There was a late note from Paula yesterday reminding me of the Appointment by stretcher today. Subject? Urinary was the one word description,which I think is about the quality of my kidneys and the urine they are producing.

I hope I can ask for removal of the Foley device which requires the catheter. Based on my experience, I assume that will be another office and another referral. I think the nurses did the last removal, so we will see. That was the opening controversy, which slid down from Paula’s reminder. Stretcher and not wheelchair? The stretcher requires a crew of two and the rolling chair only one. Should we change?

That started an interchange that went for more than hour, wrapped around Therapy who showed up at 09:30 for “a walk.” They were unaware of the Appointment, so their morning arrival was a good thing. It was a new crew and as much a learning experience for them as me, but we got the Foley discharge maneuvered out of the way, unassisted rise to standing position on the Rollator which had been placed aside to accommodate the Wheelchair and we walked out to the hall to accomplish the walk down to the nursing station for a quick break and back to the room.
No drudging or any problem observed, though the room was cluttered and crowded as one of the other roommates was prepared to depart for his own appointment.

That left 80 or 85 emails to be read and answered with notes that the stretcher was back on the transport due to lack of response from the transport company.

Breakfast was spare, lunch an indistinguished meat loaf. Shortly after noon a text from Paula said the company had realized I was no longer qualified for stretcher and voyage would be done by wheelchair. I said “OK.” I looked at the Dow after the bad news from China. They had gone up to 104% on tariffs and it looked like a big stinking mass of offal on Uncle Don’s doorstep.

Which led from a busy day filled with mild apprehension and sharp pains to an uncontroversial beautiful one filled mystery and awkward magic. The exciting part of the day was not known to the end and bright as flashing emergency lights and loud as the siren directed into the open ramp to the non-emergency ambulance.

Out there the wide world was brilliant and and alive, crystal clear as a sparkling wine glass. The big guns turned to China and the international swirl of what had once been billed as the greater East Asian Co-prosperity Sphere and looked, with Japanese, Korean and Taiwanese components to be almost the same with a strange dance by China and the Yankees.

But that enormity had to be made small enought to roll on a chair and a medical van on the adventurous road across Arlington to Alexandria on the visit to the urologist. It began with groaning and squirming in an effort to offload the soggy Woodbine meals of the last month. The compost pressed with an odd squiggly mass down below as I prepared for a consult with a squiggly adventure with Urology to complete the circulatory adventure that commenced with the dreaded blood clots and associated vascular doo-dads.

Paula had arranged to meet me at the Virginia Medical Center that morning. Unlike the previous visit, two husky African American men appeared just on time in room 138, my departure following that of Ken’s cardio expedition from in Bed “B.” They wheeled me with quiet efficiency down the corridors and up the ramp to a solid white van in the fashion of a prize specimen of livestock.

And into the depth of a cloudless bright azure sky and into one of the most historic days in recent global history. The world situation was still unfolding in media bright spikes of the stock market attuned to nerves and almost as deadly fast. The weight of weeks unresolved in my bowels began to churn slowly with road vibrations as I leaned forward to get a close glimpse of the tablet with the directional app flashing us forward on the 23 minute journey. It featured the landmarks now bright in sunshine that had been observed in the upper portions of the windows while strapped to the stretcher: The Volvo Dealer amid the old brick garden apartments, the cute little bungalows as the road became more businesslike as the hieght of buildings rose to familiar towers to the familiar gigantic flanks of the Pentagon on the same approach I had normally seen outlined in bright incandescent before the dawn, and now oddly cloaked by the memorial works where the jet struck just before the new office where my little budget shop had moved shortly after my departure and were some of my friends died that day.

It was a strange merge of old and new, whizzing around North Parking in bright white light with plenty of available parking, should we have chosen to wait a while. But we hurtled on along one of the threads that lead out Fairfax where I used to live when the kids were young. Across the small dignified residential developments, into the older and newer places to slice over to ‘’North George Mason” and the mile up to the Virginia Hospital Center Outpatient Clinic.

Memories of old commutes and wars passed faded into the more recent turmoil under my pale skin. Frankie pulled around front, avoiding the depths of the garage. We dismounted out front, buttoning up the van with ramp safe inside and rolled smoothly into the calm glass-and-steel lobby who invited our attention to the 4th floor and the family lobby assigned to the urologist team.

We arrived with aplomb and were greeted with a cheery “Hi there!” From Paula who had come up less ostensibly from the garage. She introduced herself to Frankie and Eddie as she waved us past the long low entry desk to the equally long row of black electronic kiosks, which added to the focused energy of the clinic.

Frankie tried entering the data from his routing sheet, but after two attempts handed the Manila sheaf directly to me, assuming I knew the information, and by chance I did. After a bold bright final click, it directed us to the 4th floor. Paula said she had me fro there and asked for clarification on our reunion upon completion of the appointment. We were detailed in the quest for accuracy, but there is “no waiting for completion” in the scheduling, and we were told there were plenty of hovering vans who would happily swoop down for us with a simple beep of summons.

Paula and I frowned at each other but gave smiles to our bearers, and we marched to the 4C mezzanine to await the urology component of the medical adventure. We became aware of the temporal realities of vendor transportation as we waited, scrolling through endless lines of denunciation of Mr. Trump and his attempts to impose order on a world trading system in which a single absurd American attempted to impose his will on the world.

My bowels would have been heavy if that were enough for this day, but I was concerned about the Foley device inserted in my urethra, the long hose leading to the containment device attached to my rolling chair, the heaviness in my intestines and just how long I could hang on this long afternoon.

We waited a half hour or so. Not unreasonable, but it was with relief that we were summoned from the lobby to another twenty minute wait in a modern waiting office. I asked if it would be helpful for me to mount the examination table to streamline the process, but was told to relax in the confining embrace of my wheelchair and enjoy the next twenty minutes.

Which sums the tone of the appointment. The Nurse Physician who eventually appeared was a charming and professional woman who delicately worked through some precise terminology to determine rates of flow and other metrics which amounted essentially to where something might be inserted to determine if there was blockage.

I will refrain from any further discussion in what I must honestly describe as the next most honest fifteen minutes of truth in a professional office in my life. Paula and I departed with an assurance that something of equivalent honestly might be accomplished in two weeks. I noted that the proposed time coincided with the only professional luncheon of the year, and the medical personnel graciously allowed for another time in another week.

Almost convulsed by the success of the appointment, and the likelihood of a follow-on by another specialist in those nether regions, we called for rescue by the transport crowd, who assured us they could arrive in less than a half hour.

Paula managed thing while I looked at the amazing international news in whic it appear Uncle Don had managed to assemble 70 world nations around the Unites States to confront Beijing. It was a good thing, since otherwise I might just have collapsed in my chair with a sense of violation.

Paula was already running late for her next appointment and. We parted with the sad smiles earned by another confrontation with the medical adventure. My rescuer was a man of color but thin and youthful. He bounced with energy, which was a bolster to my sodden spirits. He had parked in front of VHC, and with a couple quick alterations to keep his ramp properly tucked, got me seated in a newer van than the one that had brought me here.

The driver’s youth was apparent as he strapped the chair into the floor mounts and his speed awakened my spirits. I reached over to grab the strap that would attach me to the van, but he did not view it with equivalent importance and finish buttoning things out back before returning to the drivers seat to prepare for an early rush hour hurtle across the District.

I considered acting like an imperious old man and telling him to stop and do the job right and ensure his cargo was secured. Instead, I squirmed a bit to see if I could see the phone on his lap for the waypoints back to the hospital. All the way across town I could feel my flimsy chair jiggle with each bump, using my hand to brace on the passenger’s seat, knowing a t-bone collision would hurtle me directly out of the chair and through the windshield.

That would have been a great dance-off line, filled with a hint of irony or something to sum up the rest of an extraordinary day. Instead, I kept my mouth shut and got an even better one.

Rafael was the name on his jacket and he drove off with a nice professional touch, quick on the gas but smooth and only a tad more reckless than what I am used to. I waved at the Pentagon office as we went by and used the neighborhoods we went trough to try to settle my thoughts and marrow. I liked the kid’s style as we skipped through the old neighborhood corner spots, now re-done with fresh paint on hip and pricey dining spots. At one point we were tailgating a Lamborghini and I began to relax.

I appreciated the little cemeteries filled with monuments of gentry pride as we approached Woodbine, and turned into the narrow approach to the big portico. There, he wove around a little car to find a place to deploy the ramp and wheel me back to my room on the first floor.

I waited patiently as he released the claspers and grommets. I wanted to see if he would reach up to the unfastened toggles at my chest to realize his failure to fasten them on departure, but that was the moment the siren went off, focused into the open tail-gate aperture of our van with the lights on the Arlington Fire Engine suddenly lit.

It had the intensity and urgency you would feel standing alongside it. Intensified with the feeling the Fireman wanted to drive where Doctor had earlier wanted to insert something.

My driver had commendable discretion and swiftly battened the hatches and jerked us forward to a place wide enough in the lot to get rid of me. He pushed hard up the modest hill to where Firemen and now Police with lit-up vans swirled around the door. As we entered I rose my voice to overcome the noise at the two ladies behind the front desk.

“Reddig! Room 138! Get someone to wheel me up there and let this guy clear the entrance!”

It was improvised, but it sort of worked. It took two energized assistants but when the appropriate aide was found, she approached my corner with the curtain askew to see me on my back, crossways from the wheelchair perched with one wheel still turning.

She summoned help to deal with getting me suitably arrayed for bed, and the mess I had made getting into it. It had matched all my requirements at the time of need.

Suffice it to say, there is more to come on all these affairs, civic and biologic, fore and aft, and it will be interesting to see if the clever mandarins have had their slippers clipped by the orange maker of Deals. It is far too soon to tell on that matter.

The fact that I didn’t get hurled through a windshield is a good omen, and it comes with the certainty that I am no longer traveling to medical appointments in anything but a passenger car, you know?

V/R,
JR