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. 

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.

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.

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.

Feels So Good

The Widder picks me up a little after six. There is hardly any traffic and we get to the clinic very early. I’m hungry; I was told not to eat before the procedure, and I’m groggy without my morning coffee. 

They lead me to a big room with a bunch of booths separated by curtains. An assistant with huge frizzy hair gives me a blue paper hairnet and matching booties. She asks me all the same questions I answered on the form, then gives me drops to dilate my eyes and draws a mark above my eye. “Feels So Good” by Chuck Mangione is playing rather loudly from somewhere. My father blasted this song all the time when we were growing up. It’s funny; there have been lots of jokes about Mangione on the internet this week because the young man who killed the healthcare CEO shares his surname. though they’re not related. When she leaves the music shuts off. 

The curtain provides the flimsiest illusion of privacy. They don’t reach the floor so I can see the upside down reflections of people walking across the shiny linoleum, and can hear everything going on in the room. In the next booth over, another assistant is telling a woman what to expect after the procedure. She lists the normal symptoms and ones that are cause for concern. Pain, excessive redness, bloody secretion. The woman chatters on nervously about her grandkids. I’m reminded again of how much younger I am than most people who have to have this done.

Doctor Mavis pops in, sounding much friendlier than she did during our sole office visit months ago. I had heard one of the assistants say she has thirteen of these to perform today.

She leaves and the anesthesiologist enters and says, “My job is to make it so you will be there but not care.” It sounds both sinister and comforting. He’s jovial but my anxiety is making it difficult for me to speak in more than monosyllables.

They lead the grandmother into the surgery room and everything is quiet for a long time. Finally another assistant comes and asks me all the same questions the first one did. She is perky and cheerful and sticks an IV port in the back of my hand. She gives me more drops, leaves, and returns with more drops. “We want you to be there but not care,” she says. This must be the clinic’s official slogan.

After a while the grandmother returns, still chatty but slurring her words. She talks about her cats and how they like to sleep on her head, and how she hopes they don’t knock the eye shield off. 

And then the surgery room assistant arrives, asks me the questions again, and throws back the curtain. Another woman leads me to a room with a bed shaped like a person in the middle of it. I am told to lie down and a blanket is thrown over me. The anesthesiologist slides a tube into my IV port and the doctor covers my left eye with a sheet and adjusts my face and clamps my eyelids open, which feels oddly pleasant, no doubt due to the drugs entering my veins. 

I try to focus on what’s happening but I’m already pretty stoned. It’s like watching an abstract film of pulsing colors and flowing shapes, the kind of thing they might project behind a band at a hippie party. The colors are vibrant and intense yet impossible to describe. One main shape seems to remain constant, though its boundaries are constantly shifting. It’s right in the center of my vision, and is kind of like a brick with two holes in it, one above the other. Is it an image of the tool she’s using to dig around in the back of my eyeball? I wish I could record what I’m seeing.

The procedure feels like it takes about two minutes, though it’s closer to twenty. I somehow get off the bed and into a wheelchair and am find myself back in the chair behind the curtain. A clear plastic shield is taped over my right eye. 

The perky assistant tells me everything went great, and  asks if I want any juice or water or coffee. When she retur s with my water, I realize with a shock that I can see her face clearly. It’s the first face I’ve seen with any clarity since March; young and pale, her hair pulled up into two little buns.

And then the assistant with the frizzy hair is back and has me hold onto her arm as she walks me out. “I think I’m fine to drive,” I say. No one laughs. 

During the ride home, I’m in a daze as the drugs leave my system and I try to get used to this weird way of seeing. Vision in my left eye is still blurry but in the other eye, everything in the distance is sharp. The color through the new lens is also different; cooler, with a slightly bluish cast. Things in the left eye look yellowed, like looking through a nicotine-stained window. Is this more accurate, or is it degraded due to the cataracts? I feel the anxiety begin to swell. What if I never see color the same again? How will this affect my art?

I hold my hand up and see two hands. I wave it and see three, four. I start to feel nauseous. I can feel my two views of the world trying to mesh, and the effort is giving me a headache. Traffic is heavy and the ride home feels endless. 

The minute I get home I collapse into a deep, long sleep. When I wake up, the apartment is exploding with sunlight. I put on my shades and stand out on the balcony and look out at the hills, seeing them clearly for the first time. The trees and houses are sharply delineated rather than a blur of color. It’s all too much. I lie down again and it is only with great reluctance that I eventually get up.

Robyn drives me to my postop appointment the following morning. I am able to read the bottom line of the eye chart. The assistant says my eyesight is 20/25, which seems remarkably apt with the new year right around the corner. She puts drops in my eyes and checks my eye pressure. The machine used to blow a puff of air at your eye but now it just shines a blue light. All this progress.

When the doctor comes in I tell her that it gives me headaches having to switch incessantly from eye to eye. She nods sympathetically and says they can punch out the right lens of my glasses. I tell her that probably won’t help with the headaches. She says probably not. I ask if an eye patch would help. She says it might. I ask if I should try using a pair of readers. She says sure. I ask about the color change and she says it’s normal. I see her for another checkup in January. The other eye isn’t getting done until the end of February.

Robyn drives me to the drugstore and buys me an eye patch, and that afternoon I buy a pair of readers from the grocery store. It seems like, between the two, the next few months may be tolerable, even if I do look like a nut job. I will make the best of this not-really-great situation. I will strive to be there and not care.

I spend the day careening like a madman down the street, unable to pick up objects properly, stopping to take out my glasses anytime I want to read anything or look at my phone. I watch the man with the blanket shuffle past the coffee shop and realize that compared to me he looks like he has his shit together. After all, he’s not doing anything but wearing a blanket, whereas I look like a twitchy. bedraggled supervillain. 

But then I look up at the buildings and the trees and the distant hills. I read the street signs and the bus numbers and see the expressions on people’s faces and it’s all clear, everything’s so sharp and clear, and I see my reflection in a shop window and that’s clear too and on top of it I see that I’m not wearing glasses for the first time since I was seven, since forty-five fucking years ago, and it’s such a shock, I don’t even recognize myself -of course the eye patch doesn’t help- and even though I still have a long way to go with all of this, even though I still have another eye to get worked on and my foot is still nowhere near healed up, and who knows how many horrible losses lie ahead, and even though the country is going to hell and the planet is burning, despite all this, when I get home I start to laugh, and then I start to wail like a mournful flugelhorn.

And it does feel good.

Burundi

 The following day, the multimillionaire CEO of a huge health insurance company is murdered in New York. I follow the story with avid interest as the police search for the killer. A stranger reports seeing him in a McDonald’s in Altoona, and he is arrested shortly before I roll into the hospital lobby for my weekly cast change. 

The security guard at the metal detector is cheery. As always, because of my scooter, she has me go around. Before she runs her wand across my person, she asks if I have a knife on me. I could easily have one hidden in my shoe. Or a gun, for that matter. 

She points at my ride and says, “I was on one of those things once. Hurt myself worse racing around like an idiot.”

The round young woman at the desk asks me three times how to spell my name. A woman a few seats over over, who looks like she could be her sister, yells, “McCollum. I gotchoo. You can go on up honey.” 

Upstairs they see me right away, even though I’m very early. A nurse whose name I’ve never known leads me into the room. I’ve only had her a few times. She’s one of the quieter, gentler nurses. She watches as Sjon shows her how to use the new saw. He sees to be in good spirits and doesn’t complain or say anything weird. 

I want to talk to them about the killing but I don’t know how to bring it up. Instead I just sit there as they remove my cast and lather up my leg. As I expected, they fuss over the scabs on my knee from a few days ago when I hit a bump and went flying. My battery pack for the string of lights was smashed and the remains of the cornucopia were crushed. Rest in Peace, Harvest Lightning.

I think about last April, when I lost my insurance for nearly a month due to a clerical error. Or so I was eventually told, after weeks of calling and emailing the hospital and the insurance people every day. No one would answer the phone or return my messages. I had been right in the middle of my hyperbaric treatments, and if my infection was left untreated, there was the chance of losing my foot. I was filled with both terror and rage, and had violent fantasies of doing just what that young man did last week; blowing out the brains of one of the millionaire insurance bigwigs. I wanted to see him beg for his life first though, wanted to lubricate the gun barrel with his tears.

Since the Epicord is staying on another week, Dr. Taggert doesn’t even look at my foot. Sjon leaves and the quiet nurse prepares the new undercast. I ask where else she has worked. She tells me she volunteered in Africa for a while, and adopted two daughters from Burundi, which I’ve never heard of. 

Taggert’s mood is friendly but subdued. There is no singing or screeching as she wraps the cast. She asks if I managed to pick up the wheelchair and I say yes. She asks if it’s working out. “I thought it was only for if both feet get bad again,” I say. She apprehensively agrees, and asks how my good foot is doing. I tell her it’s fine. She says she’ll look at it next week when she puts on the last scrap of Epicord. 

As she wraps the cast I think about what Aaron said a few weeks ago. The president of Providence healthcare, Rodney Hochman, makes ten million dollars a year. In January he will be replaced by a man named Erik Wexler. Both of them are so dull and unassuming it’s easy to forget they exist. It’s time to remember. 

I’m curious what Taggert thinks of the whole thing. She’s always bitching about how the insurance companies prevent her from giving people the help they need. But I don’t want to distract her, and sure enough, she finishes quickly enough that I’ll be able to make the earlier bus.

Downstairs, the women at the front desk wave and say, “See you next week, baby.” The Christmas tree glows next to the metal detector. The automatic doors part and I roll out of this factory of pain and suffering, this private mint with a crucifix in every room. There’s still some light in the sky, and I roll off down the sidewalk as fast as I can until I hit a crack and go sprawling. 

Jukebox

     There is no one in the waiting area. Brahms’ Lullaby plays twice before Sjon comes for me. He immediately launches into his monologue about wanting to go back to working in the ER, but not in Portland. He wants to live “somewhere more redneck.” He misses the faster pace, and not having to watch what he says.

     “I moved here at the wrong time,” he says. “I could’ve dealt with Portland eight years ago, before it went too far to the left or the right, whichever it was.” I say it certainly hasn’t gone to the left. “Well it’s the one responsible for giving people too much freedom that’s the trouble,” he says. I don't say a word. He starts bitching about all the terrible people you have to deal with at inner city hospitals. “Found a meth baby in a toilet once,” he says. “Amazingly it lived.”

Shelley pushes aside the curtain. “I got you a present,” she says. I know what it is before she wheels it in; the donated wheelchair. 

“You can take it with you today,” she says. 

“I took the bus,” I say. She looks crestfallen. “But maybe I can have a friend drive me over and pick it up later this week.” 

She and Sjon both leave and I sit there a while. On the other side of the curtain they are all talking animatedly about placentas. I wait a long time until Taggert says, “Wait, is Seann ready? I guess if you’re out here…”

“He’s been ready a while,” Sjon says, pulling back the cutain. 

“Well you got me talking about placentas,” Taggert says, hurrying into her yellow paper gown.

Shelley comes in and plants herself in front of the computer. Taggert says she’s going to put a new skin graft on. I tell her I thought I was only getting two. “We’re cutting them in half,” she says.

“I thought you weren’t allowed to do that,” I say, once again confused.

“I consulted the senior member of our department and they made an executive decision,” she says. I assume she means Dr. Thompson, who no one would dare question. “Don’t tell anyone.”

“Great, so you give me an illegal skin graft, and try to saddle me with a castoff wheelchair. What kind of joint is this?”

“It’s brand new,” says Shelley.

“Welcome to Providence,” says Taggert.

She concentrates as she chops away the callous that has accumulated around the wound. When she’s done she removes the leftover patch of skin from the foil package and pats it into place quietly. 

“No singing today?” I ask. “The jukebox broken?” She starts singing “Don’t Rock the Jukebox” but I can tell her heart’s not in it.

“It says here he’s not supposed to have the Epicord put on until Thursday,” says Shelley.

“Well I just did it,” says Taggert.

“Um…ok. How do I make a record for it?”she asks.

“There’s no record,” Taggert says.

“I know, so how do I…”

“There’s. No. Record.”

“Ohhh. Gotcha.” She looks at the screen. “So should I cancel his Thursday appointment?”

“Sure. I think he’s ready to go down to once a week.” Hope, that slippery worm, raises its head and sniffs the air.

Taggert leaves and Sjon wraps my leg back up. I hear her talking about the babies that were just born. “Two in one day!” she cries. 

I ask Shelley how her Thanksgiving was and she says her older daughter is bullying the younger one for refusing to use her training potty. I wish KC was here, though it’s probably better that she’s not. I’ve been allowing myself to think about her again, which is pointless and just ends up exacerbating my loneliness. But I still wish she was here.

           When the doctor returns she talks to Sjon about working in southern Oregon during the pandemic. “They were such isolated communities, it took a long time for COVID to reach them,” she says. “I’d be down there for a few months and not have to freak out about going to the grocery store. Of course it caught up to them eventually.”

“That’s what I want, some little place in the middle of nowhere,” says Sjon. 

“It’s great,” she says. “Until you need a specialist. Then you’re spending all day on the phone with every hospital within 500 miles. I was actually sending patients up here and it’s a five hour drive.” 

Shelley leaves to give them space and Sjon starts dropping the rolls of casting into the bucket. “We’re making good time today,” Taggert says. It’s not true. I am going to miss my bus by a few minutes, which is maddening. I tell her this and she says she can work faster. 

“Oh great, so I’ll be getting a lumpy cast on top of my umbilical cord leftovers and junkyard wheelchair.”

“It’s brand new,” Shelley yells.

As Taggert is finishing up, Sjon drops one last roll of casting into the water. She glares at him.

“No?” he asks.

“No!” she barks. He snatches it out but it’s too late; the roll is ruined.

I get downstairs just as my bus is driving past. It’s cold out, so I sit inside and read while I wait for the next one. It’s quiet and warm and the lighting seems less harsh than usual. The corporate hotel vibe of the lobby feels softened, almost cozy. An enormous Christmas tree has been set up next to the metal detector, its hundreds of white lights dimming then brightening again, gently, dimming and brightening.