Tofurkey

As I roll toward the front entrance of the hospital, I swerve to avoid a man who refuses to get out of my way. “Don’t run me over, speedster!” he yells.

“No promises,” I yell back.

It’s nice to not have to check in at the counter. This is my second and probably final Tuesday appointment, and like last week, I’m a few minutes late. I use the restroom then zoom into the clinic. Bree has the phone up to her ear but is not saying anything. Gladys is sitting close, as if she’s coaching her. Neither acknowledges me so I look at the wall of staff portraits. Interspersed with them are seven or eight copies of a black and white photo of the Eiffel Tower, presumably the photo that came with the frame, though I’m not sure why they left them in. Finally Gladys tells me to wait outside, and I wheel out and five seconds later she comes to get me. 

She’s in a chatty mood, and I wonder if she’s hopped up on gummy worms again. She struggles with the scissors as she tries to cut my cast off. I tell her to fire up the saw. 

She says she’s flying to her mother’s in California for the long Thanksgiving weekend. “I only wanted to go for a few days but she bought the tickets so I didn’t have a choice. She’s a real control freak. Don’t say a word.” She tells me how much she’s going to miss her cat. “It’ll be good to go home though,” she says. “It’s been a hard year.”

She says the wound looks pretty good, and takes a photo. She pulls up last week’s picture so I can compare them. It really does look better, having gone from a ragged hole to a clean, rather demure slit in just a week. I tell her I’ve been being good. 

“You sound awfully proud of yourself,” she says. 

“I am. I’m so impatient, it’s difficult for me to have willpower.”

“I understand completely,” she says, suddenly gentle. “I don’t know how you do it. I would be going completely out of my mind.”

“Have you been running lately?” I ask. 

“Did I tell you I ran the Portland Marathon?” she says. “And I did not die, even though I was pretty sure I was going to.”

“You sound awfully proud of yourself.”

Dr. Taggert is also talkative, and as she cleans the wound she asks if I’ve been liking the football. 

“The cast or the game? Because I love them both!” I say. 

“Oh will you be watching on Thanksgiving?” she asks. 

“Oh hell yes, I love that one team that will be playing that other team that I don’t like.” 

Taggert says she hates football because once when she was a little girl, her birthday fell on Superbowl Sunday and her family held a Superbowl party instead of a birthday party, bringing out her cake at halftime then going back to the game. 

She says she’s cooking a traditional Thanksgiving meal for her teenage daughter and for her parents, who live with them. She asks if I’m going back to the total contact cast next week and I say I have no idea. “Well we can put one more football on you, but you won’t be back until Thursday so you’ll have to change it yourself starting Tuesday.” 

“Dr. Thompson said they were good for ten days,” I say. 

“Nope. No more than a week. Do you have an insert for your shoe? Okay, we’ll make you one.” 

Courtney comes in to do the casting, wearing scrubs with a pair of garish turkeys on them. She covers my foot with a full sheet of Hydrofera instead of cutting a little patch. “That’ll never slip,” she says. “Guess I’ll just do this all by myself,” she calls as she lays out the materials. Gladys and Vicki are talking loudly. “Sure would be nice to have an assistant,” she says, as she measures out the underlying layer of gauze. Finally Original Karen sidles in and starts typing sluggishly on the computer. Courtney seems satisfied, though how this is actually helping her is unclear to me. 

She asks if I mind if she pulls the curtain open, and as she wraps my foot they all talk, though I’m starting to feel sleepy so I don’t pay close attention. As she works, a young man with a scraggly chin beard darts in and out of the room behind her, restocking her supplies. 

When she’s done Gladys comes over to look. “Wow, that looks… amazing,” she says. 

“It really does,” says Karen. 

“I think I did a pretty darn good job,” says Courtney. 

“So where’s the felt liner for the shoe?” asks Gladys.

There’s a moment of silence as they all stare at my foot.

“Oh fudge,” Courtney says. “I can’t believe I forgot.” She grabs a scissors and starts to cut. “This is what happens when you get us as the end of the day,” she says.

I’m confused as to why she has to redo the whole thing; the felt doesn’t go inside the cast. I guess she wants to make sure she marks where the wound is so she can cut a hole in it for offloading, but it seems silly for something I’m only going to be using two days, and not walking on much. But I know better than to question these women. Especially when they’re holding scissors.

As she’s destroying her masterpiece, I hear a familiar voice coming from around the corner. KC is asking Gladys about a difficult phone call she just had with a patient. 

“We were on for like a half hour and I’m not sure I told her the right thing,” she says, sounding exhausted. Gladys reassures her and says she would’ve told her the same thing. She comes around the corner, without a mask on –I’m the only patient left and they have all removed their masks- and I’m a little taken aback. She looks so much older than last time I saw her, which was, what, a month ago? No, a month ago I was in Pennsylvania, getting my own family obligations over with early to avoid the holiday rush. She is still lovely, but she looks haggard, her face pinched.  

  “What time should I be over for Thanksgiving dinner?” I ask. 

“I’ll be drinking my dinner,” she says. “My girl friend Cindy is going through a lot. I bought two boxes of wine.”

“Are you going to get one for her too?”

She laughs. “It’s going to be a whole lot of fun. Two ladies going through midlife crises. And she’s vegan so there will be Tofurkey.” She makes a face.

“No turnips this year?” I ask. It actually does sound fun. I tell her I’ll be spending the day alone and that I’m happy about that, which is kind of true.

Courtney hands me the felt insert for my shoe. “Don’t lose it,” she says. It’s just a piece of felt with a wedge cut out of it. I’m still not sure she had to redo the whole cast for this thing but I just tahnk her.

“This is probably the latest you’ve ever gotten out of here,” Courtney says as she brings my scooter. I tell her Dr. Richmond kept me here until close to six once but I can’t remember why. So many visits over the past two years, they all blur into one. Is this a dream, or is my life outside this office the dream? Where will I be when I wake up?

As I leave, they’re all talking about how Trump just declared that nurses are no longer to be considered professionals, which will make it harder for them to afford schooling. “Just wait until he ends up in a hospital,” says Courtney. “Good luck getting that bedpan changed. Sure hope those non-professionals don’t mix up your pills.”

I miss my bus by a minute, so I wait in the lobby with the people waiting for rides. An attendant is helping one man with his car service. 

“I’m sorry Miguel, it looks like your driver got mixed up and went to pick you up at home. He’ll be another ten minutes.” 

“Thank you, young man,” the patient says, struggling with a rolling suitcase. “Thank you very much. I waited this long, I guess another ten minutes ain’t gonna kill me.”

It’s completely dark out by the time I make my way up the hill, and I go slowly because I can’t see the sticks or ruts on the pavement. There is no room in the bus shelter so I stand with one leg propped on the scooter, my hands thrust into my pockets, and feel the rain on my face, cold and unrelenting and honest.