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I got up from writing my blog entry yesterday and left pretty soon after that to drive up to Durham to keep my appointment at the arthritis clinic at the VA Hospital. I was anticipating an ill-tempered visit with this Nazi doctor they assigned me. I've been mentally cussing him for four months and working it up in my mind to force the issue of me getting my case assigned to another doctor.
During my drive up there I began singing to warm my voice up. I hadn't used my voice much because I live alone, and I didn't want no cracks in my voice as I waxed emotional to make it easy to enter my Prince Chi dissembly mode when I got there. It's so much easier to make it believable as I've grown older. Muttering, cranky old men are like the squeaking wheel that gets the grease.
As I drove north along I-40 with the cruise control set barely below the legal speed limit, I began trying to process 4 months of frustration and get it behind me, now, so that when the process started I could respond with an empty mind poised to engulf wot wuz sot before it completely. I practiced awareness of my ambient surroundings so that I would BE unconcerned when I got there.
Since I had left early from home to give myself plenty of time to get there I arrived in Durham two hours before my appointment time. I had lived in Durham for a short time while my first wife worked on getting her dietitian certification from Duke. I lived at 808 Onslow Street. Odd that I remember that. It was the first apartment I'd ever rented in my short life at 22 years old.
The Whole Foods Store in Durham was easy to get to in order to waste a little time, yet located where I could easily get back on the Freeway to go to the VA. My visit there yesterday was less enthusiastic than my previous visits. I found that store in the first place because they had sprouting seeds and I was into growing sprouts then. I'm sorta not anymore.
It was easy to find a parking place at the small shopping center. I parked the car and decided to go for a walk to stretch my legs before I went inside the famous, fancy grocery store. I walked one block east on Perry Street and found myself across the street from some large industrial buildings I think are associated with Duke University.
The street I was on had lots of restaurants and cafes that seemed very student oriented. The main campus is near by. There was a steady stream of the young beautiful college students each attempting to show their particular version of individuality as if they are grownups. I felt older than ever, but at the same time, invigorated by a contact high from being among them. I walked for a few blocks, then turned around and returned to Perry Street.
As I mentioned earlier, the Whole Foods Store don't hold as much truck with me since I've returned to a more convenient diet. I browsed through it knowing I wasn't gonna buy anything. Then, when I was done acting like an muddle-headed automaton, I got in my car and drove over to the valet parking at the VA Hospital, and went inside.
I hadn't wasted enough time. I was still an hour early. Fortunately, being early got me in a short line to check in at the main reception desk. I don't have to really do it that way. I can go directly to the clinic to check in, but I was in a suspicious mode because of my mindset, and I wanted to leave a digital trail that I was there in plenty of time to keep my appointment.
After I checked in at the main desk, I went to the cafeteria to see if they had anything interesting to eat. I had taken my methotrexate earlier that morning before I left home, and for a day or so after I take methotrexate I can only eat what will stay down. It's notorious side-effect of debilitating nausea makes eating an iffy business. Sometimes I can eat about anything, and other times I won't be able to keep what I normally eat down.
I checked into the clinic about 45 minutes early and meditated myself into a pretty relaxed state for about a half hour. My appointment time came and went without me getting any attention, so I got up and started wandering around inside the waiting room and out into the hall. For some reason this usually makes the staff nervous. Not yesterday. So I went directly to the desk and asked why I was being ignored. That worked.
Within minutes the nurse came out and called me into his office to do the pre-visit interview and check my blood pressure and weigh me like I was a cow going to slaughter, then I was instructed to go back to the waiting room and the doctor would come and get me. I seemed to settle down then a little, because this is the regular process about every visit.
Not long after I sat down I heard my name being called by a soft, feminine voice. Oh no! This ain't supposed to be happening. It's supposed to be the tinkling, smart-alecky voice of my nemesis Doctor Tony Ning. Not a pleasant woman's voice at all. I looked up, and there was a very attractive Oriental woman wearing a doctor's white coat. She smiled at me and asked, "Are you felix?"
When I answered in the affirmative, she said, "I'll be your doctor today, follow me." Surprised, I did exactly what she said. It was as if I were in a wonderful dream. My prayers were answered. God is good. I didn't have to deal with the doctor I didn't like, at least for today.
Trying to sound humorous I asked her as we walked down the long hall to the doctor's offices, "Where's Doctor Ning? Did they fire him?" She laughed and explained that his schedule had been changed to another time of the day because of his lectures. My mojo had worked. He got promoted to his own level of incompetence.
My new doctor seemed to want to show me right away that she was in charge, and she did pretty good. After she had asked me a few questions and checked me out for swollen joints and listened to my heart, she went out and got her supervisor. This pleasant, grizzled old man, on the other hand, knew damn well he was in charge, and from my first glance at him I did too. We started negotiating and he agreed to keep me on the same medicine that worked for me, and then he added a little surprise with a twinkle in his eye. "Do you get along okay with prednisone?"
I tried not to look too excited, but I don't think I fooled him at all. Prednisone might be my drug of choice for dealing with RA. He said, "I'm thinking of a very low, daily dose of about 5 mg. This seems to work real well with older folks, and that low of a level doesn't have many noticeable side-effects. If you don't get along with it you can just stop."
The young woman doctor agreed with her supervisor, of course, and they decided to prescribe me 2.5 mg pills twice a day until my next appointment. All the animosity I had been feeling and preparing to fight to remedy for months melted away by the time the valet service brought my car around for the long drive home.
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I do not attempt to tell the God's own truth here because I don't know what the truth is or hardly ever. I try to capture the drifting thoughts that randomly appear in my imagination for reasons I may not understand. I don't know if the content I capture with these words is true or false. The Comments settings are turned off to prevent me from having to defend what amounts to little more than fanciful, sometime crude speculation. Great moments in our lives never return.
