You are not seeing this post on the wrong day, and I have not gone back in time. I guess I just didn’t get enough of St. Patrick’s Day this year. I think the green is out of my system now.
Hey! I got my CT scan results back from the radiologist today. Unfortunately, it’s written in Doctorese, so I need my surgeon to translate it into Patientese for me. That appointment is set for April, so… I hurry up and wait. But from what I can interpret of the CT’s report, somewhere on some part of what’s left of my pancreas is calcifying. I hate when that happens. It’s not a good finding, but for all I know it’s a minor thing that can be fixed relatively simply. I refuse to get ahead of myself and start worrying about the negative possibilities. Like I’ve said before, worrying is Suzanne’s job. I’ll wait to see what the doctor says.
I remembered something that happened when I was at my Hanky Panky doctor’s last month, where someone was helping me make the appointment for the CT scan appointment I just had. She was holding my file when she wrote something on a Post-It note and stuck it inside the file. I didn’t think too much about her writing a note about me, but while she was on the phone, my eye caught sight of the note. I read the two words: “Fart trash.” I was immediately embarrassed to think that perhaps I had unknowingly passed some gas and everyone but me knew it. How could I not know if I had done that? And it must have been distinctly horrific if this woman felt she had to write a note about it and put it in my medical file. I tried to hide in my chair. I figured I better let her just schedule my scan and get the Heck Tate out of Dodge as quickly as possible.
So the woman’s on the phone, arranging my CT scan and I hear her say to whoever is on the other end of the line, “She needs to be put on the CT fast track list. The fast track.” It took me a second, but then it hit me. The woman had not scribbled “fart trash” in my file, accusing me of creating indoor air pollution. It’s just that her handwriting was so illegible I couldn’t read the two words, “fast track,” correctly. I was elated to know I had caused no olfactory harm to anyone—I merely needed a fast track CT scan, as in ASAP. I was relieved to know I’m not Fart Trash, after all—I’m just the same redneck White Trash I was always meant to be, otherwise inoffensive to the nose.