Whenever a case arises with this over-abused old frame of mine and a visit to Mee is required; I am always quick to tell as many staff in both hospital and clinic who will listen that my first visit to Mee Memorial Hospital, now Mee Healthcare System, was when I was 11 years old and a victim of the “monkey bars” at Greenfield Grammar School, now the Mary Chapa Academy. That first visit resulted in a cast on my left arm from just below the elbow to the middle of my hand, which was applied back in Greenfield by Dr. Tom Elliot. It just so happened the school took me to the clinic when Dr. Elliot was available; it could have easily been Dr. Alan Fisher.
Dating back to the late 1950s, there were a couple of generations of Greenfield folks who only knew those two doctors, and so as in a small town, we knew their wives and children from church or 4-H but mostly from school. The Mee we know today offers much more to the public, and since the time of that first broken arm cast to just two months ago, I have been treated there many, many times, and with only a very few exceptions, all has gone well.
That said, let me offer up my recent experience with the new system at Mee that was revealed to us in last week’s issue of the Rustler and Salinas Valley Tribune. I went to the Mee website, very easy to find, where a click on the notice along a top red banner gets you to some very routine questions, name, DOB, etc., where ultimately, I was connected to an automated female voice asking what I wanted. When I replied “Make appointment,” the voice informed me “she” did not do that and gave me three Mee numbers to call; for my purposes it was the same KC 7100 number that has been in my cell records for years now. I called, was put on hold, told my call was important, put on hold, told I was fourth down the call line and when offered the option of getting a call back, I gave them my number, they repeated it and I verified it was correct. All of this started at 12:57 p.m.; it is now 4:26. I’ll let ya know what happens.
The fact that I am typing this column, or at least this last section, from Oklahoma and last week I wrote one from Ticino should no way convey the idea I am a globetrotter, or even a nation hopper, on a regular basis. In the early part of the century, from 2002 through 2009, while I was a student in Southern California and also employed by a very well-paying painter, I was able to tag along with Stephen Carl, a lifelong friend, as he attended economic conferences; five in Manhattan, one each in Boston and Philadelphia.
Eleven years later the government, via a stimulus check for lower income people during the Covid pandemic, I was able to visit my son in Idaho and with my grandson, who was there at the time, drove to Edmond, Okla., where my daughter and family had recently moved to from their home in Castroville. The visit in Oklahoma lasted only two days, so my plans to return in the summer of 2023 were pleasantly derailed when some people unknown to me then, and still unknown to me, made the way for me to visit in Summer of 2022 for four days.
One year later my daughter and husband Jeff had decided to move from Edmond to the Florida panhandle and I was recruited to drive one of the vehicles. This I did with grandson Cameron as navigator as we made our way through the southern states. The same generous person who made the trip to Ticino possible helped me make it here this summer. Today is the one-year anniversary of Weston’s death and there will be a gathering of his friends and the families of the other three boys who were in the vehicle when it crashed.
Unfortunately, the after effects of a tumble I took 11 days ago did not abate as I hoped but has increased and I find myself nearly incapacitated. Not to go into details, but I am about one wrong body movement from the emergency room. This is not the grandfather I wanted to present to my family or others I knew I would meet, but muscle relaxers and pain pills are having little or no effect so this is what it is. But I am glad to be among family and friends of family so I’ll end with the complaining now.
To write this column, I have been seated for as long as this banged-up old frame of mine will allow, so I’ll close with this: I’m still waiting on that call-back from Mee.
Take care. Peace.
