Tirade

Argh! I loathe HMOs. Who ever thought of the HMO system in the first place? What an idiot he was. Should be hanged. Or, if he’s already dead, they should put a big "I Had a Stupid Idea Once Called HMO" sign on his gravestone - just to make a mockery of him. But not even that would be sufficient punishment.

Under the HMO system, rather than seeing one doctor and getting your problem taken care of, you have to see many doctors, who endlessly refer you on to the next guy. It’s such a senseless waste of energy and co-payments. I should be used to HMOs by now because that’s what I had as a kid. But now I’m back . . . once more a victim of the system.

The next guy I have to see, believe it or not, is an opthamologist and a plastic surgeon. His office recently sent me a brochure. I gazed at his picture and told Kevin: "It’s obvious he’s had plastic surgery himself."
"How do you know that?"
"Three reasons: He looks old, his face is tight, and he’s a plastic surgeon! He probably did his own face lift."
"Amy, that’s really gross."

So far I’m not really impressed with this doctor. I don’t like his brochure, he’s wearing an ugly tie in his picture, and his name is hard to pronounce. But I shall try my best to withhold forming any more bad impressions until I’ve actually met him. The only reason I’m seeing him, after all, is because I got a referral from my last doctor. But that’s definitely not how I normally like to pick my doctors.
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Oh, I forgot to tell you. Last Sunday we went to a playground designed for adults at U.C. Davis. It was incredible. I’ve never seen anything like it before. All the swings, slides and monkey bars were engineered for people our size! As we stood in the sand and gazed up at the tall ladder leading up to a loft with different kinds of monstrous slides, I felt like such a kid again. It was awesome.