The KeyStone Cops Ride Again
Greetings everyone in Blog Land...let see, this morning started out to a be a real pain. And I mean it was both real and a pain. At what I thought was around dawn (because the sky was so dark) I woke up to a throbbing foot, which would simply not let me roll back over and get to sleep. Not that cats would let me anyway. At which point I disover that it is 9am and time to get up anyway. K also realize that what the surgeon called a "don't worry about it, sure, it will be fine in 10 days or so" wart removal is not going as planned. Just like the last four or five times I've been cut on for various things, it seems I had a post-operative infection. Attempts to look at said area with a flash light were assisted by three very interested cats. I was unable to really see much, except a black cat hair attached to the bandage. So I got my husband who is thoughtfully sleeping in the spare room while I recover.
Now, my father-in-law is a doctor and my beloved was destined for this job before he discovered writing and Old Norse. He still presues it as a hobby and owns just about every imaginable medical survival guide there is. So, flashlight in had he inspects the area and declares that we need to go to the doctor right away. I remind him that its Sunday and we will have to use the new "doctor-on-call" clinic. In the past, we would have just gone to our family doctor, who kept a spare room in her house for such home-visits. I'm sure the new "just like in America" centralized clinic is much better for the doctor's involved. But its still in its early stages and has a few glitches. But, we didn't find that out until later.
First, we needed to find a band-aid for my foot. The hospital surgery didn't have any, and the funny shaped one the pharmacy gave my husband have a hole in the middle. Because they are not really bandages at all, but corn plasters. The idea of going out on a wet, cold, miserable day with an infected foot and no bandage did not thrill me. Ah, our house-mate is a volunteer ambulance driver with the Order of Malta. Surely there will be bandages in the emergency kit. Just one problem, house-mate is asleep and just where is the emergency kit? 20 minutes later (and 10 minutes before the scheduled appointment, in a town 20 minutes away) it is finally located, in house-mates bedroom. Food is bandaged in record time, and we even manage to get a sandal on my unhappy footie.
Now for the ride into town. Which goes quickly because no one is on the road at 11:45 am on a Sunday morning. Most local people are either at Mass or asleep. When we get to the street the doctor is supposed to be on (I've never been there) we drive up and down about 10 times before husband announces that he has found the place. He says he will drop me off, go get money to pay for the appointment at the ATM and be right back.
So far, so good....I approach a old, grey building across the street from the town bookstore and a very closed local pub. I get to the door where there is a sign that says "Urgent Care." In fine print it says "For Urgent Care Call this number." No one is in building that I can see. There is a doorbell, so I figure that like many local shops and businesses the doctor either lives or keeps an office upstairs. I ring the bell, nothing happens. I ring it again, nothing happens again. I begin to knock on the door nothing happens...nice old man comes along walking his dog. He looks at me and says in a very thick local accent:
"There not here today, don't open today, you got to call um.."
I explain that I did call and that they were supposed to be here. This conversation keeps going around in a circle for a few minutes. A few minutes that cause me to remember that I am not wearing wool socks, but think cotton ones. My feet are getting cold and wet and I am getting very tired of standing on one foot.
Finally, another man comes up and says,
"Oh, you need the Shannon Clinic, its just down the road a half a mile or so. You can just go right down there."
Which indeed, I could have if, I had two working feet and wasn't restricted to more or less standing in one place leaning on a walking stick. I thank both old men and tell them not to worry, my husband will be back soon.
15 minutes later, I am still standing there, when another nice old man walks by and offers me his mobile phone. Which I use to discover that where ever he is, my husband does not have the mobile phone turned on. And my house-mate is not answering the house phone either. Very nice old man stays with me for 45 minutes (who says chivalry is dead) and finally agrees to go home when I assure him I will not stay outside all day. Just for a bit longer.
By now, I know I've missed the appointment and am getting rather steamed. Or rather, I would be steamed, if I were not freezing cold. At this point, my foot tells me I will now sit down or else. The only place to do this is, the pavement. I am wearing a long skirt, home-spun cap and hand knit sweater. This combined with an overlarge bag covered in baby kitten prints and the walking stick contrive to make me look like the local bag lady. Except that this is such a small town, everyone would know the bag lady and they know that I am not her.
After about 1 hour and 15 minutes of this, another nice lady comes along with a phone and I call the "urgent care" number to let them know what is going on. Nice lady tells local book shop owner who know takes over baby sitting the new bag lady...i.e..leaving his store every 15 minutes to make sure I am all right. This includes brining me a nice, hot cup of milky tea, which my shivering hands gratefully accept. At 1hour 30 minutes I begin to suspect the worst. What has happened to my husband? Did the car break down? Was there an accident?
By this time, I decide that I will be so happy to see him, if he ever arrives, that I will kill him later rather than right away. I also decide to go into the nice, warm bookstore and call our local cab company. The one from our own village, the one I can call and explain this crazy situation too (help! my husband went to park the car, thinking I was warm and dry at the doctors and instead of coming right back and accidentally abandoned me on a freezing street corner and by the way I can't walk...etc). Our wonderful cabby agrees to run straight to our house to see if he can locate house-mate, so they can come into town and see if they can find my husband (and pick up and deposit me at the correct medical clinic). Cabby also knows I don't have any money, since husband has never come back. But, he's not worried about it, he knows where I live.
So, I spend what money I do have buying a newspaper from the nice bookshop owner and waiting for the cab. Just about the time it should have arrived, husband appears in doorway of shop looking pale, wan and very upset. I beg nice shop owner to call cab and explain, dashing out the door with husband. Well, it was more like slowly limping out door with husband, but it was as much of a dash as I could manage at the time.
Husband begins his long account which boils down to: he went to the bank to get money. The bank ate my credit card. So he went back home to our village to get his Am-Ex Card, and then try another bank machine (this must have taken half an hour by itself). Then the other bank machine would not take Am-Ex. So he drives to a gas station with an ATM machine, which is owned by the same bank that will not take Am-Ex. In fact, all the bank machines, everywhere for the next 35 miles will not take Am-Ex. At which point husband realizes he is about to run out of gas....pulls into gas station where they are happy to take his card, but only for the purchase of gasoline. All other money has to come out of the nicely provided ATM machine (company policy you know) and, you guessed it, the ATM does not accept AMEX....So he turns around and comes back to find me bedraggled in the store and is desperate to get back home to finish his deadline project...With one small problem in his way, I still haven't been to the doctor.
So, we call and get directions and make it 1/2 mile down the road to the correct emergency clinic. The one that is supposed to be staffed 24 hours a day. Except, the doctor has just gone out for lunch...he should be back in an hour. Husband looks like he would like to hit the nearest wall, but settles for going outside and pacing. I would like to pace, but that not being an option, I try to read the paper instead. An hour goes by and new patients start coming in. No doctor appears. Husband is now walking back and forth in front of the reception desk, I am hiding behind the newspaper.
Doctor finally arrives after 1 1/2 hours, but here our luck turns toward the better. Not only a very nice man (who may even want to join our medieval re-enactment group, he shoots a longbow) he gives me an entire bottle of antibiotics for free and doesn't take any payment for the visit when we tell him about the credit card odyssey. He takes my Viking Lady Traders business card and says he may call about fighter practice in a month or two.
Tired out, but relieved to have it all over with, husband and I make it the 12 miles home. Where he promptly takes a nap and I begin to figure out how to live upstairs for the next three or four days.
So far, the rest of the day has gone on without incident, so maybe whatever crossed-stars were encountered have sorted themselves out. I hope so anyway...meanwhile time to move the cats...
Stay Tuned,
Disaster Cat