The sun came out for a couple
of days. That was fairly unusual. What's that line about
"nothing so rare as a day in June"? Did that mean a sunny
day? How can it be June? I'm quite sure it's still April.
It has the look and feel of April, well except for the
flowers in bloom. The Yankees have not put the AL East
out of the Red Sox reach yet. I still can't lift my arm.
Yup, must still be April.
My phone has been ringing at 5:00
AM lately. There's nobody there, just a beep. A machine
is calling me at 5:00 AM. Is it lonely? Maybe it wants
somebody to speak UNIX to it in this DOS-infested world
of ours. Anyway, whatever lonely machine is calling me
woke me up at 5:00. I should have gotten up and stayed
up. I know I should do this and never do it. The secret
to solving my sleep problems is to get up and stay up the
first time I wake no matter how early. Even if it's 3:00
AM. But no, I went back to bed and entered a deep, heavy
sleep from which I emerged in a panic at 9:35 remembering
Wilbur's vet appointment at 10:00. I checked my calendar.
Yup. Vet at 10:00 AM, MRI at 6:45 PM. That's the whole
schedule for today. Skipping breakfast and coffee, I got
us there at exactly 10:00 AM.
The girl at the check-in desk tells
me I'm early, that my appointment is at 10:40. I'm
confused. I sit down to wait. A guy comes in with a
kitten from his barn. He thinks his appointment is at
10:00. The girl tells him he's early. His appointment is
at 11:00. I sit quietly waiting. Wilbur, talkative demon
that he is, is not quiet. He is telling me a long
narrative of his captivity in the carrier. A woman asks
if he's a cat. She says he sounds like a sheep. I let him
out to prove he's a cat. He heads for the office so I
scoop him up and put him back in the carrier.
The staff is all oohing and aahing
over the kitten and the nice young man who brought him
in. They check all the vets on staff for a cancellation
so they can fit him in instead of having him wait 'til
11:00. So they take Mr. 11:00 AM and his kitten while
Wilbur and I still wait. Mr. 11:00 and his kitten come
out of the exam room and check out. At last the staff
takes pity on Wilbur and it turns out the vet he's
supposed to see has a cancellation so she can fit us in
early after all at 10:25. Mr. 11:00 AM is talking to
Woman Who Thinks Wilbur is a Sheep about how he has
trapped and spayed/neutered all his barn cats now and
this kitten is from the last litter. He's a good example
for responsible barn cat owners. He has gotten the
spay/neuter message and is carrying the message to Woman
Who Thinks Wilbur is a Sheep.
Wilbur has lost two pounds. It's
not clear that it's because of his infected tooth (his
reason for being there) so she has to take bloodwork. She
whisks him off to another room for that while I sit in
the exam room waiting. Miraculously, she returns with no
visible bite marks. She gives me antibiotics for the
goopy tooth (that's what she told me was the diagnosis -
"his tooth is goopy") and says she'll call with the
bloodwork results. He pees in the carrier.
Finally, I get to make some coffee.
All I want is coffee. I don't want to eat. I don't want
to sleep. I don't want to work. I just want to drink
coffee all day.
I double and triple and quadruple
check the time of the MRI appointment and get directions
to the hospital, as this one is not at Lawrence General
but at Holy Family in the wilds of Methuen. Yes, Methuen
has wilds. Holy Family is a Catholic hospital so start
getting nervous about appearing obviously gay and whether
that means they won't do the MRI. See, there's this weird
little antigay from the pulpit dustup going on in the
Boston Archdiocese right now so I'm kind of scared of the
Catholic hospital.
Fortunately, I show up at the right
time and do not have to be certified as a straight
person. The tech tells me to put on the gown and tie it
in back. If I could tie the hospital gown I wouldn't be
here. Then she asks me what are the symptoms and I tell
her I can't lift my arm. Seconds later I'm on the table
and she says "Lift your arm please." OK, so I thought it
was funny.
Finally she gets my arm into a
position to please her and not cause me to pass out. I
hold this position for 40 minutes. I visualize walking
the entire length of Plum Island twice, piping plovers
doing the parallel run, periwinkles making epic journeys
across tide pools... It gets really cold in the MRI unit
and I feel chilled. Suddenly my visualization switches
from Plum Island to Mt. Tokachi in Japan. I'm climbing
Tokachi-dake with Zsolt in the snow and I'm way ahead of
him. I reach the fumeroles and watch the sulfurous steam
billow out of them. The colors are vivid and I can almost
smell the sulfur. Suddenly I'm not on Tokachi-dake
anymore. I'm part way up Incense Burner Peak in Xiangshan
Park watching a flock of azure jays fly over a soda
vendor who has festooned her cart with paper autumn
leaves as if the real autumn leaves all around her aren't
enough color. Apparently there is a lot inside my head,
just nothing very practical.
The MRI tech tells me there's just
one more picture, which will take 4 minutes. I keep
trying to visualize walking down our street in Xiangshan
toward the bakery with the fabulous crullers but the
noise of the MRI penetrates every fiber of my being and I
can't think anymore. The last 4 minutes seems to last a
thousand years. When it's over, I am too stiff to stand
up. My shoulder hurts like hell.
Somebody in the waiting room tells
me all about her two knee replacements and how painful
the physical therapy was. I read an article in Newsday
about how poetry is dead. Like Newsday is the great
cultural arbiter? Apparently because the author no longer
sits down and reads a book of poetry straight thru,
poetry is dead. I wonder if he's ever read Ballad of
the Army Carts. The tech emerges with my films
carefully packed in a big envelope for me to bring with
me to the orthopod.
At home all I can manage is to ice
my shoulder and squirt Wilbur's antibiotic everywhere but
in his mouth. Better buy wet food tomorrow.
