State of the Liver

Today was my annual transplant check up at Big City Hospital. I walked the distance between the train station and the hospital, perhaps a dozen city blocks. My legs were burning by the time I got to the hospital. Being a stay-at-home slug has done nothing for my physique. The walk was even worse back to the train station – I’d have sat down to rest, but there were no benches along the route I took.

The bloodwork came back fine. My cardiologist is starting me on Lasix again, though, so I have to get panels pulled every other week for twelve weeks. Insert rude noise here. I’m still waiting on the cholesterol numbers; the drugs I’m on have a reputation of driving those up, so I fully expect to be stuck on some lipid-controlling drug as well. The insurance I’ve got through The Prof is wonderful, though. I’m paying FAR less now that I had when I was employed.

I had to go fill my new script at the small town pharmacy after I got back, so I headed over there when I got home. Last week I was getting some refills when an elderly woman walked though the store holding her head. She asked the pharmacist if she could have a paper towel; turns out she’d tripped over the curb coming into the store and bashed her head pretty badly. She insisted she was fine and didn’t want an ambulance called, but I could tell by looking at the laceration that it needed a professional cleaning at least, and I suspected stitches would be needed. I left her with the pharmacist, the techs, and the PA who staffs the Quickie Clinic that the store runs, all of whom were trying to convince the woman to allow them to call for medical support. I was most of the way out of the store when I saw a stray glove lying in the aisle just inside the door. Suspecting its origin, I picked it up and walked to the back of the store again.

Sure enough, it did belong to the woman, who was still insisting that she didn’t want a fuss made, she’d be fine. At that point I could see the hemorrhage under the skin of her temple and eyelid; this was going to turn into one hell of a shiner. The woman thanked me for the return of her glove. She seemed so frail and frightened. I told her I was a veterinarian, not a human doctor, and that I couldn’t give medical advice to a person, but that if someone brought me a dog or cat with that kind of cut I’d tell them to get the animal to their veterinarian as quickly as possible. Suspecting why she was resisting going to the hospital so vehemently, I asked if she wanted me to go with her.

Immediately she agreed to letting the store call an ambulance for her. At first she wanted me to go in the ambulance with her, but then we were able to convince her to let me drive separately so I could drive her back to her car afterwards. She seemed relieved at the idea that there would be an afterwards (I suspect she was afraid of being admitted) and so I drove separately and actually got there a few minutes before the ambulance did.

I spent most of the afternoon by her bed in Emergency, talking with her about her children, her sisters and brothers, her house, her childhood. She was 90 years old, two years older than my mother would be were she still alive today. She shared my mother’s first name. The afternoon fairly flew by.

After she received a tentanus shot and three or four stitches, she was released and I drove her back to the pharmacy where she left her car. She thanked me, and refused my offer to drive her home. I heard from one of her daughters later that night that she was doing fine.

Ninety years old and still driving, running her own errands, living independently. I’m forty years younger and can’t walk a dozen city blocks without my leg muscles burning.