Tuesday, January 5, 2010

Don't Call Us, We'll Call You...In a Few Months

You know what baffles me about the medical world? Timelines. Case in point: when I last saw Dr. SecondOpinion, his secretary said she would phone me around January 4th when the office opened after Christmas break to give me my surgery date. Now, when I hear "I will call you on January 4th," I think, "Someone will call me on January 4th or shortly thereafter." (Crazy, I know). When I called today (January 5th), however, the receptionist was super surprised that I called and actually laughed and said, "Oh, we won't get the surgery date for months yet, but it won't be sooner than June." If you won't get the surgery date for months, then why not say to me, "We won't get the surgery date for a month yet so I'll call you around February?" Why say January 4th? If I know I won't get the surgery date until February, then I won't start pestering the receptionist until February. I am nothing if not obedient.

Oh well. His secretary is super nice and actually phones back, so I can't really be pissed at her. Besides, all this would be a minor thing if I lived in Vancouver. The only reason it's annoying is because I'm trying to coordinate living in two places at once. Part of me is beginning to think that my decision to live in Champaign this year was a mistake and that I should have just ripped the proverbial bandaid off, sucked it up, and moved back to Vancouver. I could have been working and cuddling with my cat in a cute apartment as we speak.

Oh well. A. always tells me not to "write revisionist history" and in fairness, there was no way to predict that 7 months after the surgery, I would be still be walking like the poison-apple-giving wicked-witch old crone from "Snow White." And, on the surface, staying in Champaign another year seemed like the perfect solution: time to write in a place that's cheap to live, a way to avoid paying too much for a Vancouver apartment since everyone's holding off listing their apartments until after the Olympics so there's no inventory, a chance to keep searching for American jobs to keep my options open and not rush in to some job that I hate out of panic.

Oh well. The good news is that I have a general timeline. After my neurologist appointment on the 20th, I'll head back to Champaign until my surgery in June. Maybe I'll get a June 23rd surgery date and have my new surgery exactly to the day of my old surgery. That would be a perfect, may-the-circle-be-unbroken kind of thing. It's the circle of liiiiiife, and it moves us aaaaallllll.....Till we find our plaaaaaaace....On the path unwinding.....

1 comment:

  1. In the ciiiiircle, the circ-le oooooooof liiife! I believe there's some meaning in the madness (if not purpose) and you coming to Champaign for the spring is awesome. I personally hope you get your surgery date sooner than 6/23, but if it should fall on the same date, you could totally publish your blog posts as a collection titled "The Year of the Ass: How I Won Back My Butt." I'll write a blurb for ya! =)

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