My dad was a doctor. Dad told me on several occasions that if I ever came home and said I wanted to follow in his footsteps and become a doctor too, he'd lock me in my room for seven years. One of the reasons for this was because he hated dealing with insurance companies. I vividly remember going out to the mailbox one day and finding a letter addressed to Dr. Farquhar, with a very angry note written on the front of the envelope: PLS LET THE DR READ THE LTR. I asked what this was about, and Dad said insurance was refusing to pay for a patient's treatment. He said it happened a lot.

Now I'm 33, and my insurance was refusing to pay for treatment my wife needed. The best-case scenario without her medication would have involved numerous hospitalizations. The worst-case scenario? Coma or stroke if a lot of things went wrong. If everything went wrong, death wasn't out of the question.

Here's what I did about it.

So Michael Moore has a new movie out, this time taking on the touchy topic of health care. I was a very outspoken opponent of Hillary Clinton's plan 15 years ago. I'm extremely disappointed that the alternative plans crafted by the Republicans dropped as soon as the Clinton plan died.

I won't argue that the U.S. health care system is terrible now. I will argue that some of the fault belongs to the person in our mirrors though. (And I don't want to be rude, but Michael Moore needs to take some personal responsibility too.)

So Emily wanted pancakes. I didn't mind cooking but I didn't want to go to the store for eggs. I don't think we set out to make a vegan recipe, but that's what we ended up with. This recipe is cheap, easy, and healthy, with no added sugar, no bad fats, and no cholesterol.

It's only six ingredients, so it's not much harder than pancakes from a mix, but much healthier.

You probably don't want to know what I was searching for on Ebay that matched this.

But, whatever people want to collect, I have no room to talk.

I caught cold again last week. Call my immune system low-end. The last time I got sick, I should have ordered some of this stuff for the next time I'd need it. It was what my grandfather, Dr. Ralph Collins Farquhar Jr., D.O., a family doctor in Doylestown, Pennsylvania, starting in the mid-1930s, used to use to treat a cough. My dad, Dr. Ralph C. III, D.O., used it to treat my sister and me when we were sick, and anyone else who seemed to be sick. Any time someone walked into the Dicus Drugstore in Farmington, Missouri looking for Numotizine Cataplasm, or, as Dad called it, "Pink Peanut Butter", they knew they'd been talking to Dr. Farquhar.

I've been slogging away in nostalgiaville, writing obscure stuff over at Wikipedia again (once an addict, always an addict, even if the addiction hurts you), and I started wondering about something. Why is 20 years ago easier for me to remember than last week?

Standard disclaimer: I'm not a doctor or a psychologist. I'm a systems administrator by trade and a journalist by training. I write this as a survivor of depression, not as an expert on its treatment. Combined with the experiences of others, I think it's worth listening to. But it's no substitute for seeing a specialist.

I'm sick. It kind of snuck up on me. Yesterday I was tired all day and it just got worse. By about 6 I had a full-bore sore throat and I felt ready for bed.

Do you have a weird pain in your lower arms? Do your wrists tingle? Are your wrists tight?

It's time for me to post this. It has come to my attention that certain individuals are angry that "certain people" can't seem to keep a post up every day. I don't know if I was one of the intended targets or not, but I certainly am guilty. As a d/C personality type, I favor interpretation of rules rather than strict adherence to policy. Having your wrists flare up is not exactly pleasant, and I remember one day very well where I could not only not use a computer, I couldn't even unload my dishwasher. After that happened, my thoughts were hardly, "How will I manage to post to my ego site?" (and face it, a Daynotes page IS an ego page primarily, and in some cases, it serves a secondary purpose as a marketing tool, but we're all working from the assumption that someone, for some reason, gives a rat's posterior about what we have to say) but something far more sinister. Writing was suddenly a luxury, not a necessity. There I was, 25 years old, healthy by all appearances but unable to take care of myself. I couldn't unload the dishwasher and I couldn't carry a full laundry basket. Most males shove those duties off on their wives, but I'd like to think there's too much Promise Keeper in me now to do that, but as one who was (and is) single and unattached, that wouldn't have been an option. And, to add insult to injury, my very masculinity was attacked. Not only could I not do the household stuff, but I also found it very difficult to drive. In the States, where your car and your masculinity go hand-in-hand, that's a big deal. Could I make matters worse? You bet. As I get more and more defensive, my "overly dominant overanalysis" tendency gets stronger and stronger. As some of you are aware, and as I alluded in some of my messages, I met the girl of my dreams this spring, as the CTS was setting in. What's the best way to drive females away? I don't know for sure, but overly dominant overanalysis coupled with total lack of confidence due to an inability to excel at anything worked wonders for me. (At least we're still friends. Sort of.)

And never mind that I had a book on deadline, then past deadline, along with limited abilities to write and research.

Yes, I paid a high price for trying to be prolific. And, with all due respect to my colleagues and readers, it was really hard to care. As my friend Jeanne said Thursday night, "If Dave can't do something well, he doesn't do it." Would I trade my "status" as a Daynoter to get back what I lost? In a heartbeat. For that matter, I'd trade one and a half O'Reilly books, an essay on O'Reilly's Web site, and I'd throw in my Daynoters status just to clinch the deal.