The insults flew fast and furious yesterday morning, coming mostly from the universe and my own decrepit body, so it was hardly surprising when an elderly stranger joined in on the act. It wasn’t long past 8 am and though I pretended not to hear her question, there was a part of me that longed to reply “I often wonder the same thing.”
We were standing at the front desk of the movement disorder clinic, checking in for our appointments, and she’d been stewing as we awaited our turns, irritated first by the long line ahead of us and again when she realized parking wasn’t free. The clerk who was assisting her must’ve been scanning her insurance card as I answered my clerk’s questions, because she idly listened in as I was asked “Did you use the garage?”
After I said no, the clerk continued “Valet parking?” Tired and ready to move on from questions about parking validation, I distractedly replied “I walked over.” What I meant was that I’d been on-campus earlier for GI testing and came directly from that. Crankenstein had dropped me off on the street before parking in her own paid lot and heading to her nearby office. Once I was done, I’d take a Lyft to my next destination. But the ornery eavesdropper beside me apparently assumed that I’d walked from my home, wherever it was — and it seemed to make her angry.
“Why are you here then?” she snapped, turning to face me. Taken aback, I ignored her, even as the clerk stared at her in surprise. If I’d slept more than three hours the night before, I might’ve cracked a joke. There were sarcastic questions I could’ve asked had I wanted to make her uncomfortable in return, maybe about her psychic abilities or the freedom with which she moved despite having a few decades on me. But you’d have to be a jackass yourself to be upset with her in the first place; her outburst obviously had nothing to do with me.
She was simply stressed and having a bad morning. Mine hadn’t been great either and wasn’t about to get better.* Considering the setting, she may well have been frightened — there was a neuropsychologist conducting cognitive exams in the office that day, and for all I knew my crotchety inquisitor was there for one. I related to those scenarios more than she would’ve guessed based solely on my age, which I suspect was all she noticed prior to her remark. Had I responded to her at all, it probably would’ve been with, “The eternal question.”
* I wanted to cry when the doctor said we don’t have many choices for dealing with my sleep. She said to avoid ZzzQuil or Benadryl and give an increased dosage of melatonin one last try. If that doesn’t work — and last night it didn’t, but hopefully tonight will be better — we’ll try clonazepam or clonidine. Crankenstein wants me to avoid benzos, and I agree, so clonidine is the likeliest option. It could potentially help with my overnight leg movements, which we’ve confirmed still happen when the levodopa wears off.
The rest of the appointment was devoted to Botox. If anyone shares my sister’s curiosity about how that works, the doctor has a row of syringes, each containing enough Botox to inject several sites. I pull my hair into a (messy) bun and she pushes on my neck, shoulders and the back of my head from different angles, mapping her injection spots and dosages on a computerized anatomical model of head and neck muscles. Then she administers the shots. My rigidity was bad enough this time that she increased the dosage and requested insurance cover more next time. The only complication was she accidentally hit a vein; she massaged it for a while, trying to reduce the bruising, but there’s currently a decent knot bulging from my neck.