Sunday, April 24, 2005

Home in Salina, KS

The trek home was by modern Plny express or stage coach route. John drove us to Bethany, Mo and the "Old folks" changed at the McDonalds "stage stop" and Phil drove and delivered us in Salina in time to see the youngest Grandchild and he friendds in their Junior-Senior Prom finery. I will not go into the "old days" when tuxes, limos etc were not part of the "scene". However it was fun to see the yong ladies and young men and of course there were doting parents and grandparents. The city and parents make quite a deal--all the high schools (3) have their parom on the same night and after their dinner they have a "lock in" at the mall with dancing, games, prizes etc. until morning hours--a safe and sane celebration!
Finally, we are un-packed and the mail sorted and we are about ready to resume our life here; including mundane things like laundry, mowing, spraying dandelions etc. Our cat "Cleo" has had a lot to tell us and we agree with her but do not know what we are agreeing to.
Mary has started on her new medicines and is soing ok. This is enough for this posting. More later
Happy Doc aka SENIORGEEK
aflanders_98@yahoo.com
haflanders@gmail.com

Friday, April 15, 2005

Mayo Experience

The Mayo clinic covers a large part of the downtown of Rochester, Mn. The 2 major buildings are some 20 stories high and there are other smaller buildings and hospital which are all connected by subway corridors or by skyways so that people can move from on building to another. People come from all over to have their health p;roblems evaluated and for tretment.

This made me think of Hippocrates, the father of medicine, on the Greek island of Kos in the 400's BC. There, people came to be evaluated and treated. Much of the treatment then was only with simple measures and a certain amount of mysticism. The modern evaluations and treatment is p;erformed by doctors, nurses and technicians with the use of complicated machines using w-rays, ultra-sound waves and the "magic of 1's and 0'sof digitization. All the records and results of the tests are fed into the computer system. Every examining and consultation room has sits computer. The patient's record can be brought up and checked from any location.

"Pilgrim" Mary was checked by doctors, nurses and technicians and all of the mocern machins were used to evaluate her health. The end result is that she is doing ok except the high blood presssure needs to be brought under better control and to wear compression stockings for her varicose veins.

So, we are going home relieved and planning on enjoying and "keep on keeping on". We are returning home Saturday, Ap;ril 16.

For myself, I have had a relaxing time and able to do some interestsing reading and finding some new interesting books to follow up on. Also, I have been thinking about some special interests courses we could get together for the Senior Computer Lab.

Hope is all is well with all HAPPY DOC aka Alden

Sunday, April 10, 2005

SPRING

Hi all
Spring is breaking out here in the North Country. The grass is getting green and the trees are budding. I have not seen any flowers blooming yet but undoughtably they will be very soon. We had jonquils blooming in Salina when we left so I suspect that more flowers and trees are blooming by now.
I am glad to get some responses from the SENIORGEEK blog. I am learning more about the process. Apparantly with this program you have to register and have ID and password to enter comments on the blog.
Mayo Clinic is really an amazing place. Thursday and Friday we were there all day. Between seeing a couple of doctors and getting all kinds of tests, both Mary and I were pooped and glad to have Sat and Sun to catch up. This coming week we are scheduled thru Thursday and of course there may be some additional changes that may come up. We should really have the answers when we get through. Mary got up to go to BR Wed night and fell and sprained her knee some so we are using a wheel chair to go from one place to another. Everyone is so very helpfull and it is amazing that they can keep everything organized and on schedule for the appointments etc. They really have a great system and it is all done with computers. We did cause the Nephrologist Dr to be concerned when Mary told him in the history that she had been at Mayos in 1996, he looked at her clinic number and said that her number did not jibe so he went the computer and punched some and found that she had been issued a new number because she was Mary Elizabeth in 1996 and Mary E. in 2005 but he said they should have caught that and it would be corrected. They are proud of their system.
John brought home Thomas Friedman's new book "The World is Flat". It is very interesting. He to be the guest on May 1 "In Depth" program on Cspan 2. I think that we have not seen anything yet as to what the technology changes will be made in the next few years.
Ezra sent me this Url address which I thought was good enought to pass along-- there is good music with it so turn on the speakers.
http://www.andiesisle.com/Flowers.html

Until the next time, enjoy and smell the roses HAPPYDOC aka Alden

Tuesday, April 05, 2005

M minus 2

Hi
I have just finished the book "American Soldier: General Tommy Franks". So, I have taken on some of the military lingo. M minus 2--2 days until Mary checks into the Mayo Clinic and perhaps we start to get some answers to some questions. In the meantime we have a relaxing and non-stressful time.
I mentioned the book reviews on CSpan "The end of Poverty" by Jeffery Sachs. I thought I would include some of the review which was in the Barnes and Noble Page.
Taking issue with international-development economists concerned mostly with capital and credit formation, Sachs urges an account of poverty that takes a multifaceted view of the kinds of capital the poor lack (health, nutrition, infrastructure, biodiversity, an impartial judiciary, access to knowledge, and so forth). While agreeing with those economists that private initiatives are generally more effective than state programs, Sachs also proposes amany-pronged, needs-based attack on the worst extremes of poverty that requires, yes, the rich to help the poor, but that is eminently practical and minimally pipe-dreamy-and that, he notes in passing, would help restore the reputation of the US and the usefulness of the UN in the world. A solid, reasonable argument in which the dismal science offers a brightening
prospect for the world's poor.
He maintains it is possible and we should have the goal of a world without war.

Another book which I want to read is "Collapse:how some societies choose to fail or succeed" by Jared Diamond

This past week-end the "indepth" session on C-Span was with Robert Kaplan He is a reporter and has traveled widely in parts of the world where there are troubles and has written 10 books--it was very good.
Until next time, probably next week, the best to all Happy doc HAF