14 October 2020
Late yesterday afternoon we drove over to the Kaiser medical building on Geary to pick up a prescription for an antibiotic Dr. Brenman had ordered. After consulting with Dr. Tong, they wanted to protect Joyce against the possibility of an infection.
Getting into the medical building is not easy. Unlike the hospital, where admission is simply prohibited, everybody can come in but you have to jump through a series of hoops.
First you have to get in line. Second you have to answer a page full of questions. And it is a printed page full. The poor person asking them just points and says, "Do you have any of these?"
Then you continue through the maze to a camera that takes your temperature and if you are cool, you get to go to the next line. In my case (because I did eventually find street parking), that was the pharmacy.
The gatekeeper Bill wanted to know what I was there for. I resisted the temptation to make something up and lied that I was there to pick up a prescription for Joyce. She was already there, that's why it was a lie.
Fortunately I knew the color of her eyes and when she graduated from grammar school and the name of her first pet, so he let me through. But he warned me that I'd better go straight up to the counter because the medical record said to call the patient.
The patient was waiting patiently for her name to appear on the call board. I told her we had to go straight on up. So we did.
There was nothing on her medical record. But one prescription was "in process." So we returned to the waiting area and looked up at the call board. Which had her name on it.
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THIS MORNING Salwa arrived and changed the dressing. She was gone in half an hour.
But she confirmed the wound odor, although she said it wasn't as bad when she removed the old white foam pieces.
Could it be, I asked, that it was the foam that smelled and not the wound?
She thought that was a genuine theory. Again she confirmed there was no infection and the wound looked good.
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I DASHED OVER to Mom's to rake the leaves, flush the water heater (don't tell her), do the laundry (don't tell her that either), open a bottle of wine for her (no need to remind her), take down the garbage, wind the clock, charge her wireless mouse, pay some bills and promise to help with her ballot next time.
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I got back around 1:30, which is within the window of a permissible lunch on Wednesday. I don't eat lunch except on Wednesday and Saturday. If I can make lunch by 2 p.m., that is.
There is a scientific reason for that but it's nearly 9 p.m. and I want to get through this before my carriage turns into a pumpkin. I seem to have a lost a shoe, too, dammit.
Anyway, Joyce is screaming in her room and on the phone and asking for her schedule because she doesn't know what she is supposed to be doing and I have no idea where this mythical schedule is or what she is supposed to be doing and the water for the fusilli is boiling and ...
Well, I utter an appropriate expletive, scream "I'm cooking!" and go in to see what the matter is and she hands the phone to me and tells me it's Dr. Tong.
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NOW, IF I HAD ANY SENSE LEFT, I would have said to Dr. Tong, "Do me a favor and move the meeting tomorrow to Friday." Then the dressings would stay on schedule and we would be on the premises when our washer and dryer arrives tomorrow.
[BTW, Mary won the Guess the Date contest using a strategy of guessing the furthest out date. Assuming, of course, the things arrive tomorrow. If not, the contest is still open.]
But I had no sense left. Or just enough to clarify the meeting will be in the surgery office on Divisadero not the hospital (so I can go in) and she will change the dressing to look at the wound (but we have to bring supplies because they don't have any) and she'll decide then when the next dressing change should be and the frequency.
Then things got weird.
She said she only called to try to catch the nurse who said they'd be there at 2 p.m. But neither the RN, who comes at 9, or the LVN, who comes at 10, is ever here at 2. We're their first call and they're always on time.
Then she said she has an impossible time trying to get hold of either of them. But they respond to my texts in seconds. I began to wonder who she was contacting. Not the two amusing angels I know.
Anyway, being The Great Facilitator, I offered to get her their phone numbers. Great, no rush, just need it by tomorrow, she says. She heard my expletive so she adds, "I don't want to cause a fire."
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WHEN I GOT the delivery confirmation for the appliances this afternoon, I let Alice know and she immediately promised she'd be here at 1 p.m. tomorrow to greet the delivery guys before we left at 1:30.
If the stars are aligned, they'll be here at 1:03 themselves and swap the machines out in 15 minutes and Alice can take the afternoon off.
But the stars rarely align any more. They just twinkle and fall.
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JOYCE HAS HAD LESS PAIN today. Maybe because she had a nice chat with Judy this afternoon.
We were saddened to hear Conchata Ferrell (Berta on Two and a Half Men) had died. Andy died 15 years ago this month and at his memorial service at the house in Glendale she quieted the building (not just the room) to ask we honor him with a round of applause. I've always loved her for that.
She was with her husband Arnie that day and we thought he was on his last legs but he survives her. Wherever she is, how about a round of applause.
[Outight prolonged applause]
It's hard to believe but we lost Patty Silk four years ago this month, too. I never think of her without overwhelming gratitude for the kindness and generosity she showed me from the first day we met.
Where does that grace go when it leaves us, I wonder. It cannot just disappear. Some [expletive] spark must linger within us.