Before starting, make sure the machine will hold
The team needs to know if my heart can withstand the various treatments being considered. For this, they need a heart ultrasoundUnfortunately, there are no slots available for a while in Cochin. Through a connection, one of the team members manages to convince a colleague at the Mountsouris Institute to add me to her appointments for the day. Rachida (my team coordinator) isn't there and no one can find me a taxi. Since I know the 14th district well, I decide to walk, even though I've been given a taxi voucher. It's been a while since I've had some fresh air.
I walk down Reille Avenue with its tree-lined median strip, skirting Montsouris Park to the west. The autopilot is working well.
I arrive there, they confirm that I have an appointment, and then I spend three hours waiting on an iron “chair.” It's long and uncomfortable. Tired, I drift off to sleep, to the point that when the nurse calls my name, she thinks I've left. I let her know I'm still there, and the ultrasound doctor comes to get me. I like the room where she works: although it's in the basement and therefore has no windows, it's warm and welcoming.
Contacts
My ultrasound specialist is one of those people who reassure you and radiate calm, kindness, and competence just by being there. Through brief but attentive contact. Contact that is neither forced nor avoided, just natural and prompted by the examination. I would meet others like her later on, and they are very important because they show that you are accepted, that you are meant well, and that the precautions we would take in society have no place here. Here, we don't put on airs, we don't calculate, we don't put up barriers. The doctor does what she has to do, and so does the patient, in a bubble outside of time, outside of the usual conventions. These contacts—an arm holding your shoulder in place, a hand searching for a vein in the crook of your elbow—form a nonverbal but much more direct and simple form of communication, the meaning of which is immediate.
My heart is ready for action, so I leave my cocoon and decide to take the 38 bus at Pte d'Orléans to go back to Cochin, where I'll spend my first night in Cornil-Brissaud. It's around 7:00 p.m., I get on the bus, whose terminus is here, and it's only once I'm seated that I realize how exhausted I am. The 38 passes through Place d'Alésia, then Denfert-Rochereau. I get off near the Observatory. I have about a hundred meters to go, but I drag my feet a bit, like in Lyon, along the R... the S. ... the river, whatever the name.
The room
I finally get to my new digs. Did they upgrade me or what? I feel like I've gone from a budget hotel to a luxury resort (okay, I'm exaggerating a tiny bit). They saved my dinner for me. The food, on the other hand, is the same. I'm having a bit of trouble getting a TV subscription, which I won't use much because I'm sinking into a welcome slumber.
