Bruce Lee

 On the way to work, I pass a Native American man using a knee scooter just like mine, only not decorated. His left leg is in an even larger cast than mine. We nod and smile at each other and I say, “You need to get some decorations on that thing!” He agrees and we roll our separate ways. 

At work, the FedEx guy pulls me aside. Lately he’s taken to asking me questions about my foot; he hurt his ankle and has been experiencing neuropathy and is worried about it. He’s a nice guy and I don’t mind talking about it but our problems don’t really have anything in common. 

He asks me how I first knew I was having issues. I again tell him it really doesn’t relate to his problem, but he seems really worried so I ask what his symptoms are. He says he wears a cast, though I can’t see it through his uniform, and that it makes his ankle red. “It goes away overnight,” he says. I tell him it probably just needs to be adjusted.

He tells me that his nerve pain has gotten better. He says he originally started feeling it after he got the ankle massaged as part of physical therapy. “I got this device over the internet that shoots electricity down your leg,” he says. “Bruce Lee used one like it. There’s footage in which you can see his chest muscles twitch.” I ask if it helps and he says he thinks so.

After work I get on the bus to go to my appointment. At the next stop, a guy with a walker gets on. A few blocks after that, a woman with two kids and an enormous stroller gets on. And at the stop after that looms a gigantic man in the largest wheelchair I’ve ever seen. The driver gets up, looks at the man, looks at all of us, and asks the woman with the stroller if she minds sitting with her kids in seats further back and if he can push the stroller out of the way Then he asks me if I’ll have enough room. I hope so. The huge man slowly wheels on. Luckily it’s one of those motorized chairs that can turn in place. He backs up against my scooter, which I’ve pulled as close to myself as I can.

“Don’t run over his toes!” the driver says. 

“It’s okay, I don’t have any,” I say. 

“I have ten, you can have a few of mine,” a man behind me says. 

“One big and one little?” 

“They’re yours.”

The man in the wheelchair settles in and the bus continues on its way. We’re pretty crammed and people keep getting on the bus. I’m pretty uncomfortable, and I wonder how I’m going to get off, but luckily the big guy is getting off at my stop, and not a moment too soon; another woman in a wheelchair is waiting at the stop to take our place. 

I put my bag in the tray and once again ride my scooter around the metal detector so the guard can wand me. He seems just as annoyed as I am by the whole thing; I’m sure he gets dozens if not hundreds of complaints every day. But this is the country we live in, where no one is willing to pass any sort of gun control laws. As usual, we citizens pay the price for our elected officials’ immorality and cowardice. It makes me want to shoot someone.

Things seem the same as ever in the office, though after Tuesday’s cataclysmic election, I feel like I’m seeing everything through a different lens. Aaron brings it up first. He says what so many of us have been saying all week; “I don’t understand it. I really thought she would win.” 

He asks the usual questions about my blood sugar and changes in meds and upcoming foot appointments. I tell him I finally got my cataract surgery scheduled. He acts oddly blasé about what I consider extremely exciting news.

Though I had been trying to be patient, I was growing more enraged every week that went by without getting the call from the scheduler. I even called her number once and left a friendly if long message, but that had been weeks ago, and I was wondering if it was time to leave a somewhat less friendly message. 

But on Election Day I had been sitting at the Mark desk again when my phone rang. Assuming it was the same Chicago collection agency that has been harassing me, I almost didn’t answer, but then I looked at the number and almost dropped my phone. 

Just like last time, the woman couldn’t hear me, but before she could hang up I ran out the door and stood on the front steps, screaming “Hello, hello! Can you hear me?” 

She told me surgery on my first eye would be on December 11, more than a month away. The second surgery wouldn’t be until February. “She’s extremely busy, and will be away for a while,” she said. The clinic was way out in Tigard. Afraid of jinxing things, I just said thank you and got off the phone and almost cried with relief.

Aaron saws the cast off and says is happy to report that the blister didn’t burst. I had tried to stay off it as much as possible at work, hoping for this. “Looks like you’re reabsorbing it,” he says. The wound itself however, while only draining a little, is no smaller than before. He says he’s not too worried about it. 

Just then Vicki pops her head in and says, “So it looks like you were approved for the graft!”

“What graft?” I ask. 

“The skin graft Dr. Thompson has been trying to get you!” She sounds very excited about this thing I’ve never been told a word about. “What’s more, it’s being donated.”

“Where’s it from?” 

“It’s from a placenta,” she says.

“Um, ok,” I say. I had wanted to know who had donated it.

“They used to use horse foreskin,” she says. 

“Huh,” I say.

She hurries away.

“Dr. Thompson talked to one of the reps and got them to give us $10,000 worth of skin,” explains Aaron. “Towards the end of the year, they start tallying up how many of their products we’ve used, and if we haven’t used enough –or if we’ve used a whole lot- they give us a lot of stuff in the hope we’ll keep buying from them.”

“So this is… a bribe?” I ask. 

He shrugs. “More or less.”

Jenny pops in and says she has a patient getting rid of a brand new wheelchair and can have it if I want it. I’m still a little dazed about the whole horse foreskin thing and tell her I’ll think about it. Do I need a wheelchair? I know Taggert wanted me in one, but she seems to have backed down. No doubt I will need one someday, but should I have one ready, just in case?

Dr. Thompson bursts in. “Guten tag!” she cries.

“Guten tag, Doktor! Sie gehts?” I ask, exhausting my German.

“Gut, sehr gut.” This is the first I’ve seen her since she got back from her trip to Germany. I ask her how it was and she says amazing, but doesn’t elaporate. She looks at the foot but only says, “I shall return in my finest gown.”

As Aaron prepares the cast, he talks about the possible nursing strike. I ask him when this is happening and he says January. I suddenly feel deeply weary. 

Thompson comes back in wearing her yellow paper gown and Baby Yoda cap. She seems in really good spirits, and tells Aaron she bought a present from Germany and is having it shipped. “I shouldn’t say anything, it may never show up. But I know how much you like biking stuff.”

“Viking stuff?” he and I both ask excitedly. 

“Biking. Biking,” she says. “Everyone over there bikes and they have equipment you can’t find anywhere else. I didn’t want to make a thing out of it.”

I ask her again how her trip was and she goes on for a while about how her friends told her they have laws against revving your engine or blaring your horn too aggressively, and that sure enough, she had seen some guy revving his engine and the cops pulled up and gave him a ticket. 

When she’s finished, she says “Monday we should be able to get the first skin graft on. They gave us four but I think it’ll be okay to cut them in half. This is really good. You should be healed up by Christmas.”

“A Christmas fucking miracle,” I say. I don’t believe it for a moment. This week has taught us all a painful lesson in the danger of being overly hopeful.