I told my physician that I seemed to be in the tertiary stage of the disease. He looked at me for a long time before saying,
“Do you know what that means?”
I gave him a puzzled look, cocked my head, and waited for him to go on.
“In this case, it would mean you are dead.”
“Oh. Well. No. I’m not dead. I’m feeling much better at the core of things, but I’m still sick. What stage is that?”
Continue readingFumbling with the jack, Caitlyn gave up and retrieved the big red gas can that had belonged to an ex-boyfriend. The car had run out of gas and then developed a flat tire when she coasted into the construction zone to get out of traffic. Caitlyn was putting one foot in front of the other and chanting “If you are going through hell, keep going” over and over. Winston Churchill’s voice, as she imagined it, reverberated in her head.
“If you are going through hell, keep going.” This day was starting badly during a year of one bad day after another. Bad news, stress, family mayhem, and other assorted and sundry disasters were abundant.
Her 17-year-old Subaru was ready to go to the Subaru afterlife. The gas gauge had quit working a few months earlier. She thought she had enough in the tank to drive past the expensive stations to the cheap one where she was a regular. She was wrong.
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“My apologies Mrs. Smythe, could you repeat your request?”
“Yes. I would like a photograph of my bicep. Will you do that?
“Your bicep?”
“Yes.”
“I won’t photograph you disrobed.”
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