Meds and Fried Oreos
Matt Seinberg

If you can figure out what this column is about from this title, good luck. I’ll give you a second to think about it.

Your time is up.

In April, I went for the quarterly check up with my cardiologist, who along with a physicians’ assistant (PA) decided to change one of my medications. I had been on it for ten years. I tolerated the Pindolol, well, with no side effects at all.

For some reason, they decided to put me on Coreg, which is something for heart health. I started with a 3.12 mg dose twice daily (BID) When I went back three weeks later, I was feeling fine. They then decided to double the 6.25 mg BID.

Now we are in May and I’m not feeling like myself. I’m fatigued all the time, irritable and feeling depressed, even though there is no reason for me to feel this way. Technically, I likely suffer dysphoria, not depression; what’s a word for feeling rotten between columnist and reader. Because of all this, production at work is dropping like a stone in a well and I don’t want to do anything at home.

One Wednesday, my manager asks if I’m okay. I say that I’m not. He nods his head and says he could tell something was wrong. Some of my co-workers had gone to him as well, wondering if I was okay or not.

I’m wracking my brain, as sluggish as I am to figure out what the problem is. I talk to radio sister JJ Kennedy, who is also a family therapist; I hope she can help. It’s always nice talk to her; it didn’t help.

Then a week later, it finally hits me. This all started when I started on the Coreg. I did what any supposedly smart person would do:  I stopped taking it on the Saturday, of Memorial Day weekend. By Sunday, I was feeling better. On Monday, I was almost 100%. Everyone could tell the difference and told me so.

Wednesday, I had an appointment to see the cardiologist. I told him what was going on. He told me exactly what I expected; stop taking the Coreg and go back to the Pindolol.

That’s like the old joke. A man goes to the doctor. He tells the physician that when he lifts his arm, up and to the right, hurts, terrible. What, he says, can he do to help stop the paint? The doctor, in his wise and caring ways replies, “Don’t do that.”

Now thinking with a clear head, everything is back to normal. Then the following week I see a headline in “Newsday,” the Long Island newspaper stating that Nassau County wants to have a referendum to float a $400 million bond to finance a new arena for our hockey team, the New York “Islanders,” and build a new minor league baseball park, too.

Is this country Republican administration out of their minds? We are already teetering on the brink of bankruptcy, with the county finances overseen by the Nassau Interim Finance Administration (NIFA). They want to spend between $1.8 and 2.2 million on this special election, instead of having it during the primaries or even the general election and not spending any extra money.

This is money the county can ill afford to spend, and who do you think ends up paying for all this? The county taxpayers of course, of which I am one, and one way or another, we’re royally screwed.

Two years ago, under a Democratic administration, financing the new arena and surrounding area was private, totally, paid for by the developers. Then the Republican Town of Hempstead (TOH) supervisor got her underwear in a tizzy over the density of the project, and wouldn’t let it go forward. Even after the powers-that-be scaled back the project, she still wouldn’t let it go forward.

Since this new publicly financed proposal has come to being, I have not heard one word from the TOH supervisor. I want to know how or why she is so in favour of this publicly financed idea, but not a private one. I don’t care howoften a politician says they’ll find the necessar funding, taxpayers  take the brunt of the cost. To this end, I wrote a letter to Newsday expressing my views.

I got a call this week from “Newsday,” to verifying I wrote the letter. I was told they were consideration it for publication. If it publishes, it will be this week.

On to more fun stuff and the annual Strawberry Festival is underway at a local school, so I took Melissa and her friend Haley out on Friday night, hoping they would have some fun. They had a great time.

There were the usual carnival rides. All I was hoped was  Melissa would not leave her mark, as she usually does. They really enjoyed the Riptide, Big Swing and Himalaya, all very fast rides which they went on multiple times.

Carnivals always have fun food, including many that are fried. I decided that we should have a treat, and I choose Fried Oreos. If you have never had this wonderful confection, do so at your next opportunity! Oreos dunked in batter and put into the fryer make my cardiologists jump for joy. The high temperatures, the cream melts and the Oreo itself becomes nice and gooey. Yummo is hardly the world as I hear my arteries crack

We stayed there about two and half hours. We loved every minute of this experience. To be clear, I did not go on any rides, especially after eating the friend Oreos.

There is my explanation of the title. Hmm, I wonder if can fry some Oreos at home?