Shirt On The Chair, Shirt On The Chair

My surgeon's appointment Wednesday was not very eventful, except that Driver H told me we would be there in plenty of time, downtown at Barnes Jewish, for a 9:10 appointment. I tried to explain that we would be in the nine o'clock rush, but Driver H turned a deaf ear to my proclamation. He said that if we left the Mansion at 7:30, we would be there in PLENTY of time. Au contraire. Of course we had to take a detour on the southern part of 55 North, because of ongoing construction. Driver H had planned on that. What he had not planned on was a 15-minute wait to get though one traffic light at Kingshighway, I believe. I'm not much of a city traveler. Then there was the matter of the weed sprayer in the right turn lane just before Park Place, the road to the North Garage. Of course the groundskeeping department would choose a weekday morning at 9:00 to block traffic and spray in front of the adult ER. I count on these flies in my ointment. But Driver H does not.

Then there was the matter of wending through the parking garage to the rooftop, and finding the one spot that was the very farthest from the elevator to the third floor, where there's access to the skywalk, which takes you to a bank of elevators, which takes you back up to the fifth floor to my appointment, if you can catch one with 20 people or less already crammed in. Driver H is not one to let his passenger out at the door. Nope. He's all for equality. If he's gotta walk, everybody's gotta walk.

I DID shame Driver H into bringing T-Hoe to the front doors while I sat inside alone the day I was discharged after my surgery. Sat alone, which means all by myself, while woozy and light-headed and on pain medicine and pretty much defenseless, what with my head held on by a strip of masking tape. Not that I expected anyone to DO anything to me. I was more worried about falling off the chair or losing consciousness, thus embarrassing myself, or perhaps having my head roll across the floor and into that revolving door, where it could have been kicked outside and inadvertently sprayed with weed-killer by the groundskeeping staff. But I digress.

I made it to my appointment with 8 minutes to spare. Driver H insisted on coming into the exam room with me, which I find a bit disconcerting, but agreed to out of gratefulness for him getting me to my appointment without sweaving me to death on the highway. The nurse or PA or temp or tour guide who showed me to the exam room told me to undress from the waist up and put on a gown open in the front. For a thyroid exam. For those of you anatomically-challenged...the thyroid is right in the front of the neck. It's not like I was wearing a wimple, or a suit of armor, or a turtleneck like Jughead, or an Elizabethan ruff. Nope. Button shirt. Easy access. In fact, if Surgeon and Thyroid were hot-blooded teenagers, parked along a deserted lover's lane, Surgeon could have had that shaggin' wagon a-rockin' from his rhythmic thyroid palpation in one second flat, so easy was the access to Thyroid. Surgeon could have steamed up the windows, caressing Thyroid all night long, or until interrupted by a redneck county sheriff, or a hook-armed lunatic escaped from the local asylum.

Driver H said he thought I should just take off my shirt and put on the exam gown, leaving the foundations garment intact. I heartily agreed. He fell from favor, though, when he said that I looked good in that color. It was a rose pink exam gown. The same color as my flushed cheeks, from all that rushing and striding and elbowing people out of the way in the elevator. It could serve as camouflage if need be.

The Tour Guide had told me to wait on the exam table. I did. For 20 minutes. By that time, my feet were becoming numb from dangling, so I got up and paced to restore circulation. Of course, that's when Surgeon made his entrance. He asked when the surgery was, then poked my neck for a moment, said it was healing nicely, told me I could begin using Mederma twice a day to massage the scar, said that everything he removed was benign, asked if I had any questions, and told me to get my thyroid hormones checked in a few weeks. It took about 5 minutes. But hey, good news is good news, even if you have to take your shirt off to hear it. I have no issues with Surgeon. He has really clean fingernails. But his instructions for automassage pushed my fantasy of sweet, sweet Surgeon and Thyroid, those two crazy kids and a dog named Boo, travelin' and a-livin' off the land, right out of my mind. Reality is a harsh mistress.

The ride back home was fairly uneventful, except for Driver H running over a splintered 4 x 4 slab of lumber in the next-to-fast lane on 55 South. Six lanes of traffic, and Driver H has to hurtle along in the one with debris. Sometimes, I just have to close my eyes.

But it did cut down on his sweaving.