LJ Idol week 15- Preoccupied
She’s been sleeping later and later in the morning. One day this week it wasn’t even morning when she woke at 1pm. Today it was 11am when she crawled out of bed. Groggily she went to reheat some coffee made at a decent hour by her husband. She struggled to think what day of the week it was. Thursday? No. Friday. Friday she had a doctor’s appointment at 12pm. Realizing this, she suddenly sprang into action feeding herself, showering and getting dressed so she could leave the house by the time it would take her to get there.
Traffic was heavy but moving along and she made it to the Dr’s office by 11:55am. It was then she learned that the Dr. was running 35-45min behind. So she sat there anxiously waiting. There were no magazines to read, just a television playing “Health News” which would annoyingly ask questions like which exercise burns the most calories-- biking? swimming? or walking? She thought she’d always heard that swimming burned the most calories. But lo! The TV claimed that walking was the highest calorie burner. “Not the way SHE walked,” she thought to herself.
She closed her eyes and thought of a dream she’d had the night before. Then she shuddered. It was too horrid to recall. Like most of her recent dreams, it was a nightmare of humiliation and anxiety.
She watched the clock slowly tick by the minutes until finally the assistant led her into the examination room where she got her blood pressure checked. 159/90 Stage one hypertension. Compared to a reading of 112/74 just last year, this was a surprise. Maybe all her rushing around earlier had caused her blood pressure to rise. It’s possible.
The assistant left and she changed into a pink paper gown that didn’t quite fit her, and covered the rest of herself with the paper lap blanket. She crinkled each time she moved. Another half hour of sitting on the table wrapped in paper and the Dr., an Indian woman, finally knocked on the door and entered. By then she was feeling a bit light headed and just wanted the whole thing over with.
The Dr. asked her the routine questions then proceeded with the breast exam. She took a much longer period of time on the left breast and then announced she’d found a tumor the size of a small walnut in the anterior quadrant. Tumor. Cancer. Benign. Malignant. Survival rates at this size. Her last mammogram in 09. It was all just a rush of words whizzing around her head. She felt even more light headed and lay back down on the table. How could this be happening?
Just then she felt something wet on her face. What the? She woke to the dog licking her face with that big broad pink tongue. The time was 8:48am. It was Tuesday. And this was her life.
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This is my LJ idol entry for week 15- "preoccupied"
Please vote for it HERE if you choose to.
Thank you for reading!
Traffic was heavy but moving along and she made it to the Dr’s office by 11:55am. It was then she learned that the Dr. was running 35-45min behind. So she sat there anxiously waiting. There were no magazines to read, just a television playing “Health News” which would annoyingly ask questions like which exercise burns the most calories-- biking? swimming? or walking? She thought she’d always heard that swimming burned the most calories. But lo! The TV claimed that walking was the highest calorie burner. “Not the way SHE walked,” she thought to herself.
She closed her eyes and thought of a dream she’d had the night before. Then she shuddered. It was too horrid to recall. Like most of her recent dreams, it was a nightmare of humiliation and anxiety.
She watched the clock slowly tick by the minutes until finally the assistant led her into the examination room where she got her blood pressure checked. 159/90 Stage one hypertension. Compared to a reading of 112/74 just last year, this was a surprise. Maybe all her rushing around earlier had caused her blood pressure to rise. It’s possible.
The assistant left and she changed into a pink paper gown that didn’t quite fit her, and covered the rest of herself with the paper lap blanket. She crinkled each time she moved. Another half hour of sitting on the table wrapped in paper and the Dr., an Indian woman, finally knocked on the door and entered. By then she was feeling a bit light headed and just wanted the whole thing over with.
The Dr. asked her the routine questions then proceeded with the breast exam. She took a much longer period of time on the left breast and then announced she’d found a tumor the size of a small walnut in the anterior quadrant. Tumor. Cancer. Benign. Malignant. Survival rates at this size. Her last mammogram in 09. It was all just a rush of words whizzing around her head. She felt even more light headed and lay back down on the table. How could this be happening?
Just then she felt something wet on her face. What the? She woke to the dog licking her face with that big broad pink tongue. The time was 8:48am. It was Tuesday. And this was her life.
__________________________________
This is my LJ idol entry for week 15- "preoccupied"
Please vote for it HERE if you choose to.
Thank you for reading!