“I haven’t seen you in a while,” I say.
Kaitlin is bespectacled and skinny as a stick. She looks like she’s about twelve. She has a habit of listening to conversations happening on the other side of the curtain, and yelling comments, then muttering, “They never listen to me.”
“I usually work Tuesdays,” she says. “But this stupid holiday throws everything off.”
“You got a nice long weekend, though,” I say. “Did you get to relax”
“I have these things called kids,” she grunts.
She unwraps the bandage on my left foot. Callouses, she whispers, her eyes gleaming. She turns on the light and pulls up a stool and is soon deeply immersed in shaving away the thick skin that is the bane of every diabetic.
“Better leave some for Ronette,” I say.
“Let me have my fun,” she hisses. But eventually she sighs and says, “But I really should take look at the other one, I suppose.” She undoes the bandage on my right foot. “Wow, this looks all healed up.” She puts numbing agent on my left foot and leaves. From the next curtained stall I hear the sound of the hyperbaric training video starting up. How long ago was it that I sat through that? I feel like a high school senior watching the freshmen bumble around.
“They say the herbal stuff works just as well,” Kaitlin is saying. “And it smells nice- peppermint, tea tree. But in the end you’re better off with the real stuff. And even so you’ll be combing them out of your hair for weeks.” I don’t know exactly how we’ve gotten on the subject of head lice, but here we are. I hear Dr. Ronette’s voice asking the patient next door if they have any questions. Kaitlin rolls her eyes and as she departs says, “It’s obviously going to be a while.” As always, she's right.
Eventually Ronette throws back the curtain and yells, “Heere’s Ronnie!” She is followed by Wanda and a nurse I don’t recognize- after all these months, how can there still be someone I’ve never seen before?
“Look at that thing!” the doctor screeches. “It’s beautiful! You’re all healed up! Did you bring your shoe? Wait, let me look at the other one first. Ooh, callouses.”
She chatters on as the scrapes and shaves. I think about how much I am going to miss this crazy woman.
“They still haven’t sent the amniotic tissue, but you don’t need it now.” I had forgotten all about this. It had been a month since she mentioned it, saying the tissue, which comes from placenta, often helps wounds heal quicker. “They claimed they lost the first sample,” she says, “and now they’re just not returning my messages. I don’t have to tell you how I feel about these insurance companies. But like I said this is healing up fine without it. There, now let’s take a look at that shoe.”
The nurse comes back and wraps up the left foot, then puts a sock on the right one. This is the first time it’s gone without a dressing since I was admitted to the hospital in December. She tries to put on the shoe. “They’ve laced this up so weird,” she says. I take it and re-lace it and slip it on.
“We’ll check it tomorrow when you come in, to make sure it’s not rubbing,” Ronette says. “Don’t get rid of that old boot yet.”
“Are you kidding?” I say. “I’m having this thing bronzed.”
It starts to rain as I totter in my mismatched footwear up to the bus stop. This shoe feels so much more comfortable than the post-op one. At the stop, a man in a jacket with the word SECURITY across the back is deep on the nod. His possessions, including a guitar without a case, are heaped across the bench I’d like to sit on. I lean against the shelter. It doesn’t matter. I have one good foot to stand on.
No comments:
Post a Comment