Hospital time

Yesterday (Thursday, December 9, 2010) we had a medical appointment at 1 p.m.
We had been told it would take a half-hour.
Okay, take wife in with magazines for me to read to accompany her throughout the appointment.
This was instead of dropping her off, returning home, and then coming back to get her — what we do if appointments are long.
Lock dog in house with radios on.
We arrived at 1:04 for the appointment, and were checked in.
Go sit and wait — read magazines.
The appointment began about 2 p.m.
Time passed ever-so-slowly.
It was an anti-cancer chemo infusion.
My wife has cancer, but it’s not a death-sentence, I guess.
She seems fine, but I worry.
We function as a team.
As a stroke-survivor myself I’m not very good at interacting with people, especially by telephone.
My speech is slightly compromised.
So my wife does it.
She also tends to our dog; better than I would alone.
What I do is be taxi-driver, and I do the banking and accounting.
The financial stuff I would tend to do anyway, but my wife has a hard time driving.
So what I do is cart her around myself; e.g. take her to this medical appointment.
So already an hour had passed since 1 p.m.
Hours more passed.
I could have returned home and walked our dog.
Dropoffs and retrievals could have been dog-accompanied; not the dog locked alone in our house.
The appointment ended about 4:20; the sun was setting outside.
By the time we were on our way home it was getting dark.
By then the slam-dunk automated parking machines were off, so a massive traffic-jam was at the parking-lot exit.
We weren’t on the road until about 5 p.m., so parrying NASCAR rush-hour in the dark.
Giant traffic-jams hither-and-yon, traffic slowed to a crawl.
And look out for the NASCAR wannabees, desperate to get home for “Dancing With the Tarts.”
“Do you see how much slop I’m leaving?” I said. “I wanna be able to parry the cut-offs, and stop if necessary without drama.”
It was dark when we got home.
Not a light was on in our house.
We hadn’t planned it that way.
Our poor dog had been abandoned for hours.
And it had gotten dark.
It looked like a medical-appointment for me I had rescheduled was not gonna work.
I had scheduled it for an afternoon following a morning appointment for my wife.
But under hospital-time a half-hour may become three hours.

• “My wife” of almost 43 years is Linda. She had lymphatic cancer. It was treatable with chemotherapy — she survived. Like me she’s retired, but she worked part-time at the West Bloomfield post-office. She no longer works there. (We live in the small rural town of West Bloomfield in Western NY, southeast of Rochester.)
• Our current dog is “Scarlett;” a rescue Irish-Setter. She’s five, and is our sixth Irish-Setter. (A “rescue Irish Setter” is an Irish Setter rescued from a bad home; e.g. abusive or a puppy-mill. By getting a rescue-dog, we avoid puppydom, but the dog is often messed up. —Scarlett isn't too bad.)
• I had a stroke October 26, 1993, and it slightly compromised my speech. (Difficulty putting words together.)
• RE: “Do you see how much slop I’m leaving.....” —For 16&1/2 years (1977-1993) I drove transit bus for Regional Transit Service (RTS) in Rochester, NY, a public employer, the transit-bus operator in Rochester and its environs. It made me a defensive driver.
• “Dancing With the Tarts” is Dancing With the Stars.