Feeling a Little Nehemiah-esck Today

Oh Tuesday morning, (the actual day and morning, not the store) you are most welcomed. Guess mainly due to the fact that I get to ease into today. Yesterday, I was up at 6:00 am and yes it has been quite some time since I've had to rouse myself that early to be ready to hit the road by 7:30 am. I had a fasting blood lab appointment first thing. After giving blood I was on to the tastier portion of the day, breaking the fast at Buffalo Grille. For 45 minutes I ate, read and sipped cinnamon toasted coffee. Delicious! And like other early morning visits there I learned a lot about real estate, investments and the local political scene. Most men do not visit with their inside voices. There was a good smattering of ladies who breakfast with the noticeable lack of children due to school. Only one well behaved toddler was in our midst.


After a relaxing breakfast I was off to the medical center for my cardiologist appointment. A little more confident this trip in comparison to my last journey into the bowels of medicine, I allowed 45 minutes to drive, valet, and arrive just a tad early for my appointment. This perfect time mapping plan was nearly nixed by a dangerous minivan driver. He and I was surprised it was a man driving the beast, stops traffic in the middle of Fannin to let out two passengers whose efficiency of de-vaning the minivan was atrocious. They must have mistaken the wires overhead for a porte cache. (Knew I could work in my favorite word into the old blog this morning) Everyone behind me is honking, not just short toots of the horn but a laying into of said horns. I wanted to get out of my car to proclaim my innocence of it not being me stopping traffic but the stupid minivan. Of course I kept my composure because low numbers were of the essence for my forthcoming appointment. After sometime of the leisure actions of the minivan, he moved on, straight to valet parking... Uh, they couldn't have waited for the light to change and make a right turn? Anyway, I wanted to give this man a glaring of a lifetime, but how can one do so when the gentleman makes no eye contact? And I promise you this man had his pants hiked up so high, way past a waistline so that his belt touched the bottom of his shirt pocket, and with that my glare would have soon turned to a snicker if there had been eye contact. Uh, that has to be uncomfortable in the southern hemisphere region of the body. Dude, the man wasn't overweight at all, so it was really odd to see pants that high.


I arrived with 7 minutes to spare to a waiting room filled with old people. I realized most of these people's appointments were after mine. I think this doctor's office has realized the mistake of having closed sliding windows at the front desk area and locks on the door to the sacred back rooms. The elderly don't feel so shut out and don't make the every 5 minute trip to the window with specious questions and their motive is just to make sure they KNOW that they are THERE with it all open. Each time the nurse came to the waiting room and called out a name, the lucky named called went back and left the rest to ponder who would be named at the next calling. On one trip the nurse called out the name and no one responded. He called the name again, left for a moment and came back to call for the next named appointment. Some were gleeful in that they had moved up when the no show had left, whether it was for a short trip to the bathroom or had left for the day.


My name was called (so long suckers :) ) and I didn't get a room with a view this visit. Fine by me, I had a great read going on. Now I had dressed in case the appointment was short so that I could attend a funeral i.e. a dress. That was certainly the wrong choice of clothing because I had to do another EKG. Note to self, no more dresses to cardiologist appointments. After that laughable experience it was rather mundane for the rest of the appointment. But they spent two hours with me, asking questions, running tests, asking more questions, giving me answers and then the final verdict of the Dr coming in and giving me the plan. He said, my patients are only those whose lives are falling apart and I think today will be a significant step toward rebuilding you. My thoughts immediately turned to the book of Nehemiah. My heart walls were broken down, gates destroyed and had been left in ruin. Now here came a Doctor who has inspected it all, the bad and the good, the improvements and the lack of improvement, the job started but then stalled and says, "let's start rebuilding." I replied back to him, "yes, let's start the rebuilding and begin this good work."