Touring Oklahoma

Hall about it

By Craig Hall

For summer, this has been a busy week for the Hall contingent.

No, really. For a couple of people who prefer to stay home, this week we traveled to Tulsa on Tuesday for a doctor visit, which was a waste of time, and Saturday we went to Oklahoma City.

Our trip Saturday was to take Trish the wife to see her nephew at the OU Medical Center. Trish’s sister also went with us.

If you have been there before, you will know, that place is massive. I didn’t really want to go, as I expected a lot of walking, and that’s what I got. So I was sore last night, but I trucked along with my walker, by gosh.

I let them visit Trish’s nephew while I hung out in the waiting room. It was an impressive view out the window, as you can see in the picture that accompanies this fine column. I forgot my Kindle, so instead of reading something to pass the time, I watched the television.

That was OK, until World Cup soccer came on. I was looking for a remote to switch the channel to a baseball game, but gasp, no remote. A guy in the waiting room asked me if I liked soccer. I told him I did not understand the game, which is true, and I was nice enough not to say I would rather watch baseball.

But he also liked the real American football, so he was obviously a cool guy.

It made for a long day, and we put a lot of miles on Trish’s truck and the price of gas in and around Oklahoma City was ridiculous.

Even though it was a longer trip than Tulsa, it was the first time I had been to Oklahoma City in several years, and it was not as boring as the trips to Tulsa usually are, because I have been there so many times over the last few years.

The whole back surgery saga has been trying. As I have noted previously, my problems started the last part of last school year. I had an MRI, and it showed I had stenosis in my L4 and L5 vertebrae.

I arranged for a visit to a neurosurgeon in Tulsa. I should have gone with the guy who did my neck operation two years ago, but I went with the doctor whose office called first. That was probably not the best move.

But at the end of the school year, I had a visit with the neurosurgeon in Tulsa and my regular physician and had my A1C checked. It was bad — 8.6 bad. I couldn’t have the operation until I got my A1C below 7.5.

About that time, I was working on our pool and was walking on the metal edge I always tell the kids not to walk on, when I got a little too far out. I felt myself start to fall, could not reach anything to steady myself, and crash-landed. Most of my body landed in the pool, which was rather cool since it was May, but the left side of my body hit the edge of the pool.

It caused me to have a massive bruise on the left side of my body and must have damaged my back worse, since I can barely walk and have to use my trusty walker most of the time.

I stopped eating sweets and only ate two meals a day. I did some research and was told it would take three months to get my A1C down below 7.5. Instead, I got it down to 6.8 in a little over a month.

I was ready to get fixed. I called my neurosurgeon’s office and had to leave a message, then another message telling them I was good on the A1C. Finally, I got to talk to an actual human, and an appointment was made.

Hurrah, right? Wrong. Last Tuesday, we made another trip to Tulsa to see the doctor and schedule the surgery, since I have to go back to work Aug. 10 and I do not think it is possible until my back is fixed.

Our reward for that trip was a visit with the doctor’s LPN. Really. I filled out a form that nobody bothered to look at and was told where the operation would be. I asked when the operation would occur. She had to check with the scheduler.

I was not scheduled yet. I explained the whole go-back-to-work problem. So, no doctor, no answer. Ugh.

I waited a couple of days and called to check on the surgery. Left a message. I must be low on the totem pole, as nobody called back. Then my local physician’s office called Friday to say I had to actually visit my physician before he could sign off on the release for surgery.

This would be the same physician I saw in May and see every three months. My A1C is probably even better than it was in late June, so I did not see the need for a checkup, since my last visit was only a couple of months ago.

But a visit we shall have. I hope it’s a routine “How you feeling there?” kind of visit, and it’s not one of those “We need to have your heart checked out first” kind of one. I had the whole heart workup two years ago, passed, and have never had any problem in that department, so I do not see the need for one.

Hopefully, the surgery will be scheduled soon, and I will have a week or so to recover before I go back to work. If said surgery is delayed, it’s a “Houston, we have a problem” kind of deal. I hate to miss work, seriously, but I can’t go back in this situation and would have to use sick leave.

One final thought on our recent trips: During Tuesday’s trip to Tulsa, we spent a lot of time driving in two lanes on a turnpike we pay to drive on. Then we went to Oklahoma City — no two lanes, four lanes from the turnoff at Sallisaw all the way to Oklahoma City and back. That didn’t seem right, since we didn’t have to pay to drive to Oklahoma City on better roads, but did to go to Tulsa on a stupid turnpike.

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