Did you ever notice that people aren't listening? Everybody has something to say - hell look at me here pecking away at this keyboard. But when they get somebody who actually IS listening- boy howdy! The stuff people say would knock your socks off. Or possibly I'm just easily shocked. But I don't think so, because people have told me all kinds of things in all kinds of circumstances....and yesterday was no exception.......

I went to have my EEG done. It was done by a lady who was, I guess in her late 50's, and I don't think had had an actual conversation with anyone in, like, years. Over the course of the test I learned that she is a Republican because she thinks John Travolta is a hypocrite for having 5 jets and talking about global warming (I said that, if that were true, I could see her point. Of course, I don't know if it's true, and I've never heard John Travolta talk about global warming) the entire play by play of her last argument with her husband which ended with her buying a new car, her opinion of her ex's new wife who, evidently, has purple hair, how to drive in the snow, and that when she and her husband went to visit his family her brother in-law tried to give them his wife, who was on all fours wearing a dog collar, as a gift "for the night".

Okay. What people do in the privacy of their own home is their own business. I was just a little surprised to have somebody I'd known for a whole 30 minutes disclose that to me. If that were my family, I think I'd consider that sort of personal. But whatever.

Of course, no sooner was I hooked up to the EEG machine than it began to malfunction. First something blew out, like a fuse. She had an extra one. Then all the pens ran out of ink at once, the connections from the little things attached to my head and the machine stopped functioning properly, and she had to unplug everything and stick it in again. By this time the connections to my head were starting to come off and had to be re-attached by means of extra conduction paste, and she had to use some kind of clip on device to get the things to stay on my ears. I just lay very still, listened, and tried not to sound too liberal. Finally, the whole thing ran out of paper, so she had to go get more, scotch taping it to the first part of the test. This did not result in a my having a high level of confidence about the procedure. But, I have to say, that's nothing new when it comes to me experiencing an interaction with a member of the medical community.

Today I called Dr. DogLover's administrative assistant, who has been trying, for the past two days, to get authorization from my insurance company for me to have the MRI's. She told me that she did manage to speak to a human being there, who advised her that they needed more notes in order to make the decision about whether or not to authorize it, and it would take them at least 2 days to read the notes they requested and get back with an answer....which, of course, puts us into next week. If they even authorize the tests. I don't know what I'll do if they don't. I guess I'll cross that bridge if I come to it.

This medical insurance is not great. It's the same one I had up in MA, where I never got any re-hab after I broke my ankle because the only approved facility was 50 miles away from where I lived at the time.

These people know that you don't need an MRI because you stubbed your toe. I suppose there is fraud, waste and abuse. In fact, if it wasn't for insurance fraud I probably wouldn't have a job myself. But if a board certified neurologist says I need an MRI what more does my health insurance company need to know? And, again, I ask you: are people doing MRI's for fun? Are there people in the world who get off on being stuck, motionless in a tube for what seems like forever while it sounds like somebody is pounding on the outside of the thing with a hammer?

Wait a minute, if there ARE people who get off on that....do me a favor and don't tell me about it, okay?