Friday, Finally.

Usually in the cooler months I shower every other day to conserve water.  Thursday, June 5th I wake up very stinky, as has been my problem for the last few weeks.  I go to bed at night and wake up in the morning smelling like I have run a marathon.   Steve doesn’t complain, and says I smell fine.  I believe that when you can smell yourself, it has to be really bad.  Not having a shower is definitely not an option.  

I skip stained glass class tonight because it is cold and rainy.  I usually take the bus from Providence to Lincoln, but I am not in the mood to be cold and wet.  Instead I go to bed early to read, but the words won’t stick in my head. I go to sleep knowing that tomorrow is Friday.  Tomorrow I can go to my doctor’s appointment.

Finally it is Friday. Now, I need to get to 3:30.  I have a home daycare, so my morning is pretty busy.  I don’t remember much about the morning, except that it was a nice day, sunny and warm.   I do remember getting up in the morning and feeling good and strong.  I was thinking I might start running again, something I haven’t done since January.

Steve tells me early that my daughter Kaileigh will be coming to visit from Ithaca, New York this afternoon to hear what the doctor has to say.  She would rather be here in person than hear it on the phone.  I am always so happy when my family is around.  Although the trip is a long one, six hours if there is no traffic, I am excited that she is coming in.

My daughter Ayla is planning on coming by when she gets out of work, and my son Alex is helping my sister Sara out with the kids while I am at my appointment.  Everyone will be together when I get home.

I have been trying to recall what we did on Friday morning, and I have no clue.  This in itself is not so unusual at first, but I can usually piece things together when I concentrate on it for a bit.  We did something and then had some lunch.  I put a few kids down for nap.  One thing I do remember is that one of the boys was dropped off by his dad on this morning.  About a half an hour later, his mom stopped by.  I thought maybe she had forgotten to give her son a hug before he left.  She walked into the house and came straight to me, to give me a hug.  She wished me good luck. All the moms and dads had hugs for me this day, but this mom made a special trip just to deliver this hug.  I don’t know the words to describe how loved and appreciated this made me feel.

Somehow I get through to 3:00.  I quickly change my hoodie and Steve and I go off in our yellow Zipcar, Kia Soul Goldie.  We are stylin’.

We had reserved the Zipcar so that if my appointment went long, my sister could go home when she was done working.  This was a silly thought.  Of course she would be there when I got home.

There was a lot of traffic on our 10 mile trip into Johnston, RI, where the doctor’s office is located.  We had plenty of time to get there, so we tried to relax.  Things seemed to be moving in slow motion anyway.

The office was in one of those non descript medical buildings.  Big, boxy with lots of windows.  Although there is a front door facing the main street, you can’t get in there.  You have to enter by the back door.  We thought we were lucky when we found a parking space right by the front door.  

When we entered the office, I was a little nervous, because there seemed to be so many people in the room waiting to see a doctor.  As we took our seats, I felt like they were eyeing me in the same way, assessing where I might be on the list of who is to be seen and when.  My time spent waiting in doctors offices recently has been minimal.  I just have these memories of being a child/adolescent and waiting, waiting, waiting in the doctor’s office.

My worries were baseless, by the time I finished with my paperwork, only one other patient was waiting, and soon the room was empty.  Of course, just because you are out of the waiting room, it doesn’t mean your wait is over.  It only means you get to wait someplace else.  

The Exam Room

This room is just the size it needs to be for what is in there.  It is an examination table wide, with an extra couple of feet in case you are longer than the table.  There is an extra wide chair and a regular sized chair on one wall, with just enough room for the door to open.  A sink and cabinet are centered precisely between the door and the wall, and on the perpendicular wall there is a chair and a small table with a model of the colon system and common problems.  Everything fit in precisely.  I wondered about the the design of the room.  Was it a reflection of the designer fitting things into the space, or of the person who works here.