A Full Morning

After a quiet weekend, with nothing pressing to do, no place pressing to go, it was up early this morning to get granddaughter to her 8:45 doctor’s appointment.

Inasmuch as my doctor is at the same facility and has had her office bugging me to come in because “The doctor hasn’t seen you in a while”, I’d managed to kill two birds with one stone by getting an 8:30 appointment.

I almost cancelled several times during the week – in fact, I almost cancelled this morning because I didn’t understand why I needed to see her if nothing was wrong.

I regularly check into one of the facilities for blood pressure check, blood pressure medication refill, flu shots, fasting blood test but, as near as I can figure, the last time I was actually in the doctor’s office, speaking with her face-to-face, was late 2014 when my right hand was hanging like a wet rag because of what I thought was carpel tunnel.

Turned out to be a simple case of tendinitis from too much Candy Crush.

She sent me to the Cast Room for splint support to allow the wrist to heal.

I still managed to position my arm in the splint so I could continue to play Candy Crush and, since then, I’ve been fortunate enough not to hurt myself.

What few aches and pains I get, being more into the holistic side rather than conventional medicine, I head to the acupuncturist in Korea Town. So this morning’s appointment felt unnecessary.

Already annoyed by the constant calls from her office, and the fact that at one point -- a month or two ago, I received notice the doctor had taken it upon herself to set up an appointment FOR ME, which appointment I promptly unset up, I walked in the required 15 minutes early with an attitude.

“So, why are you here to see the doctor today?” asks her nurse.

“Because her office keeps bugging me to check in”.

“Oh, okay. The doctor will be here shortly. You’re her first appointment”.

There was no location signal in the little room, so I was further annoyed ... and bored because I couldn’t catch any Pokémon.

Then the doctor didn’t show up at the appointed 8:30, still hadn’t appeared by 8:45, at which time granddaughter called to say -- since she’d been early, they’d already taken care of her and she was ready to go.

I angrily replied, “Still waiting … doctor is late … didn’t want to be here anyway … going to get up and walk out”.

I stood up, grabbed my bag and the doctor appeared.

She was so smiley face and pleasant that I calmed down, let her talk me into the new pneumonia shot, and got out with a clean bill of health, except for the pep talk to lose weight.

I've tried, says I, my metabolism is dead, thin is not necessarily well.

I suppose I should be happy the doctor is so caring about her patients as to insist they check in with her, but color me skeptical that it might have more to do with meeting co-pay quotas and trying to talk me into medication and exams I don’t need or believe in.

After driving granddaughter to Baker’s to pick up breakfast, dropping her off at her workplace, I hit three PokéStops -- where I collected Poké Balls, miscellaneous items to be used for wounded and fainting Pokémon, and lucked up on two new captures, which captures propelled me to Level 8.

Then, I stopped at Starbucks for coffee – where I insisted on paying for a fireman’s moca something-or-other saying, “After the week you guys had, you shouldn’t have to pay for anything”, stopped at the market for groceries and was back home, totally done with errands by 11:15.

It’s now a little after 1:00, the morning’s gone, dinner is in the crockpot, remainder of the day is television and needlepoint.

OOPS … spoke too soon. Granddaughter just texted for a ride to Walmart after she gets off work.

It takes a village.