Three years ago when we were all multimedia virgins, I called a friend who was working on a great 'Peanuts' multimedia contract. "What are you doing," I inquired. "Scanning carpet," was the reply of the brightest young man I know in new media. He needed a carpet texture under Peanuts and he held a ratty little square of carpet and scanned it into the computer. Here are some of the Scanning Carpet columns:
Barely time to get this column out because I have a new Non-Multimedia Job (NMJ - something a lot of us will have when we read our 1099's, W2's and bank interest statements next month). I know it's a NMJ because I have health insurance. Me, a non-joiner, now belongs not only to the NBMA, IICS and WIM (Women in Multimedia). I'm also in EHS (Employer's Health Service) with a Group Number to kill for. I know this will change my life because the first incredibly handsome man I met and went out with in California refused to get serious after six months because I didn't "have any health insurance." Meanwhile, he's dying faster than most of us, got a horrible infection while I'm running up and down the Potrero Hills like an old nanny goat.
Along with my new medical group came a list of providers in their preferred health network. Since I work about ten hours a day, I decided the best way for me to take advantage of all these medical providers for whom I only have to pay $10 per visit is to get examined online. I quickly made appointments with the providers who had adequate online services. I'll share my experiences with you in case you're real busy like me and can profit from this means of service. Let me just explain that I read about doctors one only dreams of and decided to take full advantage of specialties that I thought would forever be beyond my means. Oh, I should also add that I haven't been to a doctor for about 15 years, so I have lots of catching up to do.
First of all I decided to stick with San Francisco, geographically speaking. I didn't want anything to do with Livermore or Liverless or any other "Bay Area" facilities. For SF, I picked St Luke's Hospital on Army Street because I figured if I were really incapacitated, Dana Atchley could come over from his waterfront studio in the old Sears Building and bring his fireside video and remote mouse and entertain me. I also figured that remote mouse could go a long way correcting some of those doctor's mistakes. He could point it at my intestines, for example, and ZAP !!!!!, change the channel some of those poisons and eliminate them.
My first visit online was to an OB GYN. (That's not an operating system if you're lucky.) This guy had me assume an indescribable position in relation to my computer. He then took a few photographs (he said) from his computer and fed them through special software. He diagnosed my female parts as in good order but said I should see a dentist.
The Breast Surgery doctor showed me, online, a range of breast shapes that rivaled the most beautiful gardens in the world. Such shapes; such flowers. He said I should pick one and the rest would be easy. The hard part with his patients was making the selection.
I moved on to the Cardiovascular surgeon. He had me put the mouse on my heart. Then he played a series of irregular thumping sounds while I watched a series of pulsatting images on the screen. He ran my heartbeats through a program and diagnosed me with a too big heart that would only get me in trouble. Reducing the number of red gumdrops in any fiscal quarter was prescribed for correcting this enlargement.
The Colon and Rectal Surgery doctor asked me to meet him at Spinelli's so he could explain an esoteric coffee remedy to me, but I declined. I also skipped the CT Scan because it was too close to business as usual.
For Genetic Amniocentesis (I'm only up to the Gs in this book of doctors) I had to draw a family tree with all its seeds and thorns in Photoshop. The doctor then stuck a long needle in the tree trunk and told me the diagnosis failed because I wasn't really pregnant and why was I wasting his time. (He could have told that by ........)
I really wanted the Head and Neck Surgery. (I wonder why, says Editor, Lee Callister. She already had a lobotomy.) I wanted my turkey neck changed back to a youthful swan maiden neck. The doctor told me, online of course, to take the cord from the keyboard and twist it around my neck and leave it there all night long. In the morning, he said, my neck would be smooth. Blue, but smooth.
This health plan even covers Hypnosis. The M.D. Hypnotist easily put me under with a moray pattern on the screen. He then did a past life regression which he recorded and played back to me - yep, we're still online. Seems I was once Eleanor of Aquitaine and never quite got over being married to two different kings and had some unreal expectations for late twentieth century America.
I went next to the Otolaryngologist. He said most of the people I know had already emailed him to shut me up. He had a program sort of like that Woody Allen movie where you go inside someone's body and he showed me how much my internal organs were suffering from wincing every time I said something obnoxious or difficult. The wincing was causing major constriction in my adrenals and he said the best cure would be to cut my vocal cords forever. I know there are a lot of people out there celebrating this one.
Next, and last, I hit the radiologist. This works really well online. Your computer first turns an eerie shade of blue, then emits visible rays that go through your body and out the other side into the file cabinet. If they find no pornographic material in the file cabinet, the rays do a 180 and go back through your body and back into the computer. The doc gets a picture of your body and your worst habits and sends it to the encryption factory. They do a report which is forwarded to the credit bureau and you get a new car loan.
And that, my friends, is group medical insurance online.
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