Medicine has changed … Get used to it

Doctor appointments have changed during this last year. Not only are we spaced out around the waiting room, forced to wait in our cars, must wear masks, and talk to the doctors through our smart phones, we’ve got to clean up our living rooms … just like journalist have been doing on the news shows. We don’t want the people at the medical clinic to see our overfilled trash baskets, unfolded laundry, and coffee cups perilously propped on the top of a stack of books we’re planning to read.

It didn’t take my handsome young doctor long to figure out why I had that allergic reaction a few weeks ago. The cobwebs and dust on the table behind me was a dead giveaway. He suggested that I use a damp rag to dust … thus removing the four-inch layer of old skin tissue which had collected since last March. We went over my medications and my blood pressure (which I had to take myself … therefore was able to get a very positive result). He asked me about how I was sleeping, what exercise I was getting, and how I was coping with the Covid World. As I’m getting three naps a day, walking back and forth from the bathroom to the kitchen and drinking ten cups of coffee a day … I told him I was doing well.

As usual, he suggested a little more exercise … like a walk with the dogs. I think the dogs must have called him about this … they really like to walk … even when it’s cold. I said I’d get back into the habit. The only habit I really have is promising to get more exercise.

As with most professionals, our doctors usually think we need to see a specialist of some sort. There’s always a mammogram, a colonoscopy, or an MRI that needs doing. My rheumatologist decided I needed to visit a friend of his who specializes in hematology. That’s because I’m a little anemic. I’ve always been a little anemic, but I think the woman has a son going off to college next fall, and she’s taking on a few more patients.

Anyway, hematology is a division of cancer care … it seems. She assured me that she was just interested in my blood and didn’t suspect any “serious problems.” Then she proceeded to make a list of tests I should have had done a few years ago and have had them repeated twice. I don’t want to get involved in any “serious problems,” so I’m going to have the tests done.

One of those tests includes several trips to the bathroom, a sheet of floating paper, and a collection vial. I am a big girl, and I can handle it. Then she told me she wanted me to drive the “samples” over to her office when I finished with the third “harvest.” It’s tax season, and I’m really busy. I took off a whole day to visit the rheumatology and hematology clinics. People were showing up on my Ring Doorbell App all day. So, when she wanted me to drive the samples on a three-hour tour, I was worried.

I didn’t want my samples to ruin before I got them there. I didn’t want to have to start over. I didn’t want to have to go on Facebook and ask someone to take my poop to Decatur. But I did. I have had no volunteers, but I’m not giving up. Surely someone will step up, load up the samples, and head East … before the poop goes bad.