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March 3, 1997
The plan was to go back to Harvard today to hear a lecture demonstration by Ted Levin and Huun-Huur-Tu (see yesterday's entry) at Paine Hall this afternoon at 4:00 and possibly attend a colloquium there at 7:30 tonight as well. But Nancy wouldn't let me continue to ignore the mysterious knee thing. So after sleeping late and having a leisurely bagel with egg and cheese and small dark roast black at Dunkin' Donuts, off I went to spend the rest of the day at the local walk-in medical center. Fortunately, Nancy went with me.
We got to the walk-in, I signed the waiting list to check in. We waited for a long time. Maybe an hour. They finally called me to check in. Then I waited for another hour or so to be called to be actually looked at. While waiting, we watched the news on television. The weather dudes were predicting a "big storm" 2 to 5 inches (what is with them? snow deprivation warps the mind?) with heaviest snowfalls in the Providence area. This didn't bode well for my driving Nancy home.
Then boring soap operas came on. We entertained ourselves by noticing the other patients coming in to the clinic. We counted at least 4 other people limping. One guy said he did it snow boarding. A woman came out of the clinic limping. This is getting weird. We decided Tonya Harding was hiding somewhere in the Merrimack Valley ambushing people at random. Either that or there's a rare limping virus previously unknown to science. People go in limping and come out still limping. Doo doo doo doo (twilight zone theme music)...
I finally get seen. They x-ray my knee six ways from Sunday. Nothing. They check for swelling and scare me by telling me they suspect a blood clot. The doctor measures my calf just below the left knee. Then he measures the calf below the right knee and compares. Since the painful knee is smaller than the non-painful knee, he concludes it's not swollen so is probably not a blood clot. He prescribes prescription strength motrin, a single aspirin a day, heat, and elevation. He says if it's not better in 2 to 4 days I should come back for an ultrasound to see if there's a blood clot. This doesn't make me feel warm and happy. I'm supposed to be relieved, so I act relieved.
By this time it's after 2:00PM and Nancy and I are both starving. We can't possibly drive to Cambridge without lunch, so we head over to Val's Sandwich Shop. Nancy has chicken Caesar salad. I have vegetable stir fry. By the time we're finished, it's after 3:00. We'll never make it to Cambridge by 4:00 so we abandon our plan.
Back at my place, we listen to the CD Nancy bought at the concert and then browse the web for information on Tuva. We followed nearly all the links from the Friends of Tuva site and read aloud to each other from articles on Ralph Leighton's trip to Tuva, Huun-Huur-Tu, discography, Richard Feynman, etc. until I get tired in the middle of reading aloud a transcript of a 2 hour CBC radio show.
So we didn't make it to the lecture/demonstration or the colloquium. I drove Nancy to the bus station, drove home, elevated my leg with a hot pack and watched sitcoms.
Weather:: where's the snow?
Music: I'm listening to Huun-Huur-Tu's latest album, If I'd
Been Born an Eagle as I write this.
Reading: Lonely Planet Guide to Russia, Ukraine, and
Belarus.