Rain

The Autumn rains have arrived, bringing new challenges for someone who after three months is still forced to use a knee scooter to get around. I don't mind getting wet- I have a nice new rain jacket and a great wide-brimmed hat which acts as an umbrella- but the handlebars get slick and the brakes, already pretty rudimentary, become practically useless when wet. The leaves on the sidewalk hide all the bumps and cracks, not to mention the sticks and nuts which have been driven from the branches by the rain, so I roll along even more cautiously than ever. Leaves get plastered onto my wheels and I have to stop occasionally to scrape them off.  So I'm even less mobile than I was a few weeks ago, with no end in sight. The last time I saw the doctor she seemed baffled as to why I'm not healing up, and started talking about possible infection in the bone, which would require surgery. She took some x-rays which were expensive but inconclusive. I've only seen her twice and am already trying to decide if I need to find a new doctor. The first time she trimmed the dead skin from my wound (a fifteen second procedure which I get billed for as "surgery") she was concerned that it was bleeding more than she expected, and said it could be a sign of liver damage. Now she's talking about operating. It's true that it doesn't seem to be healing as quickly as it should, but then no one has been able to tell me why this happened in the first place. I know the medical system, already pretty pathetic, has been stretched to the breaking point by the pandemic. I know that everyone working in that hospital is stressed out. But I'm at my breaking point too. I'm tired of shelling out money to doctors who are incompetent or inexperienced or apathetic or a combination of the three. But the dysfunction of the system seems as predictable and inevitable as the rain, though unlike the weather, it doesn't seem likely to change anytime soon.