The return of the son of vengeance
This time I bought the kit and made an appointment for Saturday at 8 a.m. So, everything seems to be set. I wake up at 7 a.m., take a shower, check that I haven't forgotten anything, and walk to the clinic, on an empty stomach. I don't really care about the fasting, but “no coffee = foggy brain all day.” I get there ten minutes early and join the line that's already snaking through the waiting room. Apparently, the Kafka sisters are running late. Owelno, huh?
I notice their very flexible understanding of time: last time, they argued that it said 8:00 a.m. on the prescription, not 7:30 a.m., and that therefore they couldn't do it at 9:00 a.m. either, SINCE IT SAID 8:00 ON THE PRESCRIPTION. Today, they're late and, strangely enough, they don't seem to mind starting the exam twenty minutes after the appointed time. Go figure... The lab technician is pretty friendly. She's wearing a little gold heart pendant surrounded by a circle. I don't know why I remember that (no, she wasn't showing any cleavage, you dirty-minded people). First blood sample for reference, then a shot of synacthen in the butt, and off we go for an hour of waiting in the waiting room. That's the time it takes for the drug to work and stimulate the production of "Made in Fredd" corticosteroids .
I'm waiting... Been a while... It's funny how quickly you get out of the routine. How you're both on full alert and very patient when things get tough, with a string of tests, blood tests, appointments, and paperwork, and how you let yourself go as soon as the pressure eases. You tend to forget to take your medication, forget appointment dates, and pile up new prescriptions on top of old ones until you can't tell which ones are the latest. It's crazy how quickly you become undisciplined when you've been so organized. To fight this, I have alarms on my phone, and I also have an app called MyTherapy, which reminds me when it's time to take my medication, alerts me when my supplies are running low, and can even manage my hospital appointments. It's a very good app which, despite its name, is also available in French.
Plastic is not so fantastic
An hour, still fasting, in a waiting room on a Saturday morning when we could have slept until eleven, isn't much fun. So I grab my smartphone and start writing this text. After half an hour, my butt begins to hurt. And here I am, mentally comparing the plastic chairs in the lab with the metal ones in the Cochin emergency room. These are the thoughts that cross your mind in this kind of situation, okay? You have to admit that plastic isn't all that great and only wins the comfort comparison by a narrow margin.
Another lab technician calls my name around 9:30 a.m. for the second blood test. If the difference in corticosteroid levels between the two is significant enough, I may not need to take any more, wait and see then... I walk back radar mode on, wrapped in a thick cloud of mental fog, with ONE THING ON MY MIND: COFFEE!!!! After an hour and three mugs, I'm ready to go to the market (well, yeah, it's Saturday, right?).
I don't know why, but today all the shopkeepers are giving me gifts (two extra apples here, some slightly mature cheese there, a kilo of fresh leeks for €1). It's really cool: you don't ask for anything, and they give you stuff. It puts me in a good mood and gives me the energy to tackle things (phone calls, emails, bank transfers, etc.) that have been pending for a while. The afternoon ends quietly, with a little computer work, a little guitar, and a little Steve Vai, whom I hadn't listened to in a while. To be continued in the next issue...
