Reverend Donne Said

that "no man is an island" but my body and mind seem determined to prove him wrong lately.

And every bed is, mercifully, an island, and these seem to be rather well-anchored islands.

You do want your island to be anchored, unless you are of that heroic stripe...the sort that makes a bad bedfellow but a good protag for an awful t.v. movie (usually SYFY will have these sorts on floating islands).

I had my first CAT-scan at 4:30 in the morning a day ago, which was followed by a very long half hour spent in the ghastly confines of an MRI machine.

There was worry that I had had a stroke as my face did something unexpected and worrisome.

This has been one hell of a year. I can't wait to see if 2010 has a new box of chuckles in store for me.

The CAT-scan is a lark. It's not claustrophobic and it's over in a few minutes. When you slide in you look up and see NEMO and that stuffy angelfish GIL on the "ceiling."

Or you do in this hospital.

Stickers to calm the little ones. Of course, that's a depressing picture: a child going into such a machine.

The claustrophobic MRI definitely reeks of the grave, or gives one presentiments of it.

The milky polypropylene face-mask (like a mock Greek warrior's mask?) looms above one's nose at the same close distance the coffin lid probably does when they close it. (Remember that photo shoot James Dean did for LIFE magazine where he posed in the coffin? He said when they close the lid it smooshes your nose!)

Of course I got itches on my face once my head had been blocked into place and I had been served to the machine like a pizza to the oven and couldn't move my arms.

And then I began to realize how unlikely it is that the polypropylene face mask is NOT sterilized between "scannees." Nor the earphones either, I'd wager. I was probably being treated to staph aureus of the most delicious variety while being squawked and hissed at by magnets dancing around my skull and nosily slicing planes of my brain like so many imaging cold cuts.

I had never had this done before.

They don't let you walk either. You have to ride in a wheelchair down to the grim subterranean chambers. Hello, grandfather!

Lee was not able to be with me, but he kept me chatting on the phone while I waited for the results afterwards.

I did have a wonderful doctor and he gave me the best possible news: no tumors or aneurysms or anything.

And the sinusitis was pinned down somewhat.

So I was free to throw off the blankets and gown, throw on the coat, hat and mittens and flee like a giddy banshee (thanks for the hall pass, God!)

But for now my weird symptoms remain a MYSTERY DIAGNOSIS (I cannot watch that show or anything vaguely resembling it).

I have begun to get tests done on my own when doctors refuse to order them.

Did you know e-medicine offers you these alternatives now? Just Google any test. Some third party will provide the doc signature and get you to a Labcorp for virtually any test.

And it will be much cheaper than what you're going to pay at the doc's or at the hospital...and you avoid that fee you normally contract just by walking in the door.

I'm thinking of testing for Lyme disease, since I'm remembering now the time I had a tick on me (my car had broken down and I had to pull off at the side of the road, which was high weeds, and call AAA).

This company offers that test, and so much more.

For instance, I can monitor my thyroid function through them much more cheaply.

Lyme disease is apparently becoming an underdiagnosed epidemic now (at least in this part of the country). There's a problem with the Lyme test, according to many sources, where the ELISA for it is giving false negatives when the secondary (confirmatory) test is giving clear positives. So many people are apparently being missed as they are being deemed "negative" through the faulty Lyme ELISAs.

This is not exactly a good New Year's posting, is it?

I'll go to YouTube and try to find something cheerful.

I did watch the 1,000 Ways to Die marathon way too long yesterday.

That show is evil but funny.

The best part is trying to guess the pun they are going to make after each grisly death vignette.

HAPPY NEW YEAR'S! DON'T DIE ON ME! KEEP SWIMMING! Nemo reference...if you're too cool for Disney...and if you are, fuck off!

Just kidding.