The Miracle (Queen)

Well now.

Thanks for checking in. I always appreciate anyone who reads me, particularly these days when there's so many other things going on; war, economy, health care, angst, rhetoric, reality TV shows, sports, etc, etc, etc.

I'm a comedian, but when I blog, it's never funny. I intentionally write it straight, for the purposes of having a journal that my daughter (or anyone who cares) can someday peruse to see what it was like being me. It's a tool to capture the essence of my day-to-day life, working as a professional entertainer.

Well, last time around, I talked about some medical issues I had with my kidneys. I was scheduled for a CAT scan and was waiting for the insurance company to give the thumbs-up.
Instead, they stuck the thumb in my eye.

The rejection letter read, in part; "Based on CareCore medical necessity criteria for 72912-CAT Scan of hips without dye: the history provided of a 42 year old male with recent worsening kidney function does not demonstrate sufficient medical necessity to justify certification of the examination at this time. There is no evidence of flank pain, blood in the urine or other clinical findings or conditions indicating the requested study."

I was given the right to appeal, but basically my doctor was told to move forward with my treatment without the opportunity to fully diagnose my condition. The thing I was never able to completely understand was the statement that there was no evidence of blood in the urine, when that is the condition that prompted my nephrologist to order the test in the first place.

I was angry when I got word that I was rejected. I'm sure a lot of that was fear, but it came out as anger. For a few weeks, I worried that I might have cancer, kidney failure that would lead to dialysis, or who knows what else. The cancer situation is one that we talk about quite frequently in comedy. These days, a lot of clubs are smoke-free, but when you're an old war-horse like me, you've spent many a night in a comedy club that looked like London when the fog rolled in. Cancer is starting to make its presence known in quite a few comedians, and we've already lost a few.

My nephrologist decided to go forward with blood cultures. I provided all the blood they asked for, about 11 tubes, and a urine sample. I had to go back once because they merged two of the samples, one had to be kept warm and the other kept cool, and they put 'em together. On Thursday, I saw my regular doctor, and he prompted me to make a call to the nephrologist. I did, and received some wonderful news.

My nephrologist's assistant told me that the blood was gone from my urine. The bacteria had disappeared, too.

While I was down in Texas and Oklahoma the week before, I had some chest congestion that turned out to be a minor strep infection. Due to the fragile nature of my kidneys, it was manifesting as blood in my urine (bacteria, too, but you couldn't see it). I took three days that I had off to rest in a hotel room, drinking water, cranberry juice, taking zinc (I'm not allowed anything stronger) and staying warm, which wasn't difficult. I was able to kick the disease, with only a few remnants by the time I got home.

Last Thursday, I was getting ready to perform at Danny Liberto's open mic at Dewey's, and my nephrologist called me....this was almost 9 o'clock at night. He confirmed what his assistant told me, and added that my case was not at all typical. In his words, a strep infection severe enough to cause blood to appear in my urine should not have been so quickly dismissed by my body at my age; a clearing-up of infections of this type are typical only in pediatric cases. He went on to say that in medicine, you certainly don't want to be interesting; you're in much better shape to be an average, run-of-the-mill type case. It's easier to be diagnosed and treated.
Still, if I was to be atypical, I'm glad I wound up on this side of the coin rather than contracting some sort of kidney-based Ebola virus that no one had ever seen before.

I joked a little with the doctor, pointing out that comedians usually live into their 80's, 90's and more and that measured on that scale, I am about adolescent in my development. Whether or not that had anything to do with me getting over this brief health scare is questionable, but at least I'm out of the woods, assuming that a CAT Scan wouldn't have revealed any latent illness that is just waiting to come and claim me somewhere down the line.

The lessons to be learned here seem to be 1) Drink water and cranberry juice, 2) Worry is the misuse of imagination, and 3) There is something terribly wrong when an insurance agent who is supposed to be facilitating health care is allowed to come between a doctor and his patient.

I went and delivered another round of blood samples today, as my nephrologist wants to keep monitoring me for any change (oh, and by the way, the last time around, my declining kidney values actually went up, which was nothing short of amazing to me) and I have another appointment next week with my primary health care physician. This week, it's off to Maine, where I have a couple of standup comedy performances scheduled at two of the University of Maine campuses.

Thanks to everyone who checked in on me along the way. I appreciate you all.

Ralph Tetta
Rochester, NY