#Treva says the entire state of Iowa is a liminal place

[jennhoney]

I somehow yet again missed a call from my neurologist. He yet again called me himself. That’s wild for a specialist, I think? Everything is relatively fine. My tests keep coming back normal or close to normal. It’s just that my body isn’t working. I’m almost certain it’s not currently getting worse and it might actually be a tiny bit better very recently. So we decided to wait a month and touch base at the end of August. I have stuff to tell him but I think it can wait and I’m curious to see if I can get a little better in that time.

But I want to tell you and @songbirdstew about the building that my neurologist is in. I think it is a liminal space. Our town has a whole neighborhood called The Medical Quarter and it’s right next to downtown and, not to brag but, I’ve been to a lot of the hospitals and medical offices in the Quarter lately. A LOT. They are all pleasant, bustling, busy places. Except for the building my neurologist is in. This building is right in the middle of everything. It’s between two large hospitals and a ton of other medical buildings. To help paint the picture my cardiologist (and lots of other stuff) is in Med Pavilion 1 and my neurologist is across the street in Med Pavilion 2. But I can’t really tell you what medical Pavilion 2 looks like. I sat and stared out the window at it when they were stopping my heart at my stress test. It’s sort of tucked behind a Firestone. It must be taller than the Firestone but I cannot for the life of me picture it. I have a clear image of the parking ramp. There are always plenty of spaces very close to the door but that’s pretty common for Iowa. We’re a great place to park. Stepping into the building feels like stepping into a very nice, bigger on the inside, empty elevator. This could be explained by it being the overflow building, maybe they aren’t at capacity yet but they anticipate growth. We have a lot of old people. Anyway, this is the building where I was accidentally called back for a mental health check when I was actually there for bloodwork and they quickly realized had “the wrong Jennifer”. But the thing I may not have mentioned at the time was that I was sitting in a big empty waiting room. Not only was there not another Jennifer in there. There wasn’t another soul in there. Medical Pavilion 2 is also not in the MyChart system. Everything else that I’ve done seems to be. I don’t get any reminders about appointments I don’t have any way to verify appointments or reread appointment notes. When I do have to get bloodwork there it goes through some weird journey where they apparently walk it over to the main collection site, a few blocks away, and ask them to book an appointment for the blood they’ve already taken. I know this because once that happens I get a notification that I have a bloodwork appointment in like five minutes but it has already happened in the futurePast that is Medical Pavilion 2. Some such bloodwork came back over two weeks ago. I could see it in MyChart. But I knew something was wrong when I still hadn’t heard anything from the office last week. So I was talking to someone from the office and explained that I had read my report in MyChart and I was pretty sure it said I was normal but I wanted some confirmation from someone that knows what they are doing and she said, “I don’t see it. Did you say you read it in..” and she says a word that I assume is their system but I have never heard in my life and I swear was something like Morpheus or Excalibur. So just before 5 tonight I get a call from my neurologist and I miss it by a second. I keep my phone on mute almost all the time so that wouldn’t be weird except I think I was holding my phone (although not looking at it) and NOW I have a smartwatch that lights up and vibrates on on my wrist when I get calls and texts and I didn’t feel a thing. I only caught the light and motion on my wrist of the words Missed Call fading away. And in the voicemail message my neurologist apologizes for not hearing from him sooner he- “tried to leave a message” on my bloodwork results “but I don’t think it went through”.

So, if I vanish at the end of August for a little while I’m likely on a journey in the Fey realm or some shit.