Covid, Bloods And Bauble Theft

Isn’t it good fun jotting down words wherever you are? Inspiration is everywhere isn’t it?

I’m sat in the strange surroundings of an empty waiting room with SAFE APART signs over the majority of the chairs, their plastic surfaces gleaming beneath the stark energy saving strip lights above. A twinkling Christmas tree looks like it’s flashing for attention and out of place in the barren area painted asylum blue with unimaginative magnolia accents. Even the view from the window looks tired and confused save for a fluffy finch pecking at the lichen covered concrete. Trees look suicidal as they prepare for the long winter months ahead.

I’m having a covid screen and bloods taken in a moment in preparation for a cardiac angiogram and possibly a coronary angioplasty on Friday. Not another bitch angiogram. I’ve had three you see and all well but one. The second in 1996 to check if the neurosurgery was a success after my AVM correction. Unfortunately my femoral nerve was injured resulting in hardcore neuralgia affecting whole left leg. The pain was strange to describe, almost like how a sore stomach feels. To cut many years short, I ended up with a spinal cord stimulator implanted into my left side in a convenient pocket of fat.

The third was pretty cool, it was to identify arterial impingement aka thoracic outlet syndrome in my left shoulder. My arm used to feel tingly upon certain movements and then suddenly turn pink as trapped blood at the shoulder rushed back into the vessels. I didn’t even know I had a thing going on that merited resection of part of my first rib! Crazy times back then. And a vicious operation carried out by a really handsome thoracic surgeon. “You can check my wound drain anytime“, I mused. He did too!

So after today I’ve to self isolate but it’s only two days. My husband and I will enjoy our TV by the twinkle of the Christmas tree. Our tree doesn’t need to flash for attention like the poor wretch in this Outpatients Department. I’m tempted to pinch a green bauble on the way out to fill in an annoying gap on my tree. Who the fuck pinches baubles from the NHS? The old me would. But she is long gone. That single part of me. Thanks to honesty and CBT.

Now to call Uber home. Can’t wait to get back and unceremoniously kick my Timberlands off at the front door.

© Copyright: Sharon Lawson™