Tonight's picture was taken in October of 2007. We took Mattie to a pumpkin patch at Butler's Orchard in Maryland. One of his favorite farms --- where he got to ride on a wagon which took us out to a field to pick a pumpkin right off the vine! Butler's Orchard was an experience filled with a corn maze, a barn filled with hay for the kids to jump in, and just a lot of old fashioned fun!
Quote of the day: Resolve to be tender with the young, compassionate with the aged, sympathetic with the striving and tolerant with the weak and wrong. Sometime in your life, you will have been all of these. ~ Gautama Buddha
I went to Virginia Hospital Center (VHC) today to get testing done of one of my issues. Going to VHC is always an experience. It is a very different hospital experience for the most part, though I don't want to be there either. No hospital is better than any hospital. PERIOD! However, VHC for the most part at least tries to have a customer service interface that helps! Naturally when you aren't feeling well, dealing with a friendly face can make a huge difference.
Sitting in outpatient lab services today, I can safely say it was a zoo! I must have been there two hours waiting to get tests done. However, the woman who was overseeing the process and taking names and processing us through the system was stellar. She made the experience and she reminded me of Budda's quote tonight. She helped everyone! The young, the old, the frail, and she was sympathetic to all of our needs! I really think without someone like her, the crowd could have gotten totally out of control and unruly. But she kept thanking people for their patience, updated each of us on our wait, and she helped me by allowing me to go to the restroom several times! So she and I were already on the same page!
In the midst of one hospital experience today, I worked it out so that I can see my other doctor tomorrow. She happened to have relocated herself to Baltimore. But Peter and I are making the trip to see her and I am happy that she is fitting me in because I do not think I could handle the anxiety another minute longer. I remember reading research about the physical impact of caregiving and grief on people when I was in graduate school, but now I am a living case study. It feels absolutely awful and I can't stand the constant medical scares, not to mention the taxing nature of feeling ill. All in all, it is absolutely draining on all levels and truly hard to describe.
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