Today is a rarity here in Southern California…it’s raining! Actually, we’ve had showers for a couple of days now. Maybe Global Warming is a hoax after all?
Charlie and I have been using these rainy days to get a lot of errands done. Today we visited Dr. Vu, a plastic surgeon, who checked Charlie out stem to stern, on the lookout for large lipomas. He found nine of them that were annoying enough to Charlie to warrant surgical excision. She’s been living with these fatty tumors for many years, and some are quite painful, especially when JayJay or myself happens to poke one of them. Dr. Vu will now send his report to our medical insurance group and, hopefully, they will authorize him to do some slicin’ and dicin’.
Charlie and I are unlike in many, many ways, but it is probably most pronounced with our health histories. I’m lucky to have inherited pretty good genes (my Mom is 89 this year, and I believe that my grandmother lived that long, as well), and have had very few health issues other than accidents. Charlie, on the other hand, has a medical chart that must be several feet tall. Bad genes and bad luck have plagued her for almost all of her life. So, when one of us has to fill out her medical history at a new doctor’s office, it can take some time. To help out, Charlie carries in her purse itemized lists of surgeries that she’s endured and current medicines that she’s been prescribed.
The biggest problem that she will have in receiving authorization for the seemingly routine excision of these subcutaneous tumors is…from the anesthesiologist. Most of them are reluctant to put Charlie “under”, thinking that she may not come out of it. She’s a heart patient, she’s taking many sophisticated drugs, and she has a history of pulmonary emboli. She will have to temporarily go off of her blood clotting medicine for this surgery. Been there, done that, most recently for a colonoscopy. Anyway, it’s routine for us, but scary for her doctors. Hopefully, we can get approval, get this thing safely done, a be rid of those pesky lumps.
We had dinner last night at our friend Jason Friedman’s house. He’s a very good friend of Charlie (they met in LeTip, a business networking group) and he’s my hiking buddy (we did Mt. Whitney awhile back). Jason has a large, beautiful home in Menifee that he shares with his Husky dog, Ashka. Unfortunately, he has no one else to share his life with. He’s had bad luck with women, and is snakebit, to some extent. Charlie and I feel so bad for him, for the loneliness that he’s experiencing. He’s “desperately seeking Susan”, or anyone else, for that matter, but just can’t find that perfect match.
Maybe that’s his problem…being too picky. Sometimes opposites attract. Take Charlie and I, for example. We’ve been married for 42 years, have been through good times and bad, and we find a way to make the partnership work, despite the fact that we are very different people. In every situation that arises, our Yin/Yang team has two ways of looking at the problem, usually with my brain and Charlie’s heart. Sometimes my way prevails, sometime hers, and sometimes we compromise to reach a solution that satisfies both of us. There’s a synergy at work in our marriage, something that is lacking in many others that I see. I honestly feel sorry for them, when one party dominates the other.
Jason is a very driven guy. His motor seems to always be going 100 mph; lots of nervous energy. He’s immersed in work, doing Iron Man training, helping out at Alcoholics Anonymous, going to church, working on his house, etc. It’s like his life is a burning fuse, where he’s trying to cram as much into it before the bomb goes off. He could be a very dominating, stubborn guy…who knows? How a woman would fit into this frantic existence, I don’t know. Personally, I think he needs someone to curl up on a couch with, someone with a sense of humor, someone to walk (not run) with, a person whom he can trust. I hope he can find one; I did.
We have a big family get-together scheduled for Christmas Eve. We anticipate 16 bodies, including sons Jeff’ and Tim’s families (with some friends) and my sister Claudia and her squeeze, Ted. We’ll have a lot of food, do a White Elephant gift exchange, and gorge ourselves on pasta, Mexican food, chicken wings, and desserts. Charlie has had a very good year, business wise, so she’s bought oodles of presents for the kids and grandkids. There should be many smiles all around.