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- Story Listed as: True Life For Adults
- Theme: Drama / Human Interest
- Subject: Current Events
- Published: 04/30/2020
2020Stress (Approx. 1,000 wds.)
The Coronavirus and Stress
You wouldn’t think that, apart from being an old guy and therefore the prime target of the coronavirus, I’d have much cause for being stressed out nowadays. After all, with my wife Beverly I’m “sheltering in place,” meaning I don’t leave my house except for an occasional walk. My days follow pretty much the same routine---up for breakfast and taking my many pills, doing (or trying to do) the daily crossword puzzle, doing some exercising (not much), doing some writing, having lunch, doing some reading, listening to some music, taking my afternoon nap, having supper, watching TV with Sally, going to bed. I don’t have any appointments to keep. I don’t have any lunch dates to remember. I don’t have to worry about having to drive somewhere. However, if you think my life is stress-free you’d be dead wrong.
Here are two recent examples. First, Beverly had ordered a box of prunes (essential to her diet) from Amazon. On this Saturday morning she got an e-mail from Amazon saying the prunes were delivered and even showing a picture of the box leaning against a chair on our front porch. She promptly went out but no box of prunes. Examining that Amazon e-mail more closely, we saw that the chair was a black wrought-iron one and not our white plastic one. So obviously the Amazon deliveryperson had put it on the wrong porch. Maybe he or she was wearing a mask and that somehow obscured his or her vision.
So, what to do? In the past, when we had some problem we’d called the Amazon customer service number. Beverly tried to call but was told that due to high volume they weren’t taking any calls. In the meantime, she got another e-mail, this one purportedly from Amazon, saying that because there’d been some problem with her account all prospective deliveries would be cancelled if she didn’t click on a certain website. She did have some future deliveries and so was understandably upset. I smelled a rat and told her that the e-mail was probably a scam meant to get some information from her, a “fisching” expedition. But how to find out when you couldn’t call Amazon customer service? I got on my computer and somehow, I’m not sure how, got another phone number and we actually got through to an actual person. He told us that yes, that threatening e-mail was a phony. At about this time, our doorbell rang. It was the son of our next door neighbor, an older woman who was a recluse, and he was holding a box of prunes. It had been left on her porch, which I guess had the wrought iron chair.. So ended the big Amazon flap and a stressful morning.
The second big flap was a bit more serious as it involved, not a box of prunes, but my blood pressure pills. Like many other Californians and residents of my retirement community my health care provider was Kaiser. Beverly and I always got our pills by mail and if we needed refills would call the Kaiser pharmacy number and give the computer our order. I was currently taking no less than five blood pressure pills every morning---three pills of one kind as my prescription was for 75 mgs and they didn’t come in this size so I was prescribed three 25 mg pills, plus one Losartan pill and one Hydrosomething pill (not the one Trump hyped for the coronavirus). I’d originally been taking a combined Losarten/Hydrosomething pill but for some reason these weren’t available so I now had to take one of each. The problem was that I was running short of the Hydrosomething pills.
Realizing this I’d called my doctor’s office the week before and was told that the Hydros would be ordered and mailed. The pills hadn’t come that week, however, so on this Monday morning I called and the pharmacy computer told me I had nothing coming. So I called my doctor’s office again and was told this time that as mailings were being delayed due to the coronavirus and I would run out in a few days I should go down to the Kaiser facility and pick up the Hydros at the pharmacy. The only problem with this was that, as an old geezer, I wasn’t supposed to go anywhere and in any case I didn’t feel like driving down there. So I called my son who lived nearby, explained the situation and he agreed to drive down and get it for me. I could tell he wasn’t too thrilled about doing this and I didn’t blame him. So I called Kaiser again and arranged for a phone appointment with my doctor on Wednesday.
My phone appointment was for ten AM and my doctor didn’t call until 10:30 which didn’t surprise me as I usually had to wait half an hour when seeing him at his office. I told him about my pill situation and asked if I really needed the hydrosomething pills on top of all the other blood pressure pills I was taking. In any case the hydrosomething pills were so tiny you needed a magnifying glass to see them and were a pain to take. The doctor said I might not need them so to continue taking the Losarten pills and if my blood pressure went up I could take two Losartens. After this, I called my son to tell him he didn’t have to go down to Kaiser after all.
In the week following I took my blood pressure daily with the machine we had and the readings were about the same as before so it seemed I didn’t need those Hydrosomethings. So the big pill flap, after a stressful few days, especially that Monday morning, was over. The only question remaining is what will be the next stressful event to come up.
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The Coronavirus and Stress(Martin Green)
2020Stress (Approx. 1,000 wds.)
The Coronavirus and Stress
You wouldn’t think that, apart from being an old guy and therefore the prime target of the coronavirus, I’d have much cause for being stressed out nowadays. After all, with my wife Beverly I’m “sheltering in place,” meaning I don’t leave my house except for an occasional walk. My days follow pretty much the same routine---up for breakfast and taking my many pills, doing (or trying to do) the daily crossword puzzle, doing some exercising (not much), doing some writing, having lunch, doing some reading, listening to some music, taking my afternoon nap, having supper, watching TV with Sally, going to bed. I don’t have any appointments to keep. I don’t have any lunch dates to remember. I don’t have to worry about having to drive somewhere. However, if you think my life is stress-free you’d be dead wrong.
Here are two recent examples. First, Beverly had ordered a box of prunes (essential to her diet) from Amazon. On this Saturday morning she got an e-mail from Amazon saying the prunes were delivered and even showing a picture of the box leaning against a chair on our front porch. She promptly went out but no box of prunes. Examining that Amazon e-mail more closely, we saw that the chair was a black wrought-iron one and not our white plastic one. So obviously the Amazon deliveryperson had put it on the wrong porch. Maybe he or she was wearing a mask and that somehow obscured his or her vision.
So, what to do? In the past, when we had some problem we’d called the Amazon customer service number. Beverly tried to call but was told that due to high volume they weren’t taking any calls. In the meantime, she got another e-mail, this one purportedly from Amazon, saying that because there’d been some problem with her account all prospective deliveries would be cancelled if she didn’t click on a certain website. She did have some future deliveries and so was understandably upset. I smelled a rat and told her that the e-mail was probably a scam meant to get some information from her, a “fisching” expedition. But how to find out when you couldn’t call Amazon customer service? I got on my computer and somehow, I’m not sure how, got another phone number and we actually got through to an actual person. He told us that yes, that threatening e-mail was a phony. At about this time, our doorbell rang. It was the son of our next door neighbor, an older woman who was a recluse, and he was holding a box of prunes. It had been left on her porch, which I guess had the wrought iron chair.. So ended the big Amazon flap and a stressful morning.
The second big flap was a bit more serious as it involved, not a box of prunes, but my blood pressure pills. Like many other Californians and residents of my retirement community my health care provider was Kaiser. Beverly and I always got our pills by mail and if we needed refills would call the Kaiser pharmacy number and give the computer our order. I was currently taking no less than five blood pressure pills every morning---three pills of one kind as my prescription was for 75 mgs and they didn’t come in this size so I was prescribed three 25 mg pills, plus one Losartan pill and one Hydrosomething pill (not the one Trump hyped for the coronavirus). I’d originally been taking a combined Losarten/Hydrosomething pill but for some reason these weren’t available so I now had to take one of each. The problem was that I was running short of the Hydrosomething pills.
Realizing this I’d called my doctor’s office the week before and was told that the Hydros would be ordered and mailed. The pills hadn’t come that week, however, so on this Monday morning I called and the pharmacy computer told me I had nothing coming. So I called my doctor’s office again and was told this time that as mailings were being delayed due to the coronavirus and I would run out in a few days I should go down to the Kaiser facility and pick up the Hydros at the pharmacy. The only problem with this was that, as an old geezer, I wasn’t supposed to go anywhere and in any case I didn’t feel like driving down there. So I called my son who lived nearby, explained the situation and he agreed to drive down and get it for me. I could tell he wasn’t too thrilled about doing this and I didn’t blame him. So I called Kaiser again and arranged for a phone appointment with my doctor on Wednesday.
My phone appointment was for ten AM and my doctor didn’t call until 10:30 which didn’t surprise me as I usually had to wait half an hour when seeing him at his office. I told him about my pill situation and asked if I really needed the hydrosomething pills on top of all the other blood pressure pills I was taking. In any case the hydrosomething pills were so tiny you needed a magnifying glass to see them and were a pain to take. The doctor said I might not need them so to continue taking the Losarten pills and if my blood pressure went up I could take two Losartens. After this, I called my son to tell him he didn’t have to go down to Kaiser after all.
In the week following I took my blood pressure daily with the machine we had and the readings were about the same as before so it seemed I didn’t need those Hydrosomethings. So the big pill flap, after a stressful few days, especially that Monday morning, was over. The only question remaining is what will be the next stressful event to come up.
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