It’s been a day when I should have been counting my blessings, I suppose, but it has been quite a day. Actually, my week has been less than wonderful. Cecilia has been sick, coughing until it sounds like she is going to drown herself with whatever it is in her lungs. I had an order for a chest X-ray, blood work and urinalysis in her big black book, so I took her in yesterday morning and got that all done and scheduled an appointment for today.
So she has been home, sitting in the sun room, listening to music and to the sounds of the open windows; birds chirping happily just outside on the feeders, Jays screaming their protests at the passing cat, traffic going along on the road, and even cicadas and crickets making their noisy addition to the late summer sounds. I go in and out, making one sided conversation, and worrying a bit about how sick she seemed. Then last night, I suddenly had a vicious sore throat of my own. I decided to see how it was when I took her to the doctor today.
The good news was that she didn’t have pneumonia, didn’t have anything our of line on her bloodwork, and didn’t have a urinary tract infection. She sat miserable and hot and silent in the doctor’s office while he listened and thumped around.
Dr. Wilson was his usual cheerful self. He praised all that was good, then said that she had an acute bronchitis infection and that he was going to write her a prescription different from the ones that she has had over the last six weeks. I hate to give her antibiotics so frequently, but this particular individual has behaviors that lend themselves to infections. She won’t cough unless she is overcome by one and then she tries to squelch it. She sits compacted together and nothing seems to induce her to breathe deeply. Of course, this lends itself to pneumonia. And she has perfected the art of not going to the bathroom completely while on the toilet. Instead, she holds it until she is in bed, then she can soak through her protective underwear, down to turning the protective pad into an almost dripping mess. She has been a little out of sorts, anyhow, though I’ve thought it was from not feeling well. Of course she never says, and I can only guess.
I had a terribly long wait in the doctor’s office today, with my appointment being at 2:45 and not getting back into the examining room until 4:20. Because everything was so late, I almost didn’t mention my sore throat to him, but it was hurting “worser and worser,” so I decided I would at least run it past him. I told him that I would pay for an office visit on my way out, and he did a quick exam. Pronounced me sick as well, and wrote out a script for Amoxicillin.
It is somewhat of a circus when I take Cecilia anywhere, but it is especially difficult when I go to the doctor. I have my purse, her big black book and any instructions that the doctor gives me plus HER. And she has been stumbling more and more lately so that I need to be especially careful when I am walking her anywhere. But I organized myself after this office visit, paid my co-pay for my “appointment” and then maneuvered Cecilia through the corridor, around a corner, through two doors and got her into the van and strapped in and we were on our way to the pharmacy.
Excepting that, when I got to the pharmacy, I couldn’t find Cecilia’s prescription. I looked and looked and looked, through my purse, through her black book, in between the pages of her book. Nothing. Come to think of it, he had written the prescription on my paperwork for the state, he had written it on her record, but I honestly could not remember him handing me the actual prescription. I couldn’t say that he hadn’t, but I certainly didn’t remember ever receiving it. By now it was five o’clock, and a good bit past closing time at the doctor’s office. But then, there were still at least four patients after me, still patiently waiting. So I dropped off my prescription and flew back to the office. One of the office gals was leaving. One was emptying trash, the office nurse was going over charts.
“Is there any chance that the prescription for Levaquin get left in Cecilia’s chart?” I asked breathlessly, as I spread Cecilia’s black book out and continued to riffle through the pages in search of the elusive script.
They were not impressed. Unfortudiously they never seem to be impressed by any of my desperation. “I wouldn’t know,” said the one. “She would have to look it up.” And she nodded in the direction of the nurse. The nurse handed her the chart and she looked over it. “Nope,” she said. “It isn’t here. It wouldn’t have been here, anyhow. He always hands that to the patient. We never see it.”
“I know, and he usually does, but when I got to the pharmacy, I couldn’t find it, and I don’t remember him handing it to me.”
“Well, you can just wait and when he comes out, you can see if he will rewrite it for you.”
So I stood in the long corridor again and waited. Eventually he came out and obligingly rewrote the script. “I’m sorry,” he said, “I must have just –”
“I’m sorry,” I interrupted him. “I may have misplaced it somehow. I just can’t find it anywhere.”
“Well,” he said then, “I’m pretty sure that I remember writing it. When you find it (and I think you probably will) just throw it away and use this one.”
“You got it,” I said, “and thanks!” I took my precious prescription and headed out to my car. I looked again through my purse, in my planner and organized a few things before taking off. Suddenly, I was aware of the office nurse standing at my car window. She was holding Cecilia’s precious black book.
“I think you might want this,” she said cheerfully.
“Oh, yes,” I breathed gratefully. “I really need that. Thanks so much!” I headed out again for the pharmacy, hauled Cecilia in with me and waited for it to be filled. It took hardly any time at all. And then I came on home.
When I walked in, I noticed that Nettie was shelling lima beans for all she was worth. I had picked a very full five gallon bucket this morning and I wondered briefly if she would be able to shell them all this evening. She did! I was so happy. I decided to go ahead and get them into the freezer. Nettie had said that a great deal of them were “no good,” and I had noticed a larger amount of discarded beans among the empty pods. Ever the snoopy gal, I had checked them and found them to truly be less than “Grade A” so I began to sort the ones that she had kept.
It’s a funny thing about beans. Sometimes you can put a picking that looks pretty good into the blancher and it comes out looking rather sorry. And sometimes I will think, “These beans don’t look the greatest!” and then they come out looking pretty good. But tonight it was one of those times when the beans went in looking rather inferior and came out clearly defined as needing a heavy handed sorting.
This morning in the patch, I listened to the many sounds and felt like fall was coming on. I wondered how many more pickings I was going to get off the 2014 patch. An early hail storm had set things back a bit and the stink bugs are sneaking around and wreaking havoc. I had close to a half a pound of discards in my batch tonight of five pounds for the freezer.
If it wasn’t so disgusting, it would be interesting, A bean can look almost perfect, but sometimes I will notice a small irregularity in shape and if I tear off the thin skinned outer covering, this is what the inside looks like. While other gardener’s beans have broken records this year for production, I can honestly say that this has been my least productive year by a long shot and the ratio of misshapen “I should probably not ingest that” kind of beans to the pretty ones is disproportionate.
Does this mean I am going to give up? Not pick? NOPE! I’m so grateful for the beans I’ve been able to get into the freezer. (21 lbs. as of tonight) and if Nettie can shell them, I can sort and wash and blanch and sort and bag them up. I will be so glad next winter.
And now, I’m taking this sore throat and achy body to bed. It’s about time.
And in spite of this disappointing day, My heart gives grateful praise.
Delaware Grammy 