Soup and Medicare Wellness Tests

I was influenced by a late night TV commercial to crave a bowl of tomato soup and a grilled cheese sandwich that I could have made at home but cooking didn’t appeal to me anymore than having a Slim-Fast diet drink for lunch which I contemplated doing in an attempt to lose twenty pounds by the next morning for my bi-annual appointment with my internist. The choice between being good and letting the Campbell’s commercial rule my life was postponed because I needed to get to the post office before they closed for lunch. As it turned out, they hadn’t even opened that morning because it was Columbus Day. Bummer! 

On my way home, my Chevy Trax auto-turned itself into the Guy-Land Cafeteria’s parking lot, probably thinking I needed some comfort food to compensate for my disappointment at the post office. They usually have tomato soup but that day it was vegetable beef and barley. I moaned and groaned and the chief cook and bottle washer assured me that it goes great with grilled cheese. He had no reason to lie to me so I went for it. Ohmygod! Was he right! It was the best soup I’ve had since my mom was alive to make vegetable beef and barley soup. I’m surprised I didn’t have a Meg Ryan, When-Harry-Met-Sally organism right there and then which would have been embarrassing, given I was the only woman among the twenty male patrons. Am I wrong? Women would have understood it was the soup, not the sea of gray-haired old men I was excited about.

The next day on my way home from seeing the doctor my Chevy Trax did it again! Only this time it turned into the Breakfast-Only Café. Apparently it thought I needed to celebrate the fact that the god of doctor’s scales was kind to me and didn’t give my internist any reason to tisk-tisk me for being a bad girl in the kitchen. Or maybe he couldn’t get a word in edgewise, my mouth was running like a rabid coyote. Not that I’ve ever seen a rabid coyote but fast moving coyotes are a common thing in old cartoons, aren’t they? The doctor was going over the Medicare Wellness questions about depression which got me started on how excited I was about my future move to the CCC. Or maybe I was trying not to get caught in a lie about having throw rugs on the floor. What’s Medicare going to do if you answer that you have them? Send the rug police to your door to confiscate them? 

The doctor said he goes right by the lake where I’ll be moving to on his way back and forth to work and I joked that he could stop by for surprise throw rug checks. He laughed and said he’d do that. He’s been my doctor for over twenty years, was my husband’s doctor, too, and I can joke around with him but I don’t usually talk so much at my appointments. I shouldn’t have this time either because he was already running forty-five minutes behind schedule. I guess I wanted to be sure he didn’t think I was one of those depressed old people that the Medicare questionnaires are trying to root out because I really needed a refill on my Ambien sleeping pills. 

Medicare would probably frown on a doctor giving a depressed senior a prescription of Ambien. Or maybe not. Maybe they’d encourage them to prescribe a double dosage to save the system money if we offed ourselves. Just kidding, of course. I can’t take those wellness test questions seriously. I will go to my grave lying about the Oriental rug in the doorway between the living room and the kitchen. I just hope I don’t go to my grave because of that Oriental rug. If that happens, my niece has my permission to add a sentence to my tombstone that reads: “She lied on her wellness questionnaire and this is what happened.” 

This week the dog also had an appointment with the vet technician for a recheck on his teeth. At his spring appointment, which covers everything a dog can get at a yearly wellness and vaccinations appointment, the vet pronounced that Levi’s teeth were clean enough not to need his yearly cleaning but he wanted this recheck in the fall. This time the vet tech said he's got some tartar on one side of his mouth which means he's only chewing on one side of his mouth. "We should probably get in there and check out why he's doing that." They made him an appointment for cleaning on the first available appointment which was the Friday before Thanksgiving. But on the way home I decided I might cancel it. I only chew on one side of my mouth and I don't have a bad tooth. He's been getting his teeth cleaned every spring since he was three and I'm mad at myself for allowing the cleaning to get postponed to snow season. Not going to happen again! ©