Roger Zee Memoirs

"Life and Times of a Pandemic Musician"

Health 5 12/25/20

On a frigid winter night, a couple of years after Nina and I disastrously split up, I met Cara standing at the bar at Pete's Saloon in Elmsford, NY. She invited me back to her friend's table to watch the band. After the set, I got up to say hello to some friends and she headed to the bathroom. A while later, she popped out of the hallway and banged right into me. So I wrapped my arms around her, squeezed her tight, and kissed her hard! Too much Vodka, too little self-control, too much despair, and this all led to my next round of medical issues! Welcome to the latest excerpt from my memoirs, "Life And Times of a Pandemic Musician." B-|

I made a lot of money working as a computer contractor remediating year 2000 issues. My brethren and I did such a good job that virtually nothing went wrong after the new Millennium. But no good deed goes unpunished! Because nothing broke, companies felt that we did nothing but take advantage of them. I couldn't get a computer job for many years! I went from making a thousand dollars a day to getting offered fifteen an hour. So with two small children and child-support payments, I worked to re-invent myself. Needless to say, I didn't see a doctor for a very long time! :-O

My luck changed in the strangest fashion. Every week, I would sent out a weekly compilation humor email. And much to my surprise, out of the blue, Malcolm Chesworth, the boss from my original contracting job at Greenwich Capital, responded and asked if I might come in to talk about a position. Did and done! Now that the green started rolling in again, I could finally pick up health insurance and get checked out. ^_^

The father and son doctors that my ex-wife recommended had packed up their office and joined an HMO. So Cara directed me to her GP at WestMed in Yonkers. Dr. Q took an immediate dislike to me. When she asked if I drank, I mentioned I liked to party on the weekends. So she diagnosed me as an alcoholic! Every time I visited any WestMed doctor, the bottom of the visit report listed all my chronic issues now including alcoholism! So much for medical privacy! When I eventually switched primary providers, he thankfully pulled that off. But far worse soon occurred... :(

After getting the blood work for my second annual check-up with Dr. Q, she me called one morning at work sounding extremely agitated saying, "Your liver chemistries are off the chart! You may need a transplant very soon." WTF - out of nowhere? So she referred me to a specialist, Dr. Jaffe. I went into my bosses office, broke down crying when telling him about it. He kindly sent me home for the day. But as with my diabetes diagnosis, I went ahead and ignored it for a time. After all, am I not the "King of Denial?" ;)

But to her credit, Dr. Q kept contacting me. So finally I gave in and made an appointment. Dr. Jaffe and I hit it off immediately. Turns out he lived on 60 Polo Road, directly across from Great Neck North Senior High which I attended. So I went in for more, very expensive chemistry workups, and then met with him again. Big, big, trouble -- Hepatitis-C! Dr. Jaffe told me it's impossible to tell where, when, and how I picked it up. It usually comes from intravenous drug use, blood transfusions, and sometimes rough sex. He thought I might have contracted it in my twenties. But fortunately for me, the FDA would approve six drugs to treat it in the next year. I believed in Dr. Jaffe. After all, he's my homie! I knew he had my back! ^_^

Six months later I got a call from Dr. Jaffe telling me that he would start the paper work on getting this prohibitively expensive drug approved by my insurance. Fortunately WestMed dedicates an entire department to getting treatments covered by insurers. So after four months and two denials, WestMed got it done. But take my word for it, this didn't turn into a cake walk. I took the pills twice a day for three months and felt totally nauseous, night and day, the entire time. :(

By this time, Cara and I had broken up. Yeah, I know. What a surprise, LOL! And now I had to call her up, tell her about my Hep-C, and make sure she gets tested. As you can guess, she did not take this well and blamed me for everything! And sadly, her diagnosed her as well, and she went through a very similar treatment. I tried to explain to her that we will never know who gave it to who and even how the original one of us caught it. Thankfully, we joke about it now! :)

After that I episode, I decided to take care of another long-standing issue. From my long years training in Taekwondo, I picked up a relentless case of Athletes Foot. Cara used to harp about my ugly yellow, cracked toe nails scratching her when we slept together. So as usual, years after the problem surfaced, I decided to take care of it and saw a WestMed podiatrist. No topical medicine worked. So he explained that in cases like this, he recommended a three month regimen of pills very similar to those for Hep-C. So I went for it and got just as nauseous day and night! On the upside, I eventually slept with Cara again and she thanked me profusely for getting my toenails taken care of! =^_^=

News flash! More health concerns to come including a five-day heart attack and cancer. You ain't seen nothing yet! ;)

So on this Christmas 2025. I sit alone but very much alive in my apartment wondering when or even if I'll get the Covid-19 vaccine. I originally thought they'd shoot me up very quickly due to age and precarious medical status. But that's not going to happen. Too many politicians who called it a hoax now jumping the line. Hospital administrators get it before the front-line health care workers. And because I'm on chemo with virtually no auto-immune system left, I probably won't even qualify. But still, I keep my fingers crossed that come Spring, I can at least social-distance and hang outside with all the friends and family I miss so dearly. So as I pick up my MIM Fender Jazz bass and go over the bass lines to Jackson Browne's "Greatest Hits 2," I dream of lost love and the possibility of new romance... One <3

YouTube - Tender Is the Night - Jackson Browne