Walking. With All-Clear Signal.

~ Live & Learn

6:00 am. yesterday. Twilight.  Cove Island Park morning walk. 528 days. Almost in a row.

Parking lot is full.  I mean full…and don’t like it. Daylight Savings Time ends November 7th. Spring Forward. Fall Back. It can’t come soon enough. Clear this park of its Humans.

Fall Back.

Fall Back.

Doctor’s Office. One month ago.

“Have you fallen down?”
“Sure.”
“Sure?”
“Yes.”
“What do you mean?”

Early morning walk. Right toe catches large stone on beach. Think Stop, Drop and Roll.  But without the Stop and Roll.  It’s Drop and Splat.  Entire moment happens so fast, I’m rattled. Laying face first.

He prods and pokes around my abdomen. Lifts my shirt. Slides it back down again.

“What’s this?”

Same morning. Still mostly darkish twilight. I’ve brushed myself off. I’m walking beside the break wall. The pokey end of tree branch, sharp, dry, catches me on forehead, an inch above my eye. My good eye.

“Hmmmmm.  Who’s your GP?”

“Dr. H.”

“He’s not a GP. He was a Specialist. He’s retired.”

“Dr. H agreed to be my GP.”

“Well, you need to get a GP.”

“Here’s the plan Doc. I come here every 6 months. You run blood tests, you poke around, you tell me that I’m not unraveling, you tell me that I don’t need to go to another specialist.  I leave your office. YOU leave me feeling with such an amazing rush of gratitude, I can’t describe it.  And then we do it all over again in 6 months.”

I stare at him.

“Just the big stuff Doc. Just the big stuff.”

He stares at me.

“And don’t miss anything Doc.”

He makes a note in his chart.

I walk out the door.

And there it is. Again. As I exit the building. Warmth rushes up my torso. Tears well up.

Leaving the doctor, / The whole world looks different / This autumn morning. ~ Richard Wright.

Photo: DK @ Daybreak. 6:25 to 7:03 am, October 15, 2021. 61° F. Cove Island Park, Stamford, CT

43 thoughts on “Walking. With All-Clear Signal.”

  3. Are you sorry you wrote this yet, Dave? Lori, Karen, Mary Ann…an early triumvirate of wisdom encouraging and loving you into taking care of yourself. There must be a GP you can like… ask the doctor you went to see who his GP is. That would be a start. Think of it as getting your camera gear ready before you need it. I haven’t had coffee yet so that is probably not a good comparison. Breathe, find a GP and we will “see” you on 529.

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  6. All been said before me, my friend – though I totally get the thought process given that this echoes my conversations with my dr…Yet when I read that you do this, I want to admonish you – you’ve got way too many pictures to take, blogs to write, quotes to share, and family to love, for you to be dismissive…

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  7. I recall one time when my mother admitted to a fall. I was alarmed – she was in her 80s at the time – and I scolded her for whatever transgression i thought she committed. “Don’t worry about me”, she said, “I know how to fall!” Of course, that was not a satisfactory response to me, but then she explain when she felt a fall coming on, she relaxed and made sure she soft-landed, with her head protected.

    My father, in his 80’s at the time, too, had regular falls. It came to me to help him up. He noted that if I could get him on his hands and knees, he could support himself on a chair (whatever was near by) for support and use his upper body strength to get up. It worked!

    Later, when I was in my mid-50s, I came down with Wegener’s granulomatosis, requiring hospitalization at University Hospital in Denver. I required dialysis to reduce the fluid buildup caused by kidney involvement. As a quality analyst in an industrial and hydraulic hose factory at the time, I was very interested in processes, how things worked….

    The dialysis machine interested me, of course, and I asked the technicians if I could see the internal workings of the machine after the dialysis session. They agreed.

    When the session was over, I was disconnected from the machine, I stood up too fast and promptly fell (per my mother’s method, softly, with my head protected) to the floor. Everyone in the room was very agitated. Since I was bloated to almost 300 pounds at the time, the tiny Filipina and Filipino technicians called in a husky American male nurse to get me up.

    “If you can roll me on my hands and knees, I can crawl over to the recliner, then use my upper body strength to get up,” I helpfully suggested. With some effort, several people managed to get me positioned.

    Positioned in front of the recliner I tried to lighten the mood by making a silly comment,” Now, if someone will goose me, I think I can get up on the recliner!”

    “Oh, Mr. Thomas,” gasped the husky American male nurse, ” We don’t do that around here!”

    LOL! Thank God!

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  9. Reblogged this on It Is What It Is and commented:
    Early rising!! .. as a Doc I know!! … “. As I exit the building. Warmth rushes up my torso. Tears well up.” -Leaving the doctor / The whole world looks different / This autumn morning. ~ Richard Wright.

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  10. I’m only a slightly bigger fan of haiku than I am of epic poems, but that one of Wright’s seems perfect — like your photo!

    My husband apparently has never looked down while moving and it’s never going to change, now, but your post reminded me of a friend who has always been a physical danger to herself. I am now wondering if the problem might be peripheral vision related, because I just wondered that about you.

    I’m glad you’re okay!

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  11. Another terrific shot. Like you, I am qually grateful every day for my health. Other an appendectomy at age 12, I am still (knock on wood) in one piece. Keep it together dude. Keep that refreshing array of daily culture coming

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  12. This is indeed a beautiful shot DK. Wow re your eye. That is scary business. I worry about your doctor’s comments… You take care of your body. It’s the only one you have! Your fans love you and want you around for much longer…

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  13. I got drawn into your shot just as I got drawn into your story.
    Both relatable. Both touching. One, through its beauty. The second, through its pricking of my own emotional pain points.
    And those tears…
    I hate it when someone sees through and into me when I’m trying to pretend I’m A-ok. Dang. How dare they!

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  18. Ooh-h I’m so glad I saw this post and incredibly gorgeously dramatic sunrise photo! Your post…hurt to read, but you seem to have made it relatively unscathed. Couldn’t help but see that you began your post with anger at the prospect of so many other humans being there–could that have set an interfering mood? [can’t help but listen and attend with my psychotherapist habits]. Also relate to the feelings about acquiring a contingent of doctors to visit…I inquired when I had to choose a GP, and found someone who is not an “alarmist”! She will recommend tests to make sure of things (things that could possibly be wrong in this body). So far, so good. And, thanks to Doug Thomas for his report and his humor. Your posts and everyone’s responses certainly elicit myriad memories. Glad I’m a good faller–in a recent fall a silky sock caused me to slip on a friend’s floor and I was able to lunge to safety to avoid hitting my face, jaw, and eye, but managed to reach the edge of a sofa and only bruise my upper left rib. That took 2 weeks to heal enough to be able to play tennis. Please, let the beauty and your gift for sharing take the lead in caring for YOU!

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