Perhaps I should have my head examined....

This is not a rhetorical issue.  Our medical insurance--which we may lose when I turn 65 and this benefit will no longer exist--covers an annual no-copay neck to pelvis scan.  You have the scan, go out for lunch and then come back and the doctor tells you that you are falling apart...or not...and has 3D photos to prove it.

So pix of my damage lungs will be available, as will pix of whatever kidney stones are remaining and any vascular disease in the target area and so on.

Call me a cynic, but I suspect that they will ALSO want to sell us a scan of the head and even legs (knees/hips.)

I wonder if I should buy that.  I wonder if I can get my PCP to order it for me based on my anosmia...I can't smell a thing...no cause has been found and a tumor in the head CAN be a cause.  Hmmmm.

If it is any comfort, my mom lost her sense of smell over 20 years ago and it did not seem to have any other effect on her other than inconvenience and some loss of taste. She lived to be 93.

What kind of scan is it?  CT?  U/S?  If the former, what about the concern of that amount of yearly irradiation?  DH and discussed this with our doctors a couple of years ago when we had some unspent FSA - we put the money where his mouth is instead.

And what kind of insurance covers that anyway??  I thought the value of it (cost [including excess risk of radiation, if it was CT, and unnecessary procedures to rule out false positives] vs. diseases found early) was not yet good enough to justify it even as a self-pay.

'Splain more please!  I'm all for preventive screening if it's worth it!

"Spoiled people's insurance" covers it, Silly!  For free.  And I probably won't have access to this freebie after this year if the insurance company has Brain One.  (I am the first retiree spouse to age-up into Medicare BEFORE the covered retiree and I am VERY expensive and they may just decide they don't want me or any other cougars.  What I'll REALLY miss is the EXCELLENT vision insurance...they cover EVERY POSSIBLE ADD-ON...progressive bifocals? check...polycarbonate lenses?  check...photogrey lenses?  check...scratch resistant coating?  check....and so on.)

I don't know...it's free but is it a whole lot more radiation, etc. than going for SEPARATE scans for every little thing that goes wrong?  I have recently had my hand and wrist scanned, my kidneys and bladder, a bit longer ago, lungs...would this be useful as a baseline?

And it's free...I mentioned free, right?

I would do the free scan once but only if it was not in one of those closed MRI machines.  Yikes.  I can't do those.

If your loss of smell will get you a head CT paid for I would do that too. 

When did you lose your smellavision?

~Becky

I *THINK* it was related to the Army gas chamber training, but they say that gas chambers don't cause that.


ETA...and we all know the army never lies.

Do I even want to know what "gas chamber training" means??

Probably not.

You go into a sealed room...aka gas chamber.  They pop a couple of tear gas canisters.  And then you find out if you really DID learn to put your gas mask on fast enough.   (There's a technique that involves, if I recall, slamming your helmet in between your thighs...putting on the gas mask and then replacing your helmet.)

And then you recite your name, rank and serial number and leave the gas chanber and act like this:
www.youtube.com/watch




ETA...I don't remember the arm flapping.

Oh yes, I remember the gas chamber at Fort McClellan.  I don't remember the arm flapping either. Must be something new to restore order and decrease the panic. We just swarmed out and buzzed around a bit. The drill sergeants tried not to point and laugh at the silly ones. 

I can get my mask on in less than 5 seconds.  Just don't ever forget to pop the filter tab at the bottom!  That can be leathal.  

Thank you Saddam Hussain for the Gulf War (version one) and for teaching me all sorts of interesting things about life in a sealed room when I was 8.