my sister has an egg-size lump on her neck. at first we were both fascinated. then i told her to talk to our mom about it. she refused, saying it was no big deal. a few months later she took a trip back to missouri and when our mom (who's an r.n.) saw it she flipped out.

amanda went to a free clinic here in l.a. when she got back. diagnosis: goiter. they gave her some medication and said she needed to see an internist asap.

she went to county on saturday at 5:30am and got in to see an endocrinologist at 2:00pm. that's 8-1/2 hours. nice. then she said the doctor freaked her out. he had her hold her arms out while he checked for tremors, which he found. he asked her if she'd had any chest pains recently, which she apparently has. he called an ear nose & throat doc and she overheard him say "yeah, it's pretty big" and remark that they should do something about it as soon as possible. she has a biopsy scheduled for october 22nd. they ran some blood work and i'm taking her back to county today.

amanda has no insurance. neither do i. we had such good healthcare when we were growing up. we loved our family doctor. now we're stuck out here without a g.p., throwing ourselves on the mercy of the system. how did this happen?

everyone assures me that county has some great doctors; amanda liked hers. but she also said the hospital is a pit full of crazies.

this situation is stressing me out and i'm being really mean to everyone at work today out of frustration & anxiety. that's not nice of me.

i got some cheering up from drudge... dick cheney fucked up during the v.p. debate last night when he referred everyone to a website that would explain how this whole halliburton story is b.s.; he should have said .org instead of .com. check it out: http://www.factcheck.com.