The echo started easy. On time, efficient, kind tech. But then we got too friendly. I made a joke about whether my heart was doing its job (obviously to unsophisticated me) and got all this hemming and hawing about results will be reported to the physician but I had a right to view them with my physician. Well I don't know about before but that jolted the blood pressure upward. Then I was reassured that she didn't want to get in the way of my surgery. So, I don't know what the report says, but what I heard was there is something wrong or different from last time we looked at your heart but it isn't so bad we have to cancel surgery. On that high note, I made my way to the MRI.
I swallowed a large dosage Ativan in the stairwell on the way to the next building. Although appropriate and recommended by all medical professional consulted, the stairwell made me feel sheepish. I was early for my appointment and waited for an hour and a half. Mid-wait, I remembered that MRIs weren't just awful because of the claustrophobia but the noise. I had forgotten about the sound. If I hadn't been Ativan addled, I'd have left. My fear and anxiety were pretty significant. Instead I read my book without processing. I watched the large Persian man next to me while he watched videos on his phone. After an hour together in the waiting room we were called back. Then we separately but simultaneously changed into gowns and took our places in the interior waiting room. Very awkward to make that transition from civilian attire to patient attire at the same time as someone else. It made me feel very frail and exposed. I try so hard to only be sick in diagnosis not appearance.
I was called first. I learned with more alarm that the MRI would last forty-five minutes, not twenty-five. Amen to Ativan. This radiation tech talked me through it and it was manageable. It ended on a funny note. My poor Persian fellow patient was still waiting when I got out and I got to witness his shock at seeing me post MRI ... Still gowned but now without a wig. I didn't care. At least my MRI was over.
Back again this morning for bloodwork. Nothing like three trips to the hospital in four days to bring sorrow to the forefront. Today's visit involved a fair amount of tearing up. For no particular reason aside from the obvious. I wrote Father's Day cards and cleaned out my purse while I waited.
But to the optimism. Today is a week since the first plumber arrived to snake out the clogged waste water line from our house to the DC sewer line. In the past week, we've had: two or three private plumbers; two DC WASA plumbers; one emergency dig out by DC WASA, including backhoes and dump trucks, very exciting for Miles; a sudden reversal of responsibility by DC WASA notwithstanding that they had already dug up my backyard and tore out my back steps; and now in a motion of pragmatism rather than defeat, multiple contractors consulted on the project. I hope for a possible resolution in the next few days. But cancer helps you not freak out about no real access to water in our home for a week now. With quick showers, judicious flushing, baths at neighbors and laundry at Mom's, we are managing. But this is the type of thing that would have driven me crazy a year ago. Now, it hardly registers. It is a problem that needs to be solved. Just one of many.
