I have spent the better part of yesterday and today shuffling between doctors. I am not one to be overly concerned with the mechanics of the human body – I like to think I have a pretty high tolerance for pain. Physical pain, that is. My mental pain threshold, I think is pretty low. But then, so is my mental quotient! As I lay down in the ultrasound room, my mind could only think of the dreary walls that hospitals cloak themselves in. People are cheerless enough when they enter hospitals, why make it even more so? Why can’t we have some colorful speckled wallpaper inside? Why not make it cheery? Sure, yeah, ill health is rather morose. But surely we can liven it up a little? Won’t that help the cure, if any?
Well, I had a good laugh when the doctor who was doing the ultrasound couldn’t find whatever he was looking for. He kept waiting, waiting, waiting, while I looked at the only picture in the ultrasound room – some fetus inside the uterus. And no, I don’t have a fetus inside me, just a few cysts, which are another story. But anyway, the doctor laughed finally – “I have never had to wait this long,” he said. I giggled along. “Is this a record?” I asked. Sadly, no. He chuckled, then finally caught whatever image he was looking for. And sent me home where I can look at the framed Chinese lettering on my wall, the Vietnamese scroll above my bed, another Chinese scroll to the right, this time of a young woman in traditional garb, and finally, a New Year scroll, and wow, think of the life and color this gives instead of the drab dull walls of hospitals.
