Well…. We had rain yesterday that approached a quantity of rainfall that was like the famous atmospheric river that we had about four years ago. Around 3:00, after a day of constant rain, but nothing like what came later in the day, there was a brief respite from precipitation, so Sheba and I headed for the trails.
Kevin was driving by as we arrived, so he stopped to walk with us. Lucky me! He is one terrific guy. He always makes me feel really good because he betrays joy in my company. And that thrills me. Because he’s extraordinarily handsome? What? Do you think I’m that shallow? Well, yes, I am. He is a gorgeous man, and he is currently wonderfully tanned.
So, we walked together and as we approached the last leg of the walk, down came the river. Oh my God! Sheba and I were soaked to the skin. So, as soon as I got back, I lit another small fire to help her, and my clothes, dry off. It didn’t last too long, the rain. It soon settled into the kind of rain we’d been having all day.
In the evening, I watched His Three Daughters, and I loved it. Three women, a few cameo supporting players, and almost only one set. It could have been a play. Two things stuck out for me: the writing and the editing. I loved how scenes ended with sudden, immediate and sharp cuts. And guess what: Azazel Jacobs did both the writing and the editing.
Carrie Coon. I’d never heard of her, but what a tour de force actor she is! And her co-stars, Natasha Lyonne and Elizabeth Olsen are equally impressive. Everyone is perfect, but then the writer is absolutely brilliant. They get all their clues in the script. I loved this movie.
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I got a letter in the mail yesterday telling me to come to Nanaimo Hospital or a myocardial profusion scan. This will be my second such scan. I had the first one when I was around 40, and I told myself I would kill myself before I ever had another one. I just hope over time, the methodology has changed.
The first time was at Vancouver General. I reported in and they sent me into a cubicle to change into one of those diaphanous wonders they make you wear, and then I was taken to the nuclear medicine department where I was seated on a chair, where I waited for quite a while for a procedure that I knew nothing about.
Then two nurses came in. The front one was carrying the biggest fucking syringe I had ever seen. She was carrying it with the cartridge horizontally with two hands. The other nurse carried a wooden cradle and some other things that were dangling down in front of her. I’m not kidding about the syringe. It terrified me, but the nurse quickly explained that she would be putting a normal size needle into my vein, and it would be attached to the needle on the gigantic syringe. The cartridge was full, and its contents were mildly radioactive. It was so odd to see them put a lead sheet over my crotch while they were injecting the radioactive material into my body. A tinny motor turned the tap key on the other end of the syringe, and the contents of the cylinder slowly were shoved into my body. I wondered if I would glow in the dark.
Next came the part I hated. With the help of attendants, I was lifted and laid onto a narrow beam that had a very small oval platform on it for my bum. The little oval and the beam were cold metal. Then, referencing diagram #25 in the Nazi Torture Manual, the attendants fastened my wrists together with my arms extended backward over my head and tied to the beam. This is not from a bad movie. I had to lay on the beam for 45 minutes while a giant cylinder machine whirled around my body.
After five minutes I was so uncomfortable I called out to the attendants, asking them to let me move my arms. They wouldn’t, but a nurse came over, sat beside me, and talked me through the torture until my arms went to sleep.
My reward came when my arms were untied, and I walked over to where the technicians were working with the machine and all its attendant computers. They showed me my heart on one of the screens, and they pointed out two yellow ‘icicles’ on my heart that were scars from two heart attacks.
They could rotate my heart in any direction and flip it and rotate it. They could look at every part of it, and by zooming in they could do a microscopic inspection. But what I remember most was the pain in my arms until they went to sleep. That’s why I swore, ‘never again.’
Well, never is coming in February. If there’s any way that I can regain some strength again, I will do all tests required. And then I will go to Nanaimo’s best bakery before coming home.
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This morning has dawned sunny and bright despite the prediction for more rain. It is, however, a cool eight degrees out there. I have a million little tasks to do today around the house. I shall be busy but there’ll be lots of resting as well. Plus, I hope to visit Dave next door to see how progress with the finishing of the interior of his yurt is going.
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