VILLAGE, KITCHEN, CHILD

"I'm going to say three words, which I want you to repeat back to me and remember. In about ten minutes I will ask you what they were. It's a short term memory test." None of the words were giraffe or bear or whatever it was that Donald Trump had trouble identifying.
Last year she had said banana, sunrise, and chair.

Now, please do bear in mind that I had not had either breakfast (no biggy) or any coffee yet. Seeing as I knew she would print out the blood test order, and I felt like it would be a good idea to get that part of the yearly physical over with. So brain not at optimum.

The lack of caffeine may have been why my blood pressure was absolutely perfect, or at least a contributing factor thereto. One hundred and seven over 75. Six and a half years ago, when I first walked in, it was over two hundred. Which isn't good. Explosively bad, in fact.
Since then I received a cornary stent, and have been taking Metoprolol, Amlodipine Besylate, Losartan HTCZ, and Atorvastatin, and since mid-November of last year Xarelto, precautionarily because of the angioplasty on the dexter lower extremity.
A procedure which has improved my ambulation oh my golly yes.

[Xarelto is a medication for deep vein thrombosis (深静脉血栓 'sam jing mak huet saan'), risk of which is greater after certain procedures. We don't want that to happen.]


There's a questionnaire to fill out which asks about habits and such. Do you eat fruits and / or vegetables every day? Are you black-out drunk more than oh, never? Do you consume alcohol? Smoke? Eat a lot of fried food?

I don't drink, but I do smoke.
Good on the other stuff.

Well, I fudged it a bit. I do like fried food. But it's not even close to a daily thing. And fruits and vegetable are perhaps not at optimum amounts. Addenda, really.

The three words were, in order: village, kitchen, child.

We discussed various matters, including scans, tests, digestion, biological samples, the old geezer at work who since retiring has turned into a sour bitter old vegetable that hates the modern world and whose wife may leave him. I didn't mention the coke-snorting fiend or the mad Hibernian, or the demented bald deviant around whose organ of regeneration the entire world rotates.


But I did show her the pack of little panda cigarettes (小熊貓香煙 'siu hong maau heung yin'), which are thin and small and just the right size for Hello Kitty, and have two cute panda cubs on the label. They are adorable. No wonder people smoke.

[I didn't show her the two briar pipes and tobacco pouch in my side pocket.]

Village, kitchen, child.

A follow-up appointment was set to discuss results of the bloodwork as well as the scans in September. I went upstairs to have a needle jabbed into my arm (the phlebotomist, who has a very nice head, has since last year learned nearly fluent Cantonese, quite remarkable), then had coffee and a smoke, and came back to pee in a cup, pick up eye-drops (fluorometholone and a refill on the latanoprost) at the pharmacy, and head downstairs to radiology for an appointment.

[Eye drops: 眼藥水 ('ngaan yeuk seui'). 氟米龍(fluorometholone)係一種用於治療眼部發炎嘅合成糖皮質激素。糖皮質激素(glucocorticoids)用嚟治療由免疫系統過度活躍引起嘅疾病，例如過敏、哮喘、自身免疫性疾病同敗血症。]


As soon as I was away from all entrances to the hospital I filled a pipe and lit up. Purchased some interesting snackies for my apartment mate on the way to the bus stop, and picked up a large package of dioscorea root and lotus seed rice noodle (淮山蓮子沙河粉 'waai saan lin ji saa ho fan'), simply because they looked interesting, and I like rice noodles. Both dioscorea polystachya and lotus seeds are fruits and vegetables, right? I should eat more of them.


Village, kitchen, child.



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