May 27, 2009

• Go to the Clinic to Get Sick

  I’m studiously NOT thinking about things like contagion and incubation periods.  Sufficient unto this day was the pain therein.  I’m not even borrowing trouble anticipating any possible sleep problems tonight or fatigue hangover tomorrow — what comes will come.  Right now at this moment I am whacked, knackered and cream crackered, having no need nor desire to borrow tomorrow’s trouble at all.

  Greyfox showed up here early this morning, and with help from a groggy sleep-deprived Doug, unloaded some perishables he’d brought for us from supermarkets in Wasilla.  Then we all piled into his car to go to the clinic up between here and Talkeetna.  Way long time ago, days and daze ago, I’d had an inconclusive blood test for hepatitis and had to repeat it.  When the result on the second test was also inconclusive, the doc told me to get the whole family in for testing just in case.

  Neither Greyfox nor Doug was cooperative, much less willing, and not anything approaching enthusiastic about it, and so time went by.  I brought it up a few times, and finally one time when Greyfox was headed up there anyway for a dental appointment, I set up appointments for the three of us on the same day.  That was the day a few months ago when Redoubt Volcano exploded, the ash cloud blew this way, travel advisories were issued, and I canceled the appointments.

  A couple of weeks ago, Greyfox finally got around to rescheduling his dental appointment, and set up medical appointments for all 3 of us again.  Today, we kept them.  The only thing I needed was to get my asthma prescriptions renewed, but I was talked into getting routine blood work done, too.  First, a medical assistant stuck me three times, and managed to fill one of the two tubes of blood she needed before causing a hematoma on the back of one hand and switching to the other hand for the next stick.

  That poke with the needle went directly to hematoma without getting any blood into the tube, so she gave up and went for the phlebotomist, who poked me three times, more painfully than the first one had, before getting the second tube filled.  Both of them seemed extremely rueful and were profusely apologetic about the proliferation of colorful circus-print bandages on my hands and arms, but for me it was nothing new.  I am blessed with lousy, hard to find and easy to rupture veins.  They probably saved my life forty years ago when I was running meth into them.  If it had been easy, I know I would have done more, and I am sure I had enough as it is.

  Doug’s blood draw was done quickly and easily.  He had his Nintendo DS with him, so the wait while mom got perforated didn’t bother him.  Greyfox had both a dental appointment and the blood draw, and he has such excellent veins that he used to be a professional blood donor.  Therefore, he and I were done about the same time.  As we left the clinic comparing notes, it became apparent that either (a) Doug’s blood work won’t come out right because he wasn’t fasting or (b) Greyfox was misinformed about the necessity for him to fast for 8 hours before his blood draw, which necessitated his making a new appointment for next week.

  We needed two things from the hardware store, but when we stopped on the way back, neither Doug nor I could recall what they were.  Instead, we bought quadrille-ruled pads for D&D, flypaper strips, and stick-on numbers for the mailbox, which we needed but hadn’t thought of previously.  It started raining after we got home.  When the drips started hitting the pans in here I remembered that one of the things we’d wanted to buy was new tarps to fix the roof.  That jogged Doug’s memory and he recalled that he needed bulbs for his flashlight.

  Our second and last stop after the clinic was Jack’s store, for milk, which Greyfox had forgotten to bring.  Jack was on his weekly buying trip to town.  His wife Lois saw us pull into the parking lot, left her bake shop next door, came over and unlocked the grocery store for us.  We got our milk and I found a different kind of sticky fly-catching gizmo.  Then I saw two trays of film-wrapped pastries on top of a chest freezer beside the door to the back room.  I picked up two cherry turnovers and asked Doug if he saw anything there he wanted.

  Lois interjected that those were old and she was about to throw them out.  I asked her if she’d throw some my way.  She said, in a distressed and discouraging tone, that they were two days old.  I said none of them looked moldy and I could nuke them and make them like fresh again.  She let us bag up the whole batch, about a dozen and a half pastries, donuts and cookies, being apologetic about their stale condition.  I was smiling, and Doug was grinning and making mmmmm sounds, as I said, “At least I didn’t have to go into the dumpster for them,” and we left.

  Greyfox stuck around here long enough to get some computer time without the timer running as it always is when he uses library computers.  While he was online, I went through some bags of dumpster-score clothing he’d brought, and sorted out ones we couldn’t use.  They’ll go back and be donated to people he knows or to one thrift shop or another.  I also boiled one of the dozens of eggs he brought, for him to take back to Wasilla with him.  He likes hard cooked eggs, but has only a microwave for cooking in his cabin.

  We’re getting a fine soaking rain now, which was much needed for the health of the forest and gardens and to keep down the danger of wildfires.  The dog and his Doug are out now, walking in the rain.  Doug has always loved walking in the rain.  For one thing, it brings out the colors of the stones in the road, which are not crushed gravel but the tumbled droppings of ancient glaciers.  Koji, I think, likes walking in the rain because it enhances his natural scent.  It truly does.  He comes back smelling just like a wet dog.
  

  • 10:38 pm
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