5 pm

 5:16 exactly.  Bela dozing again.  New episodes of Sommerdahl not gripping us.  Today's early medical visit upset us in lots of ways.  Our lives are so quiet we are more fragile to changes and disconcerting disruptions.  All of which seem to go along with, be exacerbated by, events at the upper, larger scale of things.  Mid-term elections, family divorce rumblings.  And now this valve procedure seven years after the first one.  Grateful we are as we should be for the seven years after the first.  Why not as grateful for the prospect of having to do it once more with the hope of another good seven years?  The lifelong sense that doctors know what they are doing and know what to do becomes shakier.  They clearly are under great stress as well.  Big signs in every Speare location now about how anger and disruptive behavior will not be tolerated.  Do they use that phrase?  Not exactly, have to look again.  But it seems misguided to have such a big mini-billboard.  Perhaps it constitutes legal covering of issues.  Psychologically, though, does it do the good meant to do?  Does it help?  How to know.  

Reminder to self.  Chill.  Ignore your desire to have a say in what will happen next.  Can you help by seeking advice from others about where to go for this procedure?  Are you sure you want, or "want", DHMC?  Thought that place gave you the creeps?  More or less than CMC?  If the medical teams have set things up this way, who are you to demur or second-guess, or assume a so-called consumer reports stance from which to make a "more informed" judgment?  TV news spots like "Cost of Denial" does not help either.  Sarah says Dr K would favor DHMC over Concord, but would he also do so against CMC?  Should I call him and ask?  Would it be ethical for him to give me his opinion?  And why would I take his opinion over the doctors we work with now?  I might as well get involved in advising D and C's therapists over in Paris.  

I have this wonderful, huge Italian novel to bury my cares deep within.  Focus on those words, those clouds and wisps of meaning and non-meaning.  Clouds rolling over the landscape.  The gentle roll of the dryer tumbling the sheets and towels.