Cornucopia

 The waiting room on the fourth floor is filled with people. I’m used to coming in at the end of the week, when I tend to be the only patient.  After a very long wait,  SJon ushers me in to room two and starts up the saw.

KC bursts immediately into the room, resplendent in teal.

“Aren’t you dying to know about how my date went?” She has a huge grin on her face.

“I’ve been thinking of nothing else. Look how happy you are! Do I hear wedding bells?”

“Why, yes, actually! But not mine.” She has to almost yell to be heard over the saw.

“He’s married.”

“Well, technically in the process of getting divorces, but he told me he’s ‘been checked out for years.’”

I laugh. “Like that would somehow make it better?”

“He said he was so scared of her he used to hide from her in a different part of the house.”

“And this was your first date?”

She nods. “And when I told him I wasn’t very social he said ‘well we’ll have to do something about that.’”

Without looking up from his sawing, SJon says, “I miss the old way of meeting; drunk off your ass in a dimly-lit dive.”

“This guy sounds like a real catch,” I say.

She shrugs. “I have some other victims lined up. I should probably get out of the way now though.”

She leaves and SJon pries apart the cast halves. He starts complaining about how hard it is to date in Portland. 

“I’m thinking this isn’t the city for me,” he says. “I’m not a big fan of all this woke shit.” Oh no, I think. Don’t I get enough of this talk at work? He tells a story about when he was downstairs in the ER and he “wasn’t thinking and used a word for little people that isn’t acceptable anymore. I didn’t see that there was one of these… little people in the room, and she went berserk. No lie it took six guards to throw her out. She had those pointy meth teeth.” 

“Meth Midgets, good idea for a new reality series,” I say, being very un-woke. I ask if he wants to move back to Texas.

“Oklahoma, but it’s basically the same state. But no, I can’t go back there. Montana, maybe. Go back to working on the res. I’m part Native American, you know.” I do.

He tells me to think good numbers as he measures my wound. I think good numbers. 

“Could be better,” he says. He takes a picture and shows me. It could be better. 

Taggert cries, “It’s cast time!” She breezes in and looks at my foot, which has not been wrapped for its cast yet, and says, “Oh wait, is it debride day? Did we decide that? I guess we did. Debride day it is! Okay, tools.” She digs around in the drawer for the little knives she likes. 

She slices a bit then leaves and he prepares for the cast. “Let’s see if I remember how to do this,” he mutters. On the other side of the curtain, Taggert and Caitlin start carrying on but I can’t understand what they’re saying. “Cardio vascular doing surgery in a diaper,” SJon says to me, as if that explains everything. “Shitting like a goose all over.” I have no idea what he’s talking about. 

“Time to cast you up up up, time to cast you up!” Dr Taggert sings, and proceeds to cast me up up up. Shelly appears and stands there staring at her phone.

“Can’t even be bothered to say hi?” I ask her. She slinks away without a word. Everybody is a little off today. Or maybe it’s me; three appointments in one week is just too damn many. 

Taggert tells SJon she only really needs a little bit of water in the bucket. “Just enough to cover the rolls,” she says. “Any more and it kind of sloshes all over the place.”

“Dr. Thompson likes when it sloshes all over the place,” I say. 

“That’s what everyone tells me. I want to see her technique, but I asked her once and she said no.” 

“She really gets into it,” I say. “It’s quite a spectacle.”

“I need something like that,” she says, rubbing the casting smooth. “You know, a trademark or gimmick or something.”

“You sing a lot,” I say. “You would be the Warbling Wound Care Warrior.”

“I’m not sure everyone appreciates my singing as much as you.”

Out of nowhere, SJon tells a story about a woman who was undergoing open heart surgery when her dog somehow got into the operating room and pissed all over the floor. I feel like I’ve kind of had my fill of SJon. I wonder if I can switch to Tuesdays, when both he and Shelley are off. 

They finish with me exactly an hour later than last time. Before I leave, Jenny comes to say hi, back from seeing her family in Wisconsin. 

"Oh my God, I love your concucopia. Is that what it's called?" She asks how I’m doing and I say I feel really fortunate, and I actually mean it. After all, I get to come back and do this all over again three days from now. 

“I know this has been hard, but just think,” she says as I roll away, “You’ve had osteomyelitis twice in this foot this year and you haven’t lost anything.” 

“Not yet,” I say. “After all, it’s only October.”