2002-09-03 - 11:20 p.m.

Half A World Away

Ah, here I am home again in the Hamster Palace! Yay!

About the tournament this weekend...

I have a number of projects and goals that I've set for myself while Lily is away and one of them is to play more chess at big serious tournaments. However, my experience this weekend has convinced me that until my blood sugar is under better control playing more chess would just be a waste of time and money. Concentrating this weekend was HARD! I was using up buckets of time, and in spite of the very leisurely time control, I was getting in time trouble a lot. I have to face it: my brain was hardly working.

I have to make my health a major priority now, while I still have some brains left to save.

Speaking of which! One of the things that complicated last night is that I couldn't have anything to eat after 9 PM. Why? Because I was slated for a bunch of medical tests at the hospital this morning at the godawful hour of 8AM. That's a way to squelch your Labor Day Weekend buzz in a hurry.

I clambered out of bed at seven, took a shower, then made my hungry way to the hospital. I signed in and talked to the lady at the hospital cashier's desk.

One of my little challenges right now is that I have no health insurance. I'm self employed, so there is no employer to give me benefits. Well, I DO have a major medical plan in case of catastrophes, but for the most part I'm paying for all my medical stuff myself. I don't view it as a big hardship: instead of giving $1000 to some scumbag insurance company, I'm just paying it directly to pharmacists and doctors. It all evens out in the end.

However, when I go to a hospital for a test, and I tell the people there I have no health insurance, they look at me like I'm some sort of hobo. I have to sign a piece of paper that says that I understand that my medical bills are my responsibility. Er...okay, lady, whatever you say. Like not signing the forms would make the bill collectors NOT come after me.

The trouble is that the two tests I took today are expensive. I don't know exactly how expensive, but pretty damn expensive. I got an upper gastrointestinal scan done, and had an ultrasound. Those two right there could be $2000, which would sort of blow the "well it all evens out" theory right out of the water.

I need to get health insurance, but I hardly know where to start. The folks at the hospital handed me some Medicade forms but just looking at them gave me a headache. There is a long list of things they want you to bring with you when you go to see them that includes every bit of relevant financial data that exists. It seems like it would be easier just to bring your whole HOUSE with you, but I am digressing again.

After I signed in, they sent me to radiology where I had to leave my clothes in a locker and put on a pair of hospital pajamas. I couldn't help but think of Mark Twin's dictum: "Beware of any job that requires new clothes." The pants were a bit of a tight fit, but seemed to want to fall down anyway. When I mentioned this to the nurse she joked that they were "one size fits nobody."

After much waiting around I got to my first test, which was an ultrasound. Basically it's just like the sort of thing they do for pregnant women, but in my case they weren't looking at a fetus, they were looking at my liver and looking to make sure I didn't have any gallstones. They put some sort of goo on my tummy and then rubbed me with some sort of humming metal thing.

After another bunch of waiting, I then went for my second test, the upper GI series. In that one an x-ray technician took pictures of my insides while I lay in various postures, all the while quaffing glasses of barium. Yummy, pasty, chalky barium - the drink of champions! I wonder, will this make my innards glow in the dark?

After all this was done I was free to get dressed and leave. It was now well after 10 a.m. and I was starving. I decided to treat myself to a diner breakfast since the barium snack I'd had at the hospital really didn't fill me up.

The rest of the day was basically about three things: the usual Monday stuff, entering the games from the tournament into my computer, and finally getting a chance to talk to Lily.

The usual Monday stuff had to be done today, even though it was Tuesday. I had to put together a bank deposit and so on and so forth. I couldn't have done any of this stuff yesterday because everything was closed, and, well, I wasn't here.

Putting the games into my computer was easier than I remember it being before. In fact before the end of the day I had most of the games from the Open section in. Of course, one of the reasons that it went so fast was that every time I found one with illegible handwriting I would stick it in the bottom of the pile. Eventually I'll get down to the end and all the players who got an "F" in penmanship will be waiting for me.

Of course the best news was that I was finally able to talk with Lily. I chatted with her on AIM and even got to talk with her on the phone. She's very excited to finally be in China, but also a little scared and homesick. I really can't blame her since she is about as far away from the Hamster Palace as it is possible to be since she is twelve timezones away. When it is two in the afternoon here, it is two in the morning of the following day there. So when I talk with her after I just woke up, she is getting ready to go to bed, and when I'm getting ready to go to bed, her day is just starting.

Be that as it may, going to China has been one of her goals ever since I met her, and I'm very proud of Lily that she was able to make her dream come true. However it was very odd to talk and chat with her, knowing that she was so far away. We were chatting just like we used to when she was in the other room, but instead she's halfway around the world.

So here we are using this fabulous technology that allows someone 10,000 miles away to communicate instantly, for free, and what are we using it for? To talk baby talk to each other! We are just too cute.