Monday May 28, 2007 4:56 PM

Last Wednesday Jim and I went to see Dr.'s Lombardi (the vascular surgeon) and Sobel (the GP). Dr. Lombardi was great. Dr. Sobel was about as useful as eyeglasses on a blind man.

Dr. Lombardi agreed to particpate in the tooth removal procedure. He also wants Jim to go for a scan of his arteries. He had a great sense of humor. "Let's freak out the technician," he said, knowing that what's in Jim's neck right now is a little strange. He also suggested that Jim have some genetic testing done so we can check for possible markers in his family, especially in Little Jimmy. We knew that there's a 30 percent chance that pheochromacytomas run in families because this was mentioned to us at Lahey but testing was never done and we let it drop because we had bigger problems in life at the time. Dr. Lomardi said we should talk to Dr. Sobel about how to go about doing this.

Then we saw Dr. Sobel....well, first we saw his assistant. She was useless. She kept asking us if Dr. Lombardi had cleared Jim for surgery. We kept telling her he had agreed to participate, that's all we know. It sure sounded that way to us...but she kept asking over and over. Well, call him then. Quit asking us! Then Dr. Sobel comes in. We asked him about the genetic testing. He clearly never heard of it. The only thing he's going to do for Jim is coordinate the pre-op testing. Whatever.

This Friday Jim's seeing an ENT that works at Jefferson. Remember back when Jim had the collagen put on his vocal chords and I mentioned that the ENT who did it said he should have stretched Jim's throat but didn't think about it until he had already pulled out the breathing tube? Jim's therapist had suggested Jim get that done. However, she said that not every ENT subsribes to that philosophy, and Jim shouldn't have it done until after he gets his new teeth. She said if Jim's not chewing right after the throat gets stretched it will only shrink back down and need to be done again. So if this ENT on Friday agrees with the throat stretching philosophy and agrees to work with us, we'll cancel our trip back to Lahey Clinic next week. There's no reason to keep going up there if we can assemble a good team here.

The new fight of the week is trying to get Jim's therapy extended. Aetna only pays for 60 consecutive days of therapy and then you're cut off. Jim's made great progress but he needs more therapy. So our HR department is helping us to get that resolved. I do have to give a thumbs up to Aetna in one respect, though. What do you think we had to pay out of pocket for ALL of Jim's surgeries, hospital stay, etc? Only $1500 plus dollars. That's damn good. Besides, I'd be bored in life without a good fight once in awhile.

Now on a strange note...about an hour ago Jim's sitting at his computer and feels something scratching him on the inside of his nose. He pulls out about an inch and a half long piece of black string...the kind stitches are done with. The strange thing is that nothing inside his nose was ever stitched during his surgeries. I can only imagine where this thing migrated from. Knowing him he'll probably save it.