The Visible Woman...May 1, 2002

I am not cheery with the dentist or the assistants. But I get xrays and cleaning and get out of there. In the five minutes I wait in the waiting room I look at a neat article on recent architectural wonders around the world.

At Mom and Dad's I talk to mother. She is only walking a few steps, with Dad's help, from wheelchair to chair or bed or toilet. I call her GP. The receptionist gets him on the phone. He says that he thought taking her off Premarin and reducing her breast swelling would help her back. Maybe she has arthritis in the spine, he speculates. He recommends physical therapy and asks about a wheelchair. I tell him they don't have one my dad can lift. He says he will write a prescription for therapy and a wheelchair and 'leave them at the front desk.' I send my dad to his office and stay with my mother. He comes back shortly. The GP's office says these prescriptions will take '24 hours.' He failed to mention that to me. So we wait some more. I call the pulmonary guy's office. Mom is supposed to have a cat scan next week to make sure the growth in her lung is still not growing. The scribbled slip of paper says 'labs CPL Angus Road, 5/1/02.' They have also called my dad but he didn't understand what they said. She says that it is a contrast scan and that they inject dye or something so they have to have a urinalysis screen to make sure the kidneys are fine and can eliminate the dye. At least that's what I think she said. My mother should just 'walk in' to the Clinical Pathology Lab and get a urinalysis. Yeah. Right. But she says this can be done as late as next Tuesday noon for the Wednesday appointment. I say that until her condition improves I don't think we will do this test at all. Whoever I'm talking to agrees. If she miraculously feels better and starts walking, then I'll see to this next week.

Now what? Wait to get her to a physical therapist, I guess. I feel a PT is a good one to try to evaluate this situation. My mother tells me she hasn't had any pain medication but my dad says he let her have one and that she had her other drugs counted out wrong and he had to correct it.

A 11:30, frustrated, hungry, I call SuRu. I make her listen to my troubles and pick her up in front of our building and we go to Schlotsky's but there's a long line so we go to Sonic and eat foot long Coney Island chili cheese dogs. I haven't done that in a long time.

I try to work. There is the phone call. It is as frustrating as I imagined. This guy is trying to set my priorities, is trying to put words in my mouth. He means well. And yet. Someone else wants me to give a speech at an event in London in July. And then I have two meetings to get ready to have meetings.

We have tickets to a lecture on the upcoming opera, Rigoletto, which I will actually be able to see if my plane gets back on time from the conference. It is being held in the coliseum which is soon to be torn down. Hopefully, someday, the Long Center will get built, too. The stage will be a hundred feet long with audience on both sides. Should be fun.

I consider not going and working or going back to work with my mother. But. I need some culture. Forrest is doing an interview at 6:30. We are a little early for that and I sit in Ducloux Hall with magazines scooped from the back seat of FFP's car including a 1999 Esquire reading and drinking a coke. I don't feel sociable and I don't feel like drinking. The lecture is pretty good. The chairs are those ones they use at conventions, though. The ones made by the Uncomfortable but Stackable Chair Company. It is a nice preview for the upcoming conference, I think, as pain shoots from hip up my back and I squirm and lean on FFP. I often end up standing in the back of lectures because of these chairs.

At home, I eat a pimento cheese sandwich and then some cheese and crackers. What a wonderful diet you have, Ms. Ball! Hey...I put some baby spinach on the sandwich. And I ate some green onions with it. And that chili cheese dog had onions, too. You can't say I didn't get my vegies.

I read some papers and try to find a movie that isn't disturbing. I sleep. It's been an unproductive and frustrating day. But, hey. I have clean teeth.

Wednesday, May 1, 2002