer, since that's when it would be most practical. After Mike mentioned it to me though, I was pretty stoked on the idea. It would definitely be cheaper than some of my other options, so why not? Anyway, Saturyday was a research mission. I was hoping they would have the model that I wanted, since Manhattan's HD dealer didn't. No surprise there, they didn't have a lot of inventory because their store was small. But, I found out pretty quick that the Long Island City dealer had a much more diverse and larger inventory and I found what I was looking for. I gave them a test drive and definitely liked what I was seeing. But there was still an elusive model that they didn't have. Mike set me up with someone he knew that had that model - in Manhattan, of course - so I could take it for a spin. Sure enough, he had what I was looking for - Panoptx Vector sunglasses with the polarized gray lense! Tonight, in fact, I placed my order through Mike for a pair of subscription sunglasses since he works for the company! Thanks Mikey!

After checking out the Harley dealer, I decided to try to find the elusive, hip neighborhood in Queens called Astoria. It is notoriously Greek and Brazillian and has a large Central-European contingent as well (including a large Czech beer garden that I plan to check out one summer). After walking a few miles through warehouse and delivery districts (sketchy!), I stumbled onto Broadway, which was chock-full of Greek and Cypriot restaurants, bakeries, meat shops, etc. etc. It was very authentic because Queens has no tourists for the most part. I sat down and attempted to eat a salad (which got stuck in my braces and arch expander and made me miserable) and spinach canelloni - except it was in a crepe rather than a pasta shell, which was awesome. And of course a Cypriot beer (Keo, the Budweiser of Greece and Cyprus) in Paul and Cathy's honor! The rest of the day was involved with reading about soccer until about midnight.

Sunday I read about soccer somemore and watched the Liverpool game. After wasting most of the day doing the former, I decided to cook on Sunday night, so I made a monster-vat full of butternut squash soup which was fantastic. Next time, I'll do a double-dosage of that stuff, it was great.

Monday was a good health day for me. My surgeon said that my mouth was healing perfectly and went ahead and removed the sutures from the three cuts above my gums. These are little plastic staple things that I guess held stuff together up there. They would have eventually dissolved, but he'd rather remove them so that nothing happens. He proceeded to use these scissor things and cut these damn things out of my gums. Snip-snip-snip, ouch-ouch-ouch, I guess my gums are still pretty sensitive up there. I was watching his hands like a hawk and thinking about how this was the same guy that was using a chisle in my upper maxilla to open up my bone sutures a few weeks back. So I was looking for any un-precise movements on his part and probably was a little more critical (in my head) than I should have been about his hand stability :o). In any case, he had good things to say about my teeth and my progress, which felt good.

Doctor number two of the evening was my opthamologist, who I've been going to for months because of my eyelid issues. I was expecting the usual comments from her (this is the worst case I've ever seen, I can't believe it's so bad, your eyelids are infected, have you been having facials with subway-track-pond sewage water, etc.). But, sure enough, she said that my eyes looked normal! Like a normal homo sapien! I never thought that would happen. So hopefully those things stabilize for the next few months until my next appointment.

Finally, Monday morning I checked my medical insurance account to see if my insurance claim had posted yet. Although my original out-of-pocket estimate was $4200, I had reduced it to $2000 because that was the maximum out-of-pockey for my insurance. And then dad was over-generous and gave me some dough to cut that down. Then, I saw that my insurance claim had posted and 1.) it turns out that for some reason the surgery was in-network, not out-of-network, and 2.) the total owed by the patient was $215! Damn!!! So of course I went and bought some upgraded components for my Mac :o)...

J. Riley, positive health news is a rarity for me these days!