At the Doctor's Office

It was a day much like any other ... I leaped out of bed with a single bound ... well, maybe two before my feet actually made contact with the floor ... and I was off and running ... er, walking.

Walking carefully, I might add. I don’t bump into things ... very much ... but I’ve learned to exercise caution while feeling my way through the early morning (mental) fog.

Then my remarkable mental faculties (remarkable that I still have any) kicked in and I remembered: I had a doctor’s appointment.

That meant, among other things, no breakfast ... report in "fasting," to use the precise medical term.

There was a time when skipping breakfast would have meant nothing ... I did it regularly ... for years ... but now?

Now, if I don’t have breakfast, the hunger pains come so close together that I feel someone should be rushing me to the hospital ... or at least to one of those fast food places where breakfast greets you with a hearty sizzle.

Thank goodness I had an early appointment ... which meant, providing the doctor didn’t keep me for further tests (for which I’d obviously had no chance to study) ... I could hop in The Little Red Car immediately afterward, pop a wheelie or two ... go somewhere to wolf down a killer brownie ... and life would go on as usual.

Aside from the early morning traffic ... always guaranteed to raise my blood pressure to the level of a high ping ... the first big hurdle, after arriving, consists of the weigh-in.

Oh, I dread that. I’ve tried getting by with putting just one foot on the scale ... or clutching a helium-filled balloon ... or bargaining with the nurse ... suggesting that I be allowed just to pick a number ... begging, pleading ... stopping a heartbeat short of getting booted out for frightening the other patients.

This time I just mentioned to her that I have a Golden Buckeye discount card ... and maybe she could give me 10 per cent off the actual number.

Surprise! No deal. But who needs a deal? Much to my surprise, and the nurse’s ... I had actually lost some weight. That news seemed to have a calming effect ... and my blood pressure reading came in well under the explosive level.

The rest was so easy that I’ll spare you the details ... except the doctor asked me about my poetry (It appears that one of my early lab reports had come back: THIS GUY WRITES POETRY) ... and I had to admit that I’m still trying to write it.

I don’t know what he wrote on my chart at that point (you know how hard their handwriting is to decipher) ... but I seemed to have caught his attention.

One thing led to another, and I finally admitted that I had once written a poem called "At the Doctor’s Office." He said he’d like to see that one. What could I do? I went right home and mailed him a copy.

While I’m waiting for his diagnosis of that, I thought I’d share the poem with you, too ... and it should appear somewhere down the line.

-S&G-

MORE on The Importance of Walking: "The only reason I would take up walking is so that I could hear heavy breathing again" - courtesy of RUTH (Florida/Ohio)

-S&G-

"MY WIFE and I had words, but I didn’t get to use mine." - courtesy of TIL (Illinois)

-S&G-

"YOU CAN’T stay young forever, but you can be immature for the rest of your life." - courtesy of HELEN (Florida)

-S&G-

"YOU SOUND like me," writes LOREE (Kansas), regarding my encounters with the c-o-m-p-u-t-e-r ... and remembering the "good old days."

" ... all I did back then was write all appointments, rainfall, first frost, first snow, who came to visit, etc., on the proper square on the calendar on the wall. That was the best ‘journal’ ever ... the easiest and simplest.

"While on the farm, I wrote calving dates for cows, first tomato picked on what day, calves sold and amount ... I still have those going back for years.

"These new-fangled electronic contraptions are more than a little bit over my head! I was born 70 years too soon. These days, kids cut their teeth by chewing on the keyboard, and are straining their eyes staring at the computer screen before they are toilet trained!

"I’ve always been a worrier, and computers worry me to death most of the time. I have mixed emotions about them ... awe, gratitude (up to a point), and a healthy fear of them, for which there is no injection for immunity!

"They should come in a cage, with a warning label, and include a six-foot whip like an animal trainer uses, to keep them under control."

-S&G-

AND NOW, providing I was able to find it ... and then jump through all the right hoops in order to get it here ... today’s poem:

AT THE DOCTOR’S OFFICE

Random needles of rain
start darting diagonally
like the silent scratchings
of cat claws on the window
where the traffic is zooming
and sizzling past, hauling
away the remains of Thursday,
blurring beyond the sycamore,
its mottled gray-green trunk
whispering of a deep-forest
stream while seeming utterly
misplaced here where concrete
suffers the presence of so few
trees, where my strongest
efforts at contiguous thought
produce only fragments too tiny
to mend, unleavened images,
lacking all savor of meaning,
where I perch, dry-mouthed
and nervous, my legs dangling
from the end of this table,
and wait, as I always do,
for a door to open softly,
carefully, into this silence,
this sterile, stifling silence.

-S&G-

COMMENT? Feel free ... below, if you like.

Or if you prefer e-mail, that's fine, too ... especially for more detailed observations, to rbrimm@peoplepc.com... and it helps if you put "Squiggles" or "S&G" ... something like that ... in the subject line (just remember, no religion or politics ... please!)

-S&G-

UNTIL NEXT TIME ... take care ... see ya!

-S&G-
© 2009