Out of pills. No refills left.

So after a few days of them not contacting my doctor, I called the GI at 4:50 on Friday afternoon to see if they’d refill it. They told me the office was closed and laughed at me.

Totally fair.

I called back on Monday morning and asked again, and they said, “What? Dr. Patel is retired! I don’t even know what you’re doing here. What nonsense is this, woman?”**

And I thought, what?! No note, no farewell party, just GONE? Rude as hell!

“Would you like to make an appointment with his daughter, Anna?”

I mean I guess I did. She could see me Thursday.

Today is Thursday, and I just went in. I saw another doctor who was not a Patel. She asked about my last colonoscopy*. “In 2023, right?”

“No, I had one last summer.”

“You did? I don’t have that down.”

“Yeah, with Dr. Amrit Patel.”

“Dr. Amit Patel?”

“No, Dr. AmRIT Patel. You know, Dr. Anna’s father.”

“Oh, AmIT Patel.”

“AmRIT Patel.”

“Anna’s father is Dr. Amit, and he just retired.”

So I somehow got connected with the wrong answering service and got pulled into Amit and Anna’s system, but if they’re going to get me back on Entyvio, then I really don’t give a darn. Dr. Amrit Patel is allegedly still practicing on Irving Park and Central in the abandoned hospital.

Which leads me to wonder, does Dr. Amrit Patel really exist? It does explain all the old-school sulfa drugs from Ago…

 

 

*Don’t worry, no details. Just know it’s important to the story.

**I’m paraphrasing. I know subtext when I hear it.

I felt a pang yesterday.

“Dramatic play” is a term that I had never come across before I was a teacher. When I was a kid, we played pretend and dollhouse and acted out and filmed scenes and movies and did all those games in which you told a story that you just made up spontaneously. Sometimes I would become aware of it for a moment: when we had just had a great time and created a whole world that we were totally excited about. It usually happened soon before the parents picked up and you could see everything you did from the outside.

I haven’t felt like that since I was about 13 or so. Not performing plays, for sure–that’s a serious process that counts on you to use your craft to perform your role well because 4-50 people are counting on you doing so. It’s work. It’s fun work, but it is still serious.

But yesterday, I felt the pang of it. I was thinking about my band Agrophonia‘s concept album we’re working on, and it’s fun. It’s not work, it doesn’t have the pall of “serious” around it, and the two of us are working on it with no pressure at all. We’re storytelling for the pleasure of storytelling. The story can be outrageous. We can change keys just for the hell of it and write lyrics that go in any direction. And music has come out of that that I love.

I forgot what it was like. Similar to smelling a smell you haven’t smelled in decades.