We had the follow-up appointment with the Neurologist, Dr. Santiago this morning. I was accompanied by Jan, so, as always, contact her for the minority opinion. It started off slowly, with the blood pressure, pulse rate, O2 sats, etc. The nurse, Sherry, was frowning as she checked the paperwork, checked a couple of things out of the room and came back, still frowning.
The Doctor came in shortly and apologized for the fact that they still didn’t have the results of the Lumbar Puncture. He reported that it was the third time recently that they had problems getting the results. We talked about me being local, as opposed to driving a couple of hours to get here, and we were preparing to have to come back.
There was a knock on the door and someone, presumably Sherry, handed in a couple of sheets of paper (see below). She had presumably broken through barrier and gotten the results.
The Dr. then shifted the tone and delivered the good news.
The key information is on page 2 under the block labelled CSF. The “Beta-Amyloid Ratio” is reported as 0.092 while the Reference Range is “>or=0.073”. Therefore, I do NOT have Alzheimer’s Disease (or at least not yet).
Jan pointed out that at the bottom of page 2 that the test was performed by Mayo Clinic Laboratories. Thanks Mayo!!!
As we talked about the results the Dr mentioned that Sherry could be quite fierce over the phone and attributed the ability to get this done to her. After I got home, I called a florist (amazingly located on 2nd street) to order a flower arrangement to be delivered to her at work today to thank her. I just got a phone call from her thanking me; I think I made her day.
Aside for persons of XY gender. Many years ago, before my first patrol on the USS Sam Rayburn, the COB (Chief of the Boat) took aside all the people making their first patrol. He laid some facts on us as if they were handed down from Jehovah himself. The bottom line was people with XX chromosomes are queer for the sexual organs of plants. As an XY you don’t have to make sense of it, or even understand it at all – just accept it as a given. So, if you accept it as a given, go to a florist and make arrangements to send your wife/girlfriend the sexual organs of plants (flowers) once a week, or every two weeks, or for you cheap bastards at least once a month. Just do it, don’t analyze it, just do it. I took his advice and have never looked back. It really is true. In addition, I had them delivered at work so that all her co-workers could see that I loved her.
I’ll write more later this week on what my plans are moving forward.
Brief addendum. I see that I have inadvertently confused some of you. I mentioned sending flowers to Sherry as a sign of my appreciation for her tenacity in beating an answer out of the people we were depending on for answers.
I wrote the last paragraph over time, and revised it a couple of times, in order to reveal to some men, the truths I had discovered. In the last sentence I was referring specifically to Lindsay and the fact that I was sending flowers to her at work while I was deployed. I certainly did not mean to suggest any nefarious interest in other females.