If you get sick
with something the doctors don’t understand
you will be labeled
unstable
mental
bipolar
crazy.
They will try to drug you.
How do you tell
when they are right
and you are crazy
brain on fire
and when you aren’t?
Don’t ask me.
I’m a Family Practice doc
and I’m rural
and I’m a girl.
I’m the one they make fun of in the medical schools. “The rural doctor transferred this patient.”
Yes we did.
Because we knew it was something
different
that needed more
than we had
in our small town
in our small hospital.
Once a neurosurgeon says,
“You are transferring the patient
because it’s Friday
and you don’t want to work
on the weekend.”
“She needs an MRI,” I say
“and we don’t have one.”
and transfer her anyway.
I call two days later.
After the MRI, she is in
the operating room
for a tumor in her spine.
He doesn’t call me back
but I hope he remembers.
I certainly do, after years
and years.
If you get sick with something the doctors don’t understand you will be labeled unstable mental bipolar crazy.
Sailing with my father after I’m divorced we take my two children. They and I are small. My father is frail, 55 years of Camel cigarettes in his lungs. “Papa,” I say, “How would we pull you in if you went overboard? We aren’t strong enough.” Nor is he strong enough to pull me in. My father thinks. “You are right,” he says, “We’ll make a Go Bag.” A 3 to 1 pulley, with a clip. We can clip it to the boom and push it out over the water. Attach the pulley to the life jacket and I can winch nearly anyone aboard. Maybe. We have it in a dry bag, with towels and chocolate and a set of sweats, a space blanket because the water is cold here, 45-55. My father knows, I’m sure, that if he falls in, he’d be unlikely to survive even if I did reel him in, an unlikely catch. We wear our life jackets and the kids do too.
One time we hit container ship waves when my son is on the bow. He is thrown up and drops, flat, prone on the bow, holding on. This boat has no railings but my children pay attention.
We never have to use the pulley.
____________________________
At first my father said that we could unhook the haul down and use the boom, but I said, if it’s me and two little kids and I have to drop sail and get back to someone, that is too hard. How do we make it easier?
For the Ragtag Daily Prompt stable, because maybe love is the only stable thing in an unstable world.
The bones of the great blue heron are so light, that I think it is standing on the floating kelp beds. I’d wish my bones were that light, but that would be osteoporosis. Maybe I could come back as a heron.
In Michigan, I was sent to the river trail, and that is where I saw this muskrat. Wikipedia says in one place on the muskrat entry that they primarily use their tails to swim and in another that they primarily use their back feet. This looks like tail, mostly, but I can’t be sure.
There was impressive storm damage, a lot of trees down or broken.
This is part of the North Country Scenic Trail, that goes from Vermont to North Dakota! Eight states. I want to read more about it and hike some of it.
I am having a few friends over and am checking to see if there are any food needs. Since my March 2021 pneumonia, I can’t eat gluten. Weird, huh? But antibodies tend to rise as we get older, darn them. And there can be a rising baseline. Double darn.
Anyhow, I have some funny friends. My query “Is there anything you don’t eat?” got these responses:
“I don’t eat anchovies or dried fishies or grubs.”
“We eat everything in moderation.”
“shellfish, giant rubbery cooked mushrooms….”
“liver”
They crack me up! I think I invited the right people.
Now, let’s see, what is my menu, with no liver, gluten, shellfish, giant rubbery cooked mushrooms, anchovies, dried fishies or grubs? Tough, huh? Pretty narrow range left.
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I took the photograph at the Great Port Townsend Bay Kinetic Sculpture Race in September 2022. Pretty earnest discussion going on among an interesting group.
I have been thinking in a desultory manner or perhaps not really thinking about the A to Z April Challenge. I want to have a whole month of my mother’s fabulous art, but what is my theme? Mothers? No. Women artists? No. Discrimination against women artists? Sigh, no. Oh! I read an article yesterday about how the negative and nasty headlines get the major clicks. Today I read another very nice kind blog post about putting something nice into the world. So that gives me my theme! My mother’s art and daily evil impulses.
Impulses, not actions. Don’t we all feel those nasty impulses? Now I am interested in my own theme: how does that tie into my mother’s art? You don’t know? I don’t know either, but I know that many of us have complex feelings about our mothers. You might too. What does her art reveal or what does it trigger in me? And you get to enjoy her art, while you react with prim or gleeful horror at the Daily Evil Art Impulse.
Happy April!
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The first photograph is of one of Helen Burling Ottaway’s watercolors. It is signed, matted and shrink wrapped. Date: 1996. She died of cancer in 2000. I do not know the title, but this is Lake Matinenda, in Ontario, Canada. My maternal family has land there and I have gone there since age 5 months.
My camillia has some blossoms now, but for the most part it is still shy! Usually it blooms in February and sometimes even January, but this year it feels like the blossoms are hovering. When will the weather warm a little? This bloom is buried in the plant, but the surface buds are still waiting.
Discover and re-discover Mexicoβs cuisine, culture and history through the recipes, backyard stories and other interesting findings of an expatriate in Canada
Engaging in some lyrical athletics whilst painting pictures with words and pounding the pavement. I run; blog; write poetry; chase after my kids & drink coffee.
Refugees welcome - FlΓΌchtlinge willkommen I am teaching German to refugees. Ich unterrichte geflΓΌchtete Menschen in der deutschen Sprache. I am writing this blog in English and German because my friends speak English and German. Ich schreibe auf Deutsch und Englisch, weil meine Freunde Deutsch und Englisch sprechen.
KO Rural Mad As Hell Blog 
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