You'll recall my adventures with medical bureaucracy last month. My pain management specialist very kindly agreed to prescribe another myelogram for me. The first appointment was canceled on the morning of the procedure by the hospital, because they "had the wrong paperwork" and couldn't proceed without correction. Turns out the problem was one single word that had not been inserted into the relevant form: and without that one single word, everything ground to a halt. At any rate, the missing word was duly provided, and a new appointment was made. This morning it's off I go to the hospital again for another lumbar puncture, a CT scan, and sundry X-rays. Hopefully this will be enough to persuade the medical bureaucracy to let me proceed to the next step.(Why is it that medical bureaucrats and departments can't talk to each other? I've already electronically checked in to the hospital, and provided my co-payment, and confirmed date and time. Despite that, I received no less than five e-mails, text messages and phone calls, all reminding me to be at the hospital on time, and do all the pre-procedure processing I've already done. Do these people have nothing better to do but to waste their patients' time with all this duplication of effort? And what does it add to our costs as patients to have to pay for it all?)I'm thoroughly frustrated with the hospital before I even show up there. To cheer me up, and spare you from listening to my complaints, here's some light relief from Stephan Pastis. Click the image to be taken to a larger version at the "Pearls Before Swine" Web page.And, to compare and contrast two of our largest states:There. A midweek humor break to relax me before getting poked, prodded and photographed, inside and out.Peter