I have been to the doctor's, this fine day, early in the morning. I hear you now:
What's this? You had a doctor's appointment? And you didn't say when last we spake?
Yes, O my readers and O the delight of mine een, I did have a 'pointment with yon physician this very morn, at three-quarters of an hour past the seventh ante meridian.
Dam' good thing I remembered it at 7:40, then.
So, long story longer, I'm up, dressed and abluted within two minutes, out the door and down the street in another two, and am no more than 5 minutes late to the doctor's office. After I sign in, I decide that I really can't pull off the Einstein look so I hop into the restroom to comb my hair. Once I have got it tamed and put away the chair and whip, I find a seat as far from CNN In the A.M. as possible and pull out my book. I've barely flipped it open before they're calling my name.
All right, this is gonna be short and sweet. So after the ritual humiliation with the scale and the sliding weights that keep moving to the right, I am shown to a room to get my arm squeezed. My blood pressure is deemed "fine," and I am told to wait for the physician. I don't bother with my book, she'll be right in.
Maybe I should have got my book out again.
Finally, around 8:30, the doctor breezes in. I don't have to worry about being sleepy and depressed about my weight and being up at going on half past 8 without brekky, the doc's got enough energy and pep for both of us.
After inquiries into my toilet circumstances, and discussion of my larger situation and Isabel's, the doctor declares no major changes right now and breezes out again with a promise of playing Vampire later.
So I've got five minutes to wait for the fleba, phlembe, blood-taker woman and her devil needles. Joy. If my heels got any cooler they'd superconduct.
So the nurse wheels in the torture device and informs me I'm to be strapped down, or at least that's the only reason I can discern why she tied the rubber band on. I've still got a mark right round my bicep.
And then the poking and prodding, all in vein, and I'm smelling alcohol and making a fist and trying to think of small fuzzy animals like puppies and kittens and did you know the male platypus has a poisonous sting! Are we done yet?
"I'm not getting anything," she says, and pulls out. So we go through the whole thing again on the other side of the elbow and she gets a trickle, like the blood is bashful. Five minutes later she's got half a phial and whatever wellspring she tapped is reminded of its Bartleby and goes on strike.
"That's enough for your C-peptides, let me check if we need any more." Out she goes, leaving me holding the gauze on the needle wound, which is now treating me to its impersonation of Old Faithful. And another nurse comes in, gets out a bigger needle, and rolls up my left sleeve. She decides that her best shot is on the outside edge of the left elbow, over there with all the nerves. "Big pinch!" she chirps, and I'm not ready, where are my hamsters and squirrels and why does the male platypus have such a venomous sting? That didn't help, time for the big guns: CANDY BAR CANDY BAR GONNA GET A CANDY BAR what? All done?
Great. I gotta hold the gusher in my right elbow with my left hand and the trickle in my left elbow with my right hand. The paperwork goes between the middle and ring fingers of my right hand and my plaid overshirt between the opposite fingers. I have to pick up my coat in my teeth, and I stand up and nearly fall over on my way to the checkout desk, where at least I have the relief of not being charged $Iseemtobehavingtremendousdifficultywithmylifestyle-load right then, I'll be billed for it later.
So I go home and tuck into two bowls of corn flakes before dressing for work and using Isabel's car because she's going to take mine to get that funny squeak in the brakes looked at (I guess the hamsters under the hood are on strike in solidarity with the WGA).
So all in all I feel like I've just been savaged by Spiny Norman. Which means I need to post this:
Copyright infringement be damned.
2 comments:
What's this? You had a doctor's appointment? And you didn't say when last we spake?
No change is I suppose good news.
Yeah, my blood pressure's been good for the last three visits. I guess I'll find out how my blood chemicals are in a few days.
There's a lovely walking track not one mile from the office that is, itself, just under 1 mile long. I walked it twice yesterday, but I don't think I brought clothes warm enough to get out there in the wintry wind tonight, so I think I'll go home and do an hour's work around the house, instead.
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