One of the benefits of living in East Ft Lauderdale around many sick old people is that there is an abundance of doctors, hospitals and pharmacies within minutes of my house. Since my mom, two sisters and older brother also live, literally, within minutes of me, this is a huge plus since we can all help each other out and provide transport services for a variety of health-related needs.
For example, last Wednesday I was scheduled to have my teeth cleaned at 8AM and to take my mom to the cardiologist at 10AM. On Tuesday after lunch, the cardiologist called and rescheduled Mom’s appointment for 8 AM since the doctor had a luncheon that day. I was a little testy that he felt that his lunch was more important than my mom’s heart, but I said nothing, feeling obscurely that it was not a good idea to piss off the cardiologist.
I did not want to reschedule my teeth cleaning, though, because my hygienist gets really testy if you cancel on her; to retaliate she sticks you especially hard and makes you bleed on your next visit. I was going to ask my middle sister to take Mom to the cardiologist but I remembered that on Wednesday she was taking my older sister to Holy Cross Hospital for a colonoscopy.
After debating for about 20 minutes if Mom’s heart was more important than my teeth I reluctantly called the dentist to reschedule and fortunately the hygienist had an opening at 2 PM on Wednesday, which I took.
Later Tuesday afternoon my older sister called and asked if I would stop by the pharmacy on Wednesday morning since Mom was about to run out of her blood pressure pills. My older sister was prepping for her colonoscopy, if you get my drift, and was a little testy; she said she could not go to the pharmacy since she was kind of busy.
Since my Wednesday morning was also getting kind of busy, and I do work for a living, I sent a text message to my older brother to see if he could pick up the prescription. He immediately responded that he would be happy to since he had a cardiologist appointment Wednesday at 8AM. This was bad news. He and my Mom go to the same cardiologist, but Mom does not know that he has heart problems — and we want to keep it that way. I frantically called my older brother him and told him he had to change his cardiologist appointment, because Mom also had an appointment at 8 am and she would freak if she knew he was seeing a cardiologist. This was a bad thing, especially since she was out of blood pressure pills.
My older brother got a little testy and said he could not change the appointment since he had rescheduled it twice and was embarrassed to do it again. So I called the cardiologist’s office and was told the only other opening they had was Wednesday at 2 PM, which of course I took, although I drew a blank as to how I could be at both the cardiologist’s and the dentist at 2 PM, and I was embarrassed to reschedule my teeth cleaning again. In the meantime my older brother sent me a snotty text message and told me to pick up the prescription myself.
In the end I made it work. I took a vacation day from work and then I called the dentist and got back my 8AM appointment; since the hygienist never knew I had rescheduled twice, she did not make me bleed too badly. Afterwards, I stopped by the pharmacy to get Mom’s blood pressure pills. I made a quick stop at the hospital to say hello to my middle sister; she was a little testy because Admissions had called her to pick up my older sister since the colonoscopy was done, but my middler sister had been waiting over 45 minutes.
I then picked up mom and drove to the cardiologist’s office as I congratulated myself on the convenience of living on the East side where everything is so close. I was just rubbing my tongue over my clean, shiny teeth as we pulled into the cardiologist’s parking lot and my reverie was broken when Mom looked around and said, “Isn’t that your brother’s car?”