I told first and asked credentials later. The credentials don’t matter, but if N&V had said he was ER trained or something I’d have shot that little tidbit over.
Maybe the doctors will say they checked that out already. Maybe they’ll say this or that symptom rules out an aortic problem.
Maybe they’re dead wrong. My daughter came back from Ghana, Africa having been diagnosed over there with malaria. Over here they told her she had never had malaria, she had had intestinal parasites but they were gone now. But she kept having strange symptoms that nobody could explain.
A year later and tired of not getting better she went to our old country doctor in PA who poked her in the abdomen and watched her yell. He told her the parasites weren’t gone. He then started her on a treatment that got rid of them.
New York doctors aren’t all they are cracked up to be.
Intestinal parasites. You just never know where lawyers will turn up.
Yes. Exactly.
This is one I'd be just as happy to be wrong about.
Another round hit and we bent over the dying boy. Gu’s face was only a few centimeters from mine. There was sweat pouring down his forehead. Even in the dim light of one paraffin lantern, I could see that he was shaking and pale. He looked at the patient, then at the doorway, then at me, and suddenly he said, “Don’t worry, everything’s going to be all right.” Now, this is a man who has never said a positive thing in his life. Gu was a worrier, a neurotic curmudgeon. If he had a headache, it was a brain tumor; if it looked like rain, this year’s harvest was ruined. This was his way of controlling the situation, his lifelong strategy for always coming out ahead. Now, when reality looked more dire than any of his fatalistic predictions, he had no choice but to turn tail and charge in the opposite direction. “Don’t worry, everything’s going to be all right.” For the first time everything turned out as he predicted. The Russians never crossed the river and we even managed to save our patient.For years afterward I would tease him about what it took to pry out a little ray of sunshine, and he would always respond that it would take a hell of a lot worse to get him to do it again. Now we were old men, and something worse was about to happen. It was right after he asked me if I was armed. “No,” I said, “why should I be?” There was a brief silence, I’m sure other ears were listening. “Don’t worry,” he said, “everything’s going to be all right.” That was when I realized that this was not an isolated outbreak.
I ended the call and quickly placed another to my daughter in Guangzhou. Her husband worked for China Telecom and spent at least one week of every month abroad. I told her it would be a good idea to accompany him the next time he left and that she should take my granddaughter and stay for as long as they could. I didn’t have time to explain; my signal was jammed just as the first helicopter appeared. The last thing I managed to say to her was “Don’t worry, everything’s going to be all right.”
Afternoon, epople. Sunny and 52 ... I’ve removed my coat, but I’m still wearing leggings, skirt, blouse, sweater, scarf, gloves ...
In a few minutes, I have to go pick up Bill at school and then Elen and Addie at driver’s ed. (Addie isn’t mine, just a carpool.)
DP’s truck has been retrieved from Limbo, SC, and is now at a body shop in Monroe, our very own county seat. We’re told it will be repaired eventually, hopefully before one of us leaves Bill afoot.