1.
Oh, was this a messed up set of appointments.
We’ll have a follow-up appointment in three months, they had told me. And sure enough there were appointments that popped into my calendar on precisely that date almost the day after I walked out of the radiation center. But those were minor appointments. The actual doctor appointments didn’t show up and didn’t show up, which wasn’t a surprise because in my experience the doctor’s schedules never got finalized until near the appointment dates, anyway.
But as time went on, the actual doctor appointments still didn’t show up.
Finally as the three month date was less than three weeks away, I sent a message and then some more messages on the next day and then left voicemail. It was at this point that appointments started furiously popping up in my calendar with messages of apology and phone calls to disregard some of the other messages they’d left me. It was clear that I had allies there who were working very hard to straighten things out. Adelaide in particular came to my rescue and somehow figured out how to squeeze me into the already over-booked CT schedule. And Mary called. And Gary.
But the thing of it is, by that time too much time had passed, and it was simply too close to the appointment date to get everything lined up nicely.
2.
So the first appointment of the first of two days was at 6:45 in the morning. That was for blood work, and we waited there until time ran out and I was due for my CT scan. So we told them we’d be back, and we walked off to the far reaches of the building to check me in for my scan.
And that check-in process took a long time.
As Trudy went off to get breakfast in the cafeteria downstairs, I sat squinting as a nurse tried several times to get an IV line stuck into my arm — evidence of which I will carry with me as a dark bruise for several days. But I’m kind of used to needles by now, so (squinting aside) it was all good.
Then I went to wait in a big chair with a wonderfully warm blanket over me (because those CT rooms are so dang cold) and the Benadryl coursing thru my veins making me sleepier and sleepier.
Beep. “Hot oatmeal ready,” Trudy texted me. “And cold milk.”
I texted her back and said I was still waiting. And a while later, I texted the same. And a while later, too. And then I fell asleep.
“Mr. Hasan?” a nurse asked, which made me jump.
She took me to the CT room. They scanned me quickly — in far less time it seemed than the time it took to start that IV. And then I was done.
3.
Back in the waiting room, the fair and industrious Trudy was holding my oatmeal and milk. It seemed to me that it had been a very long time since she had texted its arrival.
“And look,” she said, “It’s still hot!”
I was starving. I opened the container and took the spoon and started chowing down. It was indeed still hot. And it tasted great. It had cinnamon. And there were raisins in it.
It was the best breakfast I have ever had.