Monday, January 20, 2025

Potato Chips

 It’s strange not to be leaving work early on a Monday, strange not to roll down to the bus mall on my scooter, not to catch the bus up fourth to Burnside and out Glisan to the hospital. When I get off work, I don’t really know what to do with myself, so instead of going home I take the streetcar up to Powell’s. While the place is not as magical as it once was, I still manage to find a few books I can’t leave without, including a copy of WB Sebald’s The Rings of Saturn. 

It’s a strange and beautiful book, but gloomier than I had expected, and Tuesday I feel depression taking hold. It’s not really because of the book, of course, though I wonder how much is enforces or even amplifies the misery that is never far from the surface for me. I feel myself overtaken by that familiar sensation of being both hollow and leaden, like a church bell. I feel stripped of all normal desire; I only want impossible things. To be young again. For my dead friends to be alive again. To be held in the arms of a woman again. I look at the news and it says that the hospital is considering thinking about possibly starting the negotiation process with the striking nurses. Maybe.

Wednesday afternoon I look at my phone and see that I have a voicemail from the eye clinic. That dreadful scheduler says that there was a cancellation and I should call back if I want to have my cataract surgery next Thursday instead of next month. I call back immediately but as usual I just get her voicemail. I tell her I will take it and that she should call me as soon as possible so I can make arrangements with work. I don’t expect her to actually call back, and she doesn’t.  

I don’t want to get too excited; I’m afraid they will give my spot to someone else. But if all goes well, by this time a week from now, I will be able to see clearly again. I will just need to get reading glasses made, and then I need to get this goddamned foot healed up.

Speaking of which, I’m supposed to be changing the dressing on the wound twice a week, but I find myself unable to bear the idea of looking at it. What if it has gotten worse? There’s no reason why it should; it’s securely bandaged, so chance of infection is very low, and I’m not putting any pressure on it.  

On Thursday I send Nurse Hannah a text asking if the home nurses on strike and she says no. Friday morning she writes back and asks if I am able to change the dressing myself and I say yes, though I want to say no, come help me. It’s been a year since her first visit. I miss her tender ministrations. I miss her talking to my toes. For some reason she sends photos of her grandchildren wearing dinosaur pyjamas and bug wings. 

Saturday is a mild, sunny day. I drink a lot of coffee and get some housework done. Later I wheel down to the coffee for an evening of female Jewish storytellers. The women are good speakers but the stories they share are dull and insipid.

Sunday morning I finally get up the nerve to unwrap my foot. But first I do something I haven’t been able to do since June: I take a shower. 

I should explain that I do in fact bathe regularly, but I haven’t been able to take a full body shower since I started wearing the cast. Instead I sit on the edge of the tub with one foot in and the other wrapped in a garbage bag. Like so many things in my life, it’s uncomfortable and annoying. 

I leave the bandage on when I shower, afraid of getting the wound dirty. My left leg is soft, pale and nearly hairless from being wrapped up for six months. Since it’s an old building, the water pressure isn’t great, but it feels wonderful as it scalds my skin and cascades down my body.

When I get out I sit on the edge of the bed with my wound care supplies laid out on a little table. They were mailed to me by the hospital, and I’m surprised to find that they only sent me a handful of adhesive foam bandages, albeit the really good ones, and saline solution and gloves. 

I look closely at the right foot for the first time in a while. The toe that started me on my hyperbaric journey never healed up fully. It looks stunted and gnarled. I don’t expect it to ever completely recover, but it shouldn’t affect my walking. 

I tug on the milky gloves and gingerly peel off the bandage along with whatever patch of magical absorbent Jenny applied to my left foot the last day I was there. Aquasil, maybe. There is a lot of gunk on the patch, and the wound looks much bigger and deeper than I had hoped. I put on one of the bandages, and lie back in bed and stare up at the ceiling. I feel like I need to cry but I can’t. I have not made any progress. I am back where I started. 

Later in the afternoon I go to a staging of Krapp’s Last Tape with Robyn’s boyfriend. The show is at a tiny black box theater I’ve never heard of. There are five steps up to get into the building. I take them slowly, leaning on the railing and using the scooter as a kind of crutch. The people at the ticket table just stare at us without any sort of greeting. Luckily there aren’t any more stairs, and I roll right in and grab a seat in the front row. 

In the play, an old man sits at a desk, listening to a recording of his voice from thirty years ago. He consumes a number of bananas. There is no exposition and it’s up to the audience to piece together the scant details of Krapp’s rather pathetic life. The actor in this production is decent, though I think a slower, more methodical delivery would better highlight the bits of humor in what is otherwise a pretty morose meditation on aging and regret. It’s one of my favorite plays. And I wonder why I’m depressed.

When we leave, the narrow lobby is filled with people chatting. A shallow bowl of potato chips sits on a table in front of an empty popcorn machine. The air smells like wine. No one offers to hold the door and none of the staff says anything about the lack of accessibility. Alex carries the scooter down to the sidewalk, and accompanied by the tape of my wasted life that is constantly unspooling in my head, I hop down after him.


Friday, January 10, 2025

Gnadenhutten

Carefully roll off the bus thank you driver crosswalk button down the steep hill smokers’ bench drop off/pick up only sliding doors stanchioned off metal detector I gotchoo McCullen (close enough) water fountain green elevator waiting area eyelids droop 

“Hey stranger.” 

It’s Sally, wearing her coat and a child size backpack. 

“Hey stranger yourself. I hear you and Jenny don’t have to strike because you’re higher level nurses.”

“Lower, actually. But yeah, we’ll be here with the docs.”

Jenny pops her head out the door. 

“It’s a hyperbaric reunion!” I cry.

“You can come back anytime, you know,” says Sally. “We have lots of openings.”

She heads to the elevator and Jenny leads me to room one. Her scrubs are bright green and look brand new. I marvel at how young she looks. She has ten years on me but her hands are smooth and barely veined.  

“I haven’t seen you in ages,” I say. “How were the holidays?”

“Quiet,” she says. “No drama. Mother-in-law behaved herself.”

Shelley comes in and hands me the doctor’s note. 

Seann McCollum (SOB 12/23/1972) is a patient under my care. He currently has a diabetic ulcer on his left foot. In order to heal his ulcer, he is unable to bear any weight  on the left foot. He may use a knee scooter or wheelchair, but he is unable to go up or down stairs, or take any steps on the left foot anticipate that he will not be able to walk on the left foot for at least 60 more days. We are assessing his condition weekly. 

“Goddamnit,” I say. 

“What’s wrong?” asks Shelley.

Sixty days from the 7th, when she wrote the note, is March eighth. The anniversary of the Gnadenhutten Massacre, the start of the Battle of Guadalajara. The birthday of Cyd Charisse and Mickey Dolenz. I remember Dr. Richmond saying I would be healed up by Christmas. Sixty days from now will practically be Spring. My bosses and HR seemed okay with me continuing to work using my scooter, but I had only told them it would be until the end of the strike. And of course while the strike is on, no one will be assessing my condition, weekly or otherwise. 

“Nothing,” I say. 

I don’t have a choice. I’ll have to just get through this, like I’ve gotten through so much already.

Shelley switches on the saw. “I hate this thing,” she yells over the roar. “It’s so heavy.”

“Also loud,” I yell. 

“What?” she yells. 

It takes her a surprisingly long time to cut the cast off, and even then she has to use the pliers. When the saw is off the office is very quiet. No one takes my vitals, and the doctor doesn’t come in to check my wound, but both Shelley and Jenny say it looks good. 

“It didn’t look great Monday,” I grumble. Shelley insists it looks better. She cleans my leg and dresses the wound while Jenny and I chat. No matter what we talk about we keep coming back to the strike, even though there’s nothing new to say about it. No one wants it to happen. Everyone wants it to be over with quickly. We all wish we lived in a country that believed in socialized medicine. I almost say I’m ready to burn it all down, then I think of the fires ravaging Los Angeles and realize I don’t really mean that.

With no doctor and no new cast, I’m done before four; my shortest visit ever. Shelly puts on my sock and hands me my shoe and asks, “You have the instructions for changing your dressing, right?”

“I didn’t get any,” I say. 

“I gave them to you Monday, didn’t I?” 

She prints them out and brings my scooter and I wish everyone good luck and hit the door open button and roll out to the green elevator water fountain St. Joseph sculpture two nurses on their phones blocking the hallway security guards suddenly everywhere metal detector open again patient transport parked by the Starbucks old guy with a handlebar mustache behind the wheel says “You really speed along on that thing” I tell him I’ve had a lot of practice all the appointments all the days the weeks the months the soaked bandages the split Fiberglas the ulcers the callouses the antibiotics the little knives the skin grafts all the false starts and steps backward all the foolish hopes and unrealistic dreams and most of all the fear the fear the fear I feel it all rising behind me like a boiling wave a blast of infernal wind a panicking mob a stampeding herd shoving me forward propelling me through the automatic doors and into the cold winter sunlight. 


Tuesday, January 7, 2025

Babel

It’s the fourth anniversary of the assault on the capitol by a gang of hooligans egged on by the most depraved, noxious cretin to ever hold this country’s highest office. On my way to work a guy on a bike decides not to stop or even slow down for the red light and nearly crashes into me as I cross. 

A few blocks away an SUV does stop for the light, but then speeds through before it changes. narrowly missing both me and an old guy with a walker. 

On the other side of the street, a young woman looks around and, deciding no one is watching, decides not to clean up after her dog. 

As I approach the museum, I pass a man wearing a hoodie with the words ASSHOLES LIVE FOREVER emblazoned on the back. 

At work, things are needlessly chaotic. My suggestions to help are ignored, so eventually I just keep to myself as everyone around me bitches about the chaos. Because they don’t really want solutions. They want to keep bitching. And these are the people who voted that treasonous parasite back into office. 

Beneath all my irritation with humanity, I am anxious about today’s appointment and the impending nurses’ strike. I try to keep an eye on my fear, and keep reminding myself of all I’ve been through in the past year, telling myself I will get through this as well. I try not to linger on the mistakes I’ve made that led me to this point, delicious though it might be to do so. 


The sun is blinding as I wait for the bus after work. I’m already dreading Dr. Taggert’s hectoring. I know it comes from a place of caring, but what does that matter if it only serves to amplify my anxiety? Please let her be subdued today, I pray, though I’ve already made more prayers this week than an atheist has any right to, the most pressing one being, Please let them call off the fucking strike. 

The metal detector in the lobby isn’t roped off but I don’t see any guards around. The woman in front of me stands frozen in place. I go around her and skirt the detector. “It’s been out of service for weeks,” I say.

“But I have a stun gun I have to leave with them,” she says. I almost crack a joke, but decide against it.

“McCollum I gotchoo,” the woman behind the counter yells across the lobby. 

An attendant I’ve never seen before is sitting to her left. He calls to me to stop. “She got me!” I yell as I wheel on past.

I sit out in the waiting area, too unfocused to read or draw. I look at 3 beds folded like sandwiches in the middle of the hallway. I look up at the smoke detectors, the sprinklers. I get up to inspect the sole piece of artwork in the room, which I’ve never looked at before. It’s a photograph of a mountain called the Tower of Babel in the Canadian Rockies. 

I look it up online and read a step by step guide to ascending it. The peak affords one a spectacular view of the cerulean Moraine Lake and the other nine peaks that surround it. It looks otherworldly but I will never see it in person. It doesn’t look like a particular arduous scramble but I would never be able to manage it; not that I was ever all that much into strenuous outdoor activity. The last hike I went on was up Larch Mountain, which is also not much of a climb but fucked up my feet for months. Like Taggert says, these feet should only be used to stand and pivot.

S’Jon bursts out and tells me to come on in. I ask how he is and he says terrible. He leads me to room one and I turn my head and see KC hiding in the corner. “Boo,” she says. I’m pleased that at least one of my sad little prayers has been answered.

“Is everyone ready to strike?” I cry. “Where are your signs? I want to hear your chants!”

KC immediately starts talking about how upset she is about the whole thing. “I really spiraled down this weekend,” she says. She tells me she’s really scared about paying her mortgage. I tell her to let me know what she needs and I’ll cover it. “Finally I’ve found my sugar daddy!” she cries. 

“Hey I’m pretty scared too,” says S’Jon, and he actually sounds it. Everyone in the office is on edge. I can hear Kaitlin and Shelley having a heated discussion about salaries. 

“Look at this! You don’t get anyone making less than five million until you hit the next page!” 

“It’s no wonder they say they’re broke, paying all these salaries.”

“And what do they do all day? Their assistants do everything for them!”

“How do they sleep at night?” 

.“I’m all for you guys striking,” I say, “but you couldn’t wait a month until I get my other eye done?” 

“It’s really bad timing for a lot of patients,” KC says, looking like she’s going to cry. “I feel so bad. I wish we weren’t doing this.” 

S’Jon cuts off the cast quicker than ever. “I like to see if I can beat my time,” he says. “Oh hey, you cracked the heel.” 

There is moderate drainage and my wound has grown slightly larger. I grow sullen, and KC gets quiet too. “I’m so tired of this,” I say, for the six hundredth time.

“I know,” she says tenderly.

“Why don’t you just go ahead and chop the fucking thing off,” I say. “You’ve got the saw right there.”

Taggert comes in looking miserable. I want to ask her if the skin graft was just completely useless, but I already know the answer. She talks about scabs, and how much money they make, and how all the hospitals in the area are going to be swamped. 

“It’s going to be just like during the pandemic when you had to call for hundreds of miles around looking for openings. I sent a woman to Boise for an appendectomy!” She doesn’t mention the wound, though she obviously sees how bad it is. She says she’ll be back to do my cast and slips quietly away. Another answered prayer.

“God I hope there isn’t another pandemic,” S’Jon says. The first US death from bird flu was reported today.

“At least we’ll have finally have people running the country who really care about human life,” I say. KC glares at me. 

S’Jon lets her prepare my undercast. I watch carefully, knowing this might be the last time I see her for a while. She wears a black vest over burgundy scrubs. Her sharp little nose hangs over her mask and her face looks ruddy and pinched. S’Jon takes his mask off and his weird little mustache actually looks sparser than before. To cheer us up he shows us photos of his cat, an enormous white rag doll kitten that he says is a huge pain in the ass. He keeps saying it’s “ours,” so I guess he’s not single like I thought, and also has a mortgage, which he too is stressed out about. 

“I know I’m lucky in that I can always go live on the res if I need to,” he says, actually sounding a little sheepish. I like this kinder, gentler S’Jon better than the one who bitches about how dangerous Portland is.

KC repeats that she’s worried about making ends meet. “I know the union can help but you have to prove you tried everything else first,” she says. I tell her that her and Cathy can always sleep in the hyperbaric chambers if she gets evicted. “I just had work done on my teeth,” she says. “I owe six thousand dollars.” She pulls down her mask and flashes her small, straight teeth. I’m not sure what I’m looking for but they look fine. I ask her how her holidays were.

“Low key. Talked to my dad, talked to my mom.” I know her folks are separated but for some reason I also thought her dad was dead.

“You didn’t yell at anyone?” I ask.

“Not this time.”

Taggert cones in to put on the cast and KC stays to assist. I tell her “this might be my last one for a while so make it good! The heel cracked on the last one.”

Taggert comes in to wrap the cast and KC stays to assist. I say, “This might be my last one for a while, make it good! No cracked heels this time.”

They reminisce about the last strike, which only lasted a few days. “This one’s a lot bigger, I’m hoping it only lasts a week or so,” Taggert says. “It’s going to be a giant mess.”

Despite the gloomy atmosphere, I gather what little strength I have left and manage to get them both to laugh a little. By the time they release me, I’m spent. KC walks me to the door. She looks worn out as well.

“You’re going to be okay,” I say.

“So are you,” she says. Balanced on my scooter, I hold out one arm and she comes in for a hug. I don’t want to let go. I don’t want her to go through this alone, and I sure as hell don’t want to be alone. But this is where we’re at in this collapsing tower of a country. I can barely find the words to talk about it. We are all so broken. We are all so frightened. We are all so doomed. 


Tuesday, December 31, 2024

Visiplex

Once again I skirt the closed check point, wondering if they are ever going to open it again. Hopefully not. One of the sisters behind the counter sees me coming and yells “I gotchoo!” and waves me past.

I only wait a few minutes in the waiting area before Vicki comes out for me. I call it a waiting area because it’s not really a room, it’s more of an amorphous confluence of corridors containing four elevators, two restrooms, and a number of vinyl seats . 

Vicki isn’t usually the one to fetch me, and she leads me to room number two, which isn’t my usual room. It’s larger than the rooms on either side. I wonder if this is a good omen. My magical thinking is raging out of control, which is usually a good indicator of how close  to the brink of despair I am.

S’Jon takes my vitals and asks about my bloody eye. “I did that once taking a dump,” he says. Thankfully. he doesn’t explain the mechanics of how this happened, but instead tells me the saga of how he declared bankruptcy and dropped out of medical school right as the pandemic hit. “There’s nothing like going to your parking spot and finding out they’ve repossessed your Mercedes,” he says. “It’s okay though. I eventually graduated summa cum laude. And it didn’t even mess up my credit all that bad.” 

“You probably heard about what’s happening next week,”  says Vicki.

“Is the strike actually happening?” I ask. 

5000 Providence Health Care resident nurses will be striking across the state for higher wages and better working conditions, which went from bad to abysmal during the pandemic and never improved, even as the salaries of upper management skyrocketed. God bless America.

“Dr Taggert will fill you in on what it means for you,” Vicki says.

“Do you need me to take out any CEOs?” I ask.

“Thanks, that would be great.”

S’Jon peels off the Epicord and says the wound is pretty wet, which isn’t great news. It’s a little smaller but not much. This is the last of the umbilical cord; I’m finally being cut free. Mother Taggert comes in and looks at my foot but doesn’t comment on it.

“The strike, if it happens, begins next Friday,” she says. “So I’ll see you Monday as usual, then we’ll need you to come in Thursday as well so we can take the cast off,” she says. “You might not be getting a new one for a while depending on how this all goes. Do you think you can see well enough to change your own dressings? Also I’ll need you to use that wheelchair, for real this time. We want to get you better, not worse.”

 I ask her how long the strike is expected to last and she says she doesn’t know. 

“They’re saying ten days,” Kaitlin interjects as she walks past.

“Who’s saying ten days? No one’s saying ten days,” says Vicki. I ask her if she’ll be on the picket line. “Oh definitely. We don’t have a choice.”

Taggert says that both she and Dr. Thompson will be running the hyperbaric chambers for patients who are in in the middle of their treatments. “Jenny and Sally will be there too, since they’re not RNs. But the rest of the office will be closed. Lopez will still be answering phones if anything comes up.” She sounds stressed out. They all do, aside from S’Jon. 

I say I would come in and help but I don’t want to be a scab. 

“Well you’ve probably picked up enough knowledge about wound care by now,” Taggert says, and leaves through the curtain printed with the words Peace and Caring and Be Kind to Yourself. 

Vicki expertly prepares my undercast and leaves. While I wait, I try to keep my thoughts from racing in every direction. I fully support the union but I really hope they don’t go on strike. Time for that magical thinking to really start kicking in. 

I see a flash of reddish hair through the curtain and feel a rush of hope, but it’s only Tobi going to room three. I hear her start to read the patient there a checklist of ailments. 

“Are you allergic to anything? Do you have anxiety? Arthritis? Asthma? Are you on any blood thinners? Any problems with your bowels? Have you ever had cancer? We know you’re diabetic…” The hospital claims to value privacy, then builds rooms out of curtains. 

To try to corral my thoughts, I look around the dull little room and try to see if there’s anything I haven’t really paid attention to before. I focus on the three boxes of latex-free gloves, arranged in descending size, blue wrinkled fingers poking from the slots as if reaching out for me. Above and to the right is a white clock with black numbers and the word VISIPLEX printed across its face. It was someone’s job to make up with that word, and someone else’s job to approve its use for the company and its ugly products. I find myself getting irritated by it. Why do we have to smack brand names on everything? Am I expected to see the word Visiplex and be impressed, and keep it in mind when I’m shopping around for clocks to hang on the walls of my own billion-dollar non-profit hospital system?

Next to the clock is the crucifix, featuring the ultimate shop steward himself, dangling from a plank as punishment for stoking worker dissatisfaction.

Eventually Taggert returns and puts on my second-to-last cast as Vicki assists. None of us kid around. In the next room over, Tobi is still patiently making her way through the alphabet of ailments. “Do you have thyroid issues ? Do you have any ulcers? Do you ever get urinary tract infections? Do you ever get vertigo?”

As I wait for the bus, I wonder, not for the first time, how much Taggert’s frenzied bedside manner is adding to my anxiety. She always sounds like she’s scolding me, even when she’s not. I’m tired of her screeching, tired of hospitals, tired of diabetes, tired of all of it. Though I’m nervous about the fate of my foot if the strike happens, a vacation from that place might be good for my health. It is, after all, just what the doctor ordered. 


Sunday, December 29, 2024

Valentine

I remove my eye patch before I go into the eye clinic, since I figure I’ll have to take it off anyways. Once again I get the guy with the ponytail, though he surprises me with a big friendly smile and he checks me right in. In just a few minutes the young Russian guy calls for me and does the retina scan. “Great, you’re doing really great,” he says in his flat voice. He keeps saying it, even when I try read the eye chart with my left eye. I can’t even read the E without squinting. I can’t help but laugh. “No, I mean it, you’re doing really well, considering,” he says, sounding hurt.

The tiny waiting room is right across the hall and it is full of people. I read the news and send some texts and doze a bit. Everyone is on their phone except one old guy who is fast asleep, and a young man playing a video game. 

This room is even more depressing than I thought, now that I’m seeing it clearly for the first time. It’s a glorified cubicle; the walls end well below the roof. Fluorescent lights crisscross high above, half of them burned out. In the corner of the room stands what looks like a child’s drawing of a plant. Many of its leaves are brown and shriveled. I don’t understand why they don’t cut them off; it would only take a minute. This plant seems indicative of everything that is wrong with this place.

Photos of fake-looking mountains and waterfalls hang on the walls, and coupled with the easy listening music, they remind me of the CARE channel they used to play in the hyperbaric chamber. I’m overcome with nostalgia, picturing Jenny putting my hospital socks on, Sally grinning evilly as she hands me a protein shake, KC tucking me in tight like a baby…

One by one the other patients get called. I start wiggling around and dancing in my seat to the smooth, sax-heavy music. I hope to either horrify or amuse the old woman sitting across from me; she looks dressed for fun in a loud jacket and matching sneakers, but she has a look on her face like she swallowed a bug. I want her to look up and see my stupid gyrations and try to resist smiling but ultimately find herself overtaken by the spirit and start to dance. But she never looks up. No one does. 

Eventually I drift off to sleep and am awoken by the yelling of the old man who had been napping. “I’ve been waiting an hour and a half,” he barks at one of the assistants who has had the misfortune of passing too close to the doorway. 

“It’s always like this,” one of the other men says, with the resignation of a patient in an Eastern Blok clinic.

“Then they need to so something about it,” the other man says. 

“We really appreciate your being here. We have a lot of patients,” says the assistant, smiling like an automaton.

“They you need to get more doctors.”

“It’s difficult to find doctors qualified to provide the proper care for our patients.”

 ““I was a surgeon for fifty years. If I had run my office this way they would have shut me down!”

“We’ve been here since 1959,” the assistant says, her smile unchanging.

“I’m friends with the man who built this place,” the retired surgeon says.

“We really appreciate your being here,” the assistant says, and slips away.

One by one the other patients are called, until the only ones left are me and the guy with the video game. He’s stopped playing and is gently hitting the back of his head against the wall. The lights start to go out all around us. 

Finally they call me. I almost make a joke about not being the last patient of the day, but I don’t want to sound like I’m gloating. Instead I just ask the assistant, “You’re not going to lock us in, are you?” 

“Don’t worry, it stays nice and warm overnight,” a woman’s voice calls from one of the exam rooms.

I sit in the chair and wait a long time until Dr. Wong finally appears. He asks how the cataract surgery went and I tell him it’s nice to see clearly again, if only partially. He looks at my chart and gives me drops and shines incredibly bright lights in my eyes.

“And now you’re blind again,” he says.

He’s gone quite a while and I see one of the old men slowly make his way out. How long was he in there? My sugar is getting low and I am starting to get irritated. The office has technically been closed for nearly an hour. 

Eventually he gets around to my injection. Despite the numbing drops, it stings. He makes my next appointment for February 14th. It’ll be the one year anniversary of my first session in the chamber.

“You can be my valentine,” He says cheerfully. 

I sit alone in the room another fifteen minutes before they tell me I can leave. The young man with the video game is outside already, stepping into a taxi. I ended up being the last one after all. 

It’s rainy and dark and my eyes are still dilated so I can barely see a thing. I wheel my scooter very carefully to the streetcar stop. I only have to wait a few minutes. Everybody on board is riled up. One guy yells and bangs the floor with his walking stick, another knocks an empty plastic bottle against his head repeatedly. When I get back home I look at myself in the mirror and even though I was told it happens sometimes and that it’s probably nothing to worry about, I still cry out in surprise. 

My eye is full of blood.


Tuesday, December 24, 2024

Fruit Punch


The metal detector is stanchioned off for the second week in a row. I zoom around it to the reception desk, where a woman I’ve never seen before asks what I’m there for. She asks for my date of birth. When I tell her, she says, “But that’s…” 

“Yes, I came here to celebrate,” I say. The old guy in the big white passenger transporter pulls up. I ask if he wants to race. He says I’d probably beat him.

I’ve been up since four and can barely keep my eyes open- I actually napped on the bus- so I roll in to the Starbucks to get coffee. I’ve never been in here, though I pass it every day; I hate their coffee, and feel guilty because I know a lot of their workers are going on strike. 

I give my thermos to the young woman behind the counter and ask her to fill it with coffee. 

“I have to give you a to-go cup,” she says.

“But I can’t carry a to-go cup,” I say. 

“I’m sorry. I can give you a paper cup and you can pour it in yourself.” I tell her okay but I don’t need a plastic lid. She puts a plastic lid on the cup and I wheel over to the counter and take off the lid and throw it out and pour the coffee into my thermos and throw out the cup. This planet is doomed.

As I sit upstairs in the waiting area, my phone buzzes. It’s a message from the foot clinic. I hadn’t been there since March, and I hope to never go there again. I can’t imagine what they want; I made my last payment last month. 

Hi recipient on behalf of the entire Oregon Foot Clinic team, we’d like to wish you a Happy Birthday. May this be your best year yet!

Exactly one year ago, I was enjoying my first day away from the hospital in a week and a half. It had felt like a wonderful gift, even though my toe was still purple and that same fucking team hadn't yet figured out that it was infected, hadn’t yet decided that my only option was to have it amputated. 

But here it is, a year later, and the infection is gone, and I still have my toe.

“To stop receiving these messages, press STOP. Msg&Data rates may apply.” I press STOP.

I wait a little while, then Kaitlin comes out to get me. She leads me to room three, where I haven’t been in months, and hands me something. It’s an advertisement printed on a sheet of thick paper, folded in half like a card.  Two sample packets of a therapeutic nutrition powder called Juven® are glued inside. There is a QR code to buy Juven® with a special discount. “Happy Birthday Seann!” is written on the front, with the second n squeezed in. The office staff has signed the inside. Kaitlin. Vicki. S’Jon. Shelley. Tobi. Taggert. Wait, who the hell is Tobi? She must be the quiet woman whose name I’ve never caught. None of the hyperbaric nurses have signed it; they probably did this last minute. 

The advertisement assures me that Juven® has apparently been clinically shown to support wound healing in chronic and acute wounds. It suggests that I use it under medical supervision in addition to a complete, balanced diet.

 “I’ll treasure this,” I say, tucking it in my post-op shoe so I don’t forget it. 

What follows is the least eventful visit I’ve had here since…well, possibly ever. I guess I should be grateful, though I’ll be honest, I was hoping for something a little more festive. Instead of singing and merriment there is… scant drainage from the wound. Instead of presents and decorations there are no new blisters or sores. I guess those are actually pretty good presents, but it’s all still a little anticlimactic.

S’Jon unwraps then rewraps my foot quickly and efficiently while Kaitlin sits at the computer. I’m the last patient of the day and they both want to get out of here to enjoy their two days off in the middle of the week. 

I try to engage them in conversation. I tell S’Jon I admire his forearm tattoos, which I couldn’t see clearly before. Both arms are covered with black and white forest scenes. His left arm features sunlight bursting through the pine branches. I tell him I like how subtle the shading is. He complains that his friend told him the shaft of sunlight looks like a penis and now that’s all he can see. 

I try Kaitlin, asking her what horror movies she has in store for Christmas. She says she got kind of burnt out over Halloween. I tell her about the Sasquatch film I saw but I can tell she’s not interested. They both leave me to wait in silence for Dr. Taggert. I stare up at the ceiling and wish I hadn’t left my phone in my coat pocket.

When she finally arrives she isn’t wearing her paper gown. “Whoops, better put on my party dress,” she says. Like the others, she seems distracted. 

“No Christmas carols?” I ask, expecting some screechy rendition of Jingle Bell Rock or Mariah Carey impression. She ignores the question, instead talking about some store in Hillsboro where she buys her meat. 

“It’s called The Meating Place. Get it? Get it?” 

“Sounds like a pick up joint,” I say. 

“They guy in front of me was paying $275 for a piece of meat THIS BIG!” She holds her hands a couple of feet apart.

She concentrates on wrapping the cast while Kaitlin assists. I’m eventually able to get them both to laugh uncontrollably. God knows what kind of stupid shit I say; without KC here to inspire me, I don’t seem to have anything clever to say. I hadn’t really expected to see her, but I was still hoping. Her wild laugh and smack on my arm would have made a wonderful birthday present. 

Instead I have two packets of Juven®, from the makers of Ensure®, containing Arginine, Glutamine, and hydrolyzed beef collagen, one orange flavor and one fruit punch, along with a manufacturer’s coupon good for ten dollars off one 8-count package at Walgreen’s (not valid for product reimbursed, in whole or in part, under Medicare, Medicaid or similar federal or state government programs).

In the lobby I look around one last time at the Christmas decorations, at the blinking tree. When I return next week it’ll all be down, the room returning to its bland, soulless self. I’ve been coming here every week for over a year and the moment I roll out those doors I won’t be able to tell you the color of the walls or the pattern of the upholstery.

The temperature is dropping, but there is still a little bit of light left in the sky. We’re on the other side of the solstice. For the next six months, the days have no choice but to grow longer, whether they like it or not.


Wednesday, December 18, 2024

Crabwalk

When I leave for work Monday morning, I’m amazed at how crystal clear the skyline is. It’s a little tricky to ride on my scooter with one eye; I didn’t use it at all this weekend, and I’m nervous that I will have developed a blister under my cast. I knew it was foolish but I’m just so, so tired of this thing and there’s a part of me that just doesn’t care anymore.

I carry my reading glasses with me but find it irritating to constantly be taking them on and off. And many things fall in that hazy middle ground that’s not covered by either my readers or my regular glasses. By the time I leave work for my appointment I’m already exhausted by the effort of just trying to see.

As I’m waiting outside the wound care office, I notice a sign I’ve never seen before that reads CLINICAL DECISION UNIT, rooms 425-439. I’m confused; it might make a good band name, but isn’t everything decided at the hospital by definition a clinical decision? I resolve to ask about it when I’m inside but just then KC throws open the door and my mind is wiped clean. Her flowing red hair and glowing skin make it look she stepped out of a Pre-Raphaelite painting. 

“Oh my gosh, look at you, what… oh, you had your thing,” she says when she sees my eye patch. She leads me to room one and everyone gathers around to see. “You look great!” “You look like a badass!” “And all in black! You look like a Peruvian drug lord!” (Peruvian?) I feel overwhelmed by all the attention. Kaitlin hangs a tiny wreath on the handlebars of my scooter before wheeling it away. 

They all look strange, and I realize that, aside from the fact that I can actually see them clearly, none of them aside from KC are wearing masks. I had noticed that  the “masks required” sign was missing from the door. Most people in the rest of the hospital gave up masking long ago; has wound care finally surrendered as well?

Sjon looks the strangest with his lower face exposed to the world. He has a short rectangular mustache, which I did not expect. He looks like a teenager growing his first facial hair. The impression is only strengthened when he says that over the weekend he got severely drunk on red wine and came to the hospital to get some sort of cocktail for his hangover. “Our insurance covers it,” he says, which gets the two of them bitching about the recent changes to their plan. “Our insurance sucks,” he says.

“Let’s hope shooting that CEO in New York was just the beginning,” KC snarls. 

She cuts off my cast and shakes her wrists and says, “Whoo, that thing’s heavy.” 

Sjon says he finally brought the old saw back down to the ER, where it belongs. “They were like, oh my god where did you find this, we’ve been looking everywhere,” he says. “Needless to say I didn’t tell them we’ve had it for like two years.”

He finally leaves us alone so we can talk and flirt. I always assume that the others probably think it’s pathetic that we are both so hungry for attention, but why do I care? She’s cute, she’s chatty, she’s kind. And I haven’t so much as held hands with a woman in years. Why shouldn’t I flirt? It’s harmless. I think. 

“I haven’t seen you in weeks,” I say. “How was Thanksgiving?”

“Oh, you know, mostly quiet,” she says. “Though I did get in a screaming match with my mom. It’s totally my fault, I started it. I guess I just needed to pick a fight with someone.” 

She asks me about my Thanksgiving and we talk about our exes and our families. Not for the first time, I wonder if it’s wrong to write about the doctors and nurses and what they talk about. None of it is overly sensitive information; no deep dark secrets are being divulged, no skeletons are tumbling out of any closets. Besides, the entire office can hear everything, especially Shelley with her sharp ears. But I still wonder if I am somehow betraying their confidence by writing about them. Am I a creep for doing so? I can’t imagine they would be pleased if they knew.

And this is by far the longest, most personal conversation KC and I ever had. The things she tells me about her upbringing, while not tragic, feel like important clues as to how she got to be the way she is –a brassy shell surrounding a gooey center. I suddenly feel the urge to protect her, to take care of her, though she obviously doesn’t need to be taken care of, and certainly not by me. I can’t even take care of myself. She would probably find the very idea insulting. 

It’s then I realize that we’re on a date. I mean, obviously we’re not. But it feels like it. I feel that same excitement you get when someone you’re attracted to opens up and really allows themselves to be vulnerable. I want to know more and more, to find out who’s really in there.

Dr. Taggert arrives, followed by Shelley, who also looks like a different person without her mask. Taggert is still wearing hers, but as she looks at my foot I notice she is heavily made up. When she lowers her eyes I see that her eyelids are painted a not very flattering shade of brown.

Unsurprisingly, the foot looks red and raw, like it wants to break into blisters at any second. But it hasn’t yet, and Taggert tells KC to just put extra cushioning on the sensitive area. I’m relieved by my close call, and promise myself to take it easy for a while. 

The wound itself measures slightly larger, which is depressing. 

“It’s subcutaneous, though,” Shelley says brightly.

“Is subcutaneous good?” I ask. 

“Subcutaneous is very good. It’s the layer right under the skin.”

“Good, because this whole thing is going to be healed up in a few weeks. I’ve decided to start using the power of magical thinking to heal myself.”

“Um, okay,” says Taggert. “But how about using the power of the magical wheelchair? You know what, I’m going to come down to the museum and cause a scene so they call for security, and when you walk up to me I’ll be like, BUSTED!” I laugh but I feel the pit reopen in my stomach.

KC helps to apply my final patch of umbilical tissue, and then Taggert finally leaves us alone to continue our date. I watch her face carefully as she puts on my undercast. How many more visits do I have left with her? This could be the last one, the last time I see her this close.

When Taggert comes back to do the cast she says, “You need to think of this foot as being for positioning, not for walking on,” she says. “Positioning’s important.”  It’s a variation on her “stand and pivot” speech and I see the familiar tentacles of fear and shame reach up from the pit. 

“And when you’re finally done with us, remember to keep using your scooter. Don’t go walking around right away like last time.” 

She’s right, of course. I rushed back into walking as if everything was normal because I desperately wanted that to be true. Look at how reckless I was just this weekend. For someone who knows magical thinking is bullshit, I indulge in an awful lot of it.

Shelley has stuck around to work on the computer. KC asks if she’s doing her work for her, and she smiles in response. I ask if her kids are excited about Christmas. 

“Are you kidding? They’re insane,” she says. “We have this weird crawl space above the kitchen that’s only accessible by a ladder. Anyways they were both playing up there and the eight year old was doing this crabwalk on all fours and it bothered the three year old for some reason so she started hitting her and screaming. It went on for an hour and because that space is so tiny, I couldn’t get up there.” It’s not one of her better anecdotes, but at least it has stopped the talk about that fucking wheelchair.

“No singing today?” I ask Dr. Taggert.

“I’m saving it all up to sing you Christmas songs next week!” she says. “I bet you love that one by Wham!” I don’t, but mercifully she doesn’t sing it. Not yet.

“That’ll be a great birthday present,” I say.

“Monday is your birthday?” she asks, as the woman I want so desperately to take care of puts my shoes on.

“The big five two,” I say. “And there isn’t anyone I’d rather spend it with than all of you.” Of course I’m really only talking about one of them, the one who now brings my hat and coat then gets my scooter, riding it in circles around the room. 

“Pretty smooth ride,” she says, tripping over herself as she hops off. I mount my trusty steed and they all yell goodbye and I smash the door button, suddenly worn out by the game, sick of the dance, tired of all this sideways scuttling around the truth.