Day 25: Maybe I'll Skip Taking My Blood Pressure Today

 My (and your) yearly NaBloPoMo reminder that it is exactly ONE MONTH until Christmas, Jesus (and I don't mean that in the sense of 'it's your birthday')!

So the endoscopy thing turned into a bit of an ordeal, but it's over and I am glad about that. However much the phone call last night lessened my anxiety did not lessen it enough for me to fall asleep before 4 a.m. When I woke up, we were in the middle of a snowstorm.

Did I mention that I have an appointment to get winter tires put on TOMORROW?

I picked up my dad and it soon became apparent that plows had not been out at all, which was super fun. I had left plenty of time, and the Rav is pretty good in snow even without winter tires, so I wasn't overly concerned, just sort of exasperated - I remember the same thing happening with weather on multiple other occasions where we had to be at the hospital early. I mean, we live in the capital of Canada, it's not like this is statistically significant, but still.

Drop off went fine. I was pleased to see they had to set up a shelter for people that have to wait outside in line for Covid screening, but we didn't have to stand outside, there were only three or four people ahead of us, and as soon as we got in I told them my dad needed a wheelchair and an aide went and grabbed one and took him away.

My plan was to sit in the nicely sheltered parking garage and read until my dad was done. 

The nicely sheltered parking garage was full. Sigh. 

I drove around and found a side street and read for a bit, turning the car off until it got too cold and then turning it back on again. And waited. And waited.

I had thought he wouldn't be long, because when I had my endoscopy we were in and out in forty-five minutes, and with Covid I had heard that appointments were moving even more quickly because they didn't want people hanging around the hospital. As usual with this kind of thing, I was wrong.

At the hour mark, I was getting a bit jumpy. I had thought it was great that I didn't have to wait in the hospital, but now I had no way of knowing if he was just waiting to go in, if there was some kind of problem, if he'd reacted badly to the anesthetic and everything had gone catastrophically wrong...

Did I mention I'm a little neurotic?

On top of all of this, I had to pee. 

We were now at the hour and a half mark. I drove down to the main street, thinking I'd look for a restaurant or something to dash in to, and then realized my friend Tanis lived right there. I parked and texted to find out if she was home and if she would let me use her bathroom if I wore a mask. She let me come in and gave me hand sanitizer and made me tea and showed me cute little knitted things and distracted me really graciously for forty-five minutes or so. Just as I was calling for a second time trying to get an update, the hospital called.

Everything was fine, of course it was. He had just had to wait for an hour before going in. He was perfectly content because I had put his phone on the hospital wi-fi when he was in, and it reconnected automatically (he didn't know this, he just was pleasantly surprised that he had wi-fi). I didn't need to text Matt twice asking for reassurance. I didn't need to sit in my car freaking out.

But how not to do this? I don't know how to not be who I am.

Tomorrow I go to get winter tires put on. I'm sure it will be a perfectly smooth process. What could go wrong?