Blog 2: Tales Along the Senescent Trail: Part 2
As I dodged the automatic doors that tried to ambush me, the lady-receptionist at the lobby desk hooted loudly.
“Sir, you gotta wear a mask to come in here!”
Comprehension comes a little more slowly now. I raised my right hand questioningly.
She hooked a finger into her cool black mask, covered in glaring white Nike symbols, so she could be heard more clearly. “Your mask! Sir! You must wear a mask to enter here!” she shouted with an exasperated, ugly tone and shot me an even nastier frown.
Crap! What’s the big deal! We’re not lepers. We don’t have any obvious open sores and don’t wheeze too loudly. We had already gotten our Covid shots a month ago. Damn! I fumbled clumsily in my pocket and fished out a covering my grandson had given me. With some difficulty, I managed to get the flimsy rubber band connectors around my ears and shifted the mask over my nose. SpongeBob’s ridiculous face ogled from my mouth, although I must admit my grandchildren and I find the program extremely amusing at times.
My wife June hugged my left elbow like a blind woman grips a walking stick as we teetered through the snapping jaws of the entrance. Together we shuffled towards the elevator and headed to the second floor of The Heart Center.
I glanced down at some poor guy in a wheelchair with his tongue lolling out and a head that hung at an impossible angle above his shoulder. He kept staring at me until, embarrassed, I jerked my eyes away and focused on the elevator panel buttons. I felt a twinge of regret for gawking too long.
As we stepped through the elevator doors, June hugged my elbow like a jumper clutches a parachute. Real tight.
After checking into the doctor’s office, we managed to find a couple of chairs next to each other. Someone had ripped the caution tape off the chair I dropped into.
After a few minutes, the nurse came out and called my name. As luck would have it, I followed her into the same waiting cubicle I had occupied last time. The ugly orange ceiling tile was missing, replaced by a brand-spanking-new white one. I could already see faint orange moisture forming at one corner of the tile.
Another bulge-hugger.
The diseased heart charts were missing, replaced by diet charts hawking new slim-jim menus with in-your-face, before and after caricatures of people like us and the beautiful people.
The nurse took my weight and blood pressure then asked the usual questions. Was I depressed? Did I think about committing suicide in the last week? Did I have trouble urinating? Was I incontinent? How was I sleeping?
Then she left with a cheery “The doctor will be with you in a moment.”
An hour later, there was a soft knock at the door, and Dr. M. stepped quickly through and right up next to me.
“Well?” he asked. “Have you decided on what we talked about last time?”
I shifted slightly, and the toilet-paper tissue under me crinkled loudly. I had been anchored so long in one spot I could feel nasty bedsores forming all over my rear end.
“Yeah. I think we should go ahead and take a look,” I whispered as I reluctantly rolled from one hip to the other, the bedsores screaming for mercy.
“Good!” he exclaimed gleefully. “Now let’s see . . . .”
He grabbed my right arm and twisted it so the forearm faced upward and then lovingly touched each ropey greenish-blue vein at the wrist. Finally, he came to an abrupt halt over a long, mostly straight one.
“Ah! . . . this one will do nicely.”
