A Doctor In The House?

One of the biggest reservations that we had about relocating to Mesquite, Nevada was the fact that we would lose the doctors that we’d grown to rely on:

Craig would be losing his internist/family practice doctor (Jordanian/American Michael Basch), his outstanding dentist (Indian/American Ravikirin Mara), and his orthopedic surgeon (Moroccan/American Ghassan Tooma).

Charlie would be losing her internist, Michael Basch, her optometrist (Lebanese/American Haleh Guilak), her gastroenterologist (Indian/American Naidash Raghuwanshi), and her cardiologist (Mexican/American Michael Vargas).

How would we replace all of these wonderful doctor/immigrants?

We got lucky this past week. In St. George, Utah, about 35 miles north on I-15, we found a super nice cardiologist named Dr. Kent Gleed. He is a taller and larger version of the actor Jeff Daniels (Terms of Endearment, Dumb and Dumber, etc.) Charlie was sold from the moment he entered the exam room. He is a specialist in cardiac monitoring, which gives Charlie some comfort since she has a pacemaker. Anyway, it was love at first sight…that doctor problem is solved…even though he’s a Caucasian (but that’s a given in Utah!)

We are replacing our internist/family practice doctor (from Murrieta) with a local Mesquite doctor that has come highly-recommended from our best neighbor friends, the McPhersons. The doctor’s name is Gladys Kodjoe, and she is an immigrant from Ghana in equatorial Africa. We will be seeing her for the first time in April. Dr. Kodjoe’s husband, Emmanuel, also an immigrant, owns a local pharmacy, so we’ll probably be patronizing him instead of WalMart.

Craig has been lucky to find a local orthopedic surgeon named Todd Parry. He’s out of St. George, Utah, but has office hours once a week in Mesquite. Craig plans to keep him busy getting treatments for arthritis, creaky knees, and sore hips.

We have been used to excellent veterinary service back in So Cal, because the outstanding vet in Murrieta also happens to be a client of Charlie Manning Bookkeeping. However, we need a local vet here in Mesquite, because, with three dogs, something is always going awry. Luckily, we have found a great little veterinary hospital just a few miles away, with very nice and knowledgeable staff. Doctor Killian Lenehen, a young, earnest gal, is our new vet. The dogs like her.

Awhile back, Charlie went to the local WalMart vision center to have her eyeglass prescription checked. The optometrist there, after a thorough exam, recommended that she see a St. George ophthalmologist because of her worsening sight. We did that last week, and met a very nice guy named Dr. Snow Slade. After some specialized exams, he came to the conclusion that Charlie not only has worsening macular degeneration (which we were aware of, and is incurable) but, also, cataracts in both eyes. His recommendation was for Charlie to have the cataract surgery ASAP, to give her the best possible vision that she can expect at this time of her life.

What the Hell…we did it for JayJay, so I suppose Charlie has earned at least that much love and attention! The first eye will be done next week, and the second within a month.

(I hope Charlie and the dogs are as dedicated to me when I need my brain transplant.)

Update: I mentioned last week that Charlie had fallen off short ladder while doing some household beautification. I took her and her sore back to the local Emergency Room where they took x-rays and determined that she had wrenched her back muscles and prescribed pain pills and a Lidocaine patch. “Problem solved”, they thought.

That didn’t stop the pain. So, we got an appointment at the orthopedic clinic where I had seen Dr. Todd Parry about my arthritic joints. This time, we saw Dr. Scott Parry, Todd’s older brother. After talking to Charlie, reviewing the x-rays, and poking her back a bit, he was of the opinion that she might have a compression fracture of her 1st lumbar vertebra. (It looked like it to me, too. I used to be an x-ray tech, back in the day.) Dr. Parry has ordered an MRI (or CAT scan) to rule out (or, in) this diagnosis. We are awaiting said exam from the local radiology department.

Meanwhile, Charlie and her sore back (and Booger) are sleeping in the guest bedroom, while allows her greater freedom and relief from the other two dogs pawing at her and denying her the sleep that she deserves.

As the saying goes, “If you have your health, you have everything!” The corollary to that is “That if you don’t, life ain’t worth shit!”

Thoughts and prayers.