Tag Archives: box

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Experience

Friday I left for the Fourth of July, but not for fireworks. I went to help pack for a move. My family moved every 1-5 years through my childhood, and then I moved too. College, work, work, medical school, residency, first doctor job. Second job and I stuck: I have not moved for 25 years. Travel yes, move no. But like Martha, I am thinking about all those books! I am working on cutting them down to size and many fewer favorites.

Anyhow, I have quite a bit of experience packing and moving. When my family moved from upstate New York to Alexandria, Virginia, the movers stacked the plates with newsprint between. Every single plate in the pile broke. My mother was furious. She said the packers should have nested them on their sides, so they don’t break the one below. We shall see if my experience is useful or not.

I bubble wrapped this lamp and then packed it in a big box with more bubble wrap and a lot of t-shirts. Yes, I should take the shade of but it would have required a special tool that we didn’t have. Or a trip to a lamp store. There was not enough time. The moving truck comes Wednesday or Thursday. We were nearly done when I left to drive back to Grand Junction. Newsprint, bubble wrap, a pack for glasses and quite a few boxes. I hope it all makes it!

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: pack.

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Expert level

No, Elwha has not been found. I have lots of photographs. He was a funny cat. Ate too much and then tried to trade toys for food when I decreased what I fed him. He loved boxes and he loved tummy rubs. He seemed to think about food, tummy rubs and sleep, mostly. He would like to catch birds. He was not sedentary but was expert level at relaxing.

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: sedentary.

The song is by the Yes Yes Boys: Everybody’s Crazy About the Doggone Blues. I think Elwha would like it.

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In the box

Wednesday was interesting and frustrating and part was beautiful.

The beautiful part was arriving at the Kingston, Washington ferry dock early. I took photographs of the quite gorgeous light display while I waited for the 6:25 ferry.

On the other side, I drove to Swedish Hospital, Cherry Hill. There I had another set of pulmonary function tests. The technician was very good. She said that since I have a normal forced vital capacity it does not look like asthma. However, a ratio was at 64% of normal, which is related to small airways.

“Have you had allergy testing?” she asks, “And a methacholine challenge?”

“Yes,” I say. “Both. In 2014. No allergies at all and the methacholine was negative.”

“Hmmmm.” she says.

Afterwards we call pulmonary. I have an appointment on this next Wednesday but we call and ask if there is a cancellation and I can get seen today, since I am two hours from home already.

Yes, there is, but I have to hurry to Issaquah, Washington.

There is an accident on the I90 bridge, so I do not think I will make it. But I am there by ten and the pulmonologist will see me. I check in, fill out paperwork, wait, go in the room, a medical assistant asks questions.

The pulmonologist comes in. He is nice and is able to pull up the chest CT from 2012, two of them since the first one “couldn’t rule out cancer”. Since I am referred for hypoxia without a clear cause, he questions me about my heart. Echocardiogram, zio patch (2), bubble study, yeah, it has all been normal. I describe getting sick and tachycardic and hypoxic and coughing.

“Do you cough anything up?”

“No.”

“Do you cough now?”

“Yes, if I exercise or get tired.”

He is like many physician specialists that I have seen. He has a number of pulmonary diagnoses, or boxes. Emphysema, COPD, lung cancer, bronchiectasis, chronic bronchitis, the progressive muscular disorders. All of those are ruled out in the past. So he puts me in the asthma box.

“I thought asthma was ruled out with the methacholine.” I say.

“Well, you have SOMETHING going on in the lower airways, and it was present in the 2021 and the 2012 pulmonary function tests. Maybe an asthma medicine will help.”

I mention ME-CFS and my muscles not working right, but he only deals with lungs. He won’t say a word about those disorders.

Sigh. I do not get the improvement with albuterol that diagnoses asthma on the pfts and never have. The formal reading of the pfts is that I do not meet criteria for asthma but there is something in the lower airways.

Monsters, maybe? I’ll try the inhaler, though with skepticism. Antibodies seem like a better guess, but antibodies are outside this pulmonologist’s set of boxes.

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The photograph is from Swedish, Cherry Hill, bird’s eye view from the balcony.

Methacholine test.

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relegated

you’ve relegated me to one small box

a place in your life, Sunday morning
not every Sunday, but some Sundays
to work together on the tree house
and talk a little

well, you talk. I am supposed to listen
and give another perspective. I don’t get to
pick the topic.

You don’t answer emails: not the poems,
not the essays. I am not your Facebook friend,
we don’t have dinner like civilized friends
you would not mention my birthday
nor will you take me out on your boat.
Holidays are on ignore. You even agreed
to watch my cat and left her, after one day.

you’ve relegated me to one small box

I climb out and wander the streets, howling

I am unedited, unwashed, unpredictable, unrelegated

howling about you and your treatment of me

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Happy cat

This is for photrablogger’s Mundane Monday Challenge #46. Boa Cat eschews all commercial cat scratch posts and blankets and containers, but she likes to lie by me in the early morning when I write. I took a box and put one of my fleece jackets in it. Purrrfect. She curls up there in the morning and I can move the box easily. She likes it best on the table in the middle of everything so that she can watch when I leave for work.

Next I will decorate the box… I need some beautiful paper for Boa.

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Under covers

U is for under covers in the Blogging from A to Z Challenge.

Under covers I had this dream:

I am in a large space, no walls. No grass or sky or sun either. There are boxes everywhere.

A male voice is telling me to get in a box.

“Which one?” I say.

“You may pick.” says the voice.

I look at the boxes. They are all next to each other, all different shapes. Square, octagonal, pentagon. They are made of wood and carved or inlaid. There are many beautiful designs, all different. I step from box to box.

“They are too small.” I say.

“If you sit down and tilt your head to the side, you fit.”

“That isn’t comfortable.” I say, after trying to sit. “It’s too small.”

“Pick a box.” the voice insists.

No, I think. I won’t. They are too small.

“Why do I need to be in a box?” I ask.

I wake up.