Last week, I was sitting in the waiting room at my cardiologist’s working on this when who should come out but my rheumatologist.
He wasn’t expecting me and didn’t see me with my mask on so I called out his name as he went by.
He spun around in delight. I introduced him to my daughter. He looked at the knitting in my hands and exclaimed, “Oh, that’s pretty! Who’s it for?”
“The doctor who operated on my retina two weeks ago,” I told him, realizing as I said it that, wait, in all these years, I’d never knit anything for *him* and I’d known him a whole lot longer.
If it occurred to him he never let on. He cheerfully said to Michelle, “If you live long enough you’re going to need two things: a cardiologist and a rheumatologist.” And then he laughed at his own joke.
But it WAS funny, because the last time I’d seen him, a year ago, he’d sent a message afterwards marveling that “After all these years, for the first time, the ANA is negative.”
ANA being antibodies to the nuclei of one’s own cells, ie the single most definitive marker for lupus.
So I’d lived long enough to, in fact, not need him–assuming that holds.
“The system is fluid,” he told me years ago when I asked if an allergic reaction now meant one forever because I had seemed to have had less of a one on an exposure, and I’d thought it always went the other way, ie getting worse each time. Curious. I’ll take it!
Anyway. So today I finished all but weaving in the ends for this other guy.
Maybe there’ll have to be an appointment made, remission or not.
Or maybe I can just drop one off at the desk in his department with a thank you for looking out for me all these years.
I’ll have to actually, y’know, decide on yarn and colors and knit one before I can start debating delivery methods.