to take care

If someone told you -- take a day to care for yourself , what would you do for it? Sleep in late, sip cool drinks by the pool (assuming somewhere there is a pool and it's the season for it) and read summer trash maybe? Splurge on a body/facial treatment? Take a walk and look for unusual birds? I mean, that's what comes to mind! So I was extremely amused when I was keeping my very early morning appointment for a routine health screening and the technician asked -- where are you heading next? And I said -- to another doctor, for another screening and she said -- ah, a day of taking care of yourself, is it? 

She's right of course. Appointments of this nature are self care at the highest level. Still, I can't quite wrap my brain around the idea that they are an indulgence. They seem more like a chore.

Our house guests were up early as well. I had intended to be showered and to have my garden snipped before they came down for breakfast but that did not happen. I was doing farmette morning duties while they ate and then soon after, they hurried off to their own set of appointments (non medical ones). Ed slept through it all. Good bye, dear visitors! Until next year then!

Meanwhile, in my flower fields...

I skipped breakfast to get to my first screening and then my second one, even though I knew that the second one would take a while: it was to an allergist.

This extremely likable and knowledgable doc was to check me out for a long standing allergy to penicillin.  With a new knee, you have to expect to occasionally be put on antibiotics and everyone wants to know if I really, really need to eliminate penicillin from available options. So off I went to check this out.

At the clinic, all were shocked that I've lived to be 70 and have never seen an allergist (especially since I do my fair share of sneezing and eye rubbing around the farmhouse). Unfortunately, they then told me that the one medication I take, indeed it is the only medication that I take, is incompatible with a test for penicillin allergy. So that test has to be postponed until I decide to take a break from my half a pill of whatever.

But you are right to want to confirm your "allergy" -- my doc tells me. Do you know that 10% of people who come into the health care system tell us they are allergic to penicillin? Usually, like you, they had a rash while on it, or their great uncle three times removed had such an allergy and they think he passed it on, or something led them to conclude that penicillin is a no go. In fact, at most 1%  of all people have a real penicillin allergy. (90% are, therefore, mistaken.) And it's a shame because it is an easy, inexpensive, effective line of defense against so many infections. But since we cannot test you for it today, do you want to be tested for the 12 most common allergens, since you do sneeze, rub itchy eyes, etc?

Which ones?

Pollen, cats, mold, etc.

Great! I can tell Ed now definitively that we have too many cat hairs in the house and he needs to vacuum more and keep the feline bandits out of our bedroom!

Except, guess what? It turns out I am not allergic to anything. At all. Not pollen, not cats, not any of it.

But I sneeze and rub my eyes and blow my nose!

Yeah, a lot of old people develop non allergic rhinitis when they get older... Emphasis on non allergic.

There goes my barrel of excuses for a cleaner healthier life style going forward!

From there, it was a hop skip to campus to renew my (free) parking permits for next year, and then to renew my retired faculty ID for the next N years.

I took care of myself alright!

It was nearly twelve when I got back to the farmhouse. Breakfast?

I put a question mark there, because my daughter laughed when she called me on her lunch break and found me just finishing my oatmeal. Amazing that you still call it breakfast! -- she says.

Well yeah! Oatmeal, fruit, coffee -- breakfast!

In the afternoon, I did proper self care -- I biked. On the B-cycle. The 45 minute loop, that would take me past prairie flowers too numerous to ever count. And later still, Ed and I went to our local market. Natalie our greenhouse person and farmer (farming alone, because her husband is stuck in Mexico!) has her first corn and I remember it being great last year, so we stock up.

Home again. Ed wants to take the kayak out on the lake, I'm hanging back. Getting in and out of that boat still seems awkward to me, the knee being what it is three months into the game. Besides, the lake is gloopy with weeds. 

He goes alone, I stay and take in the scent of phlox everywhere!

Self care, of the best kind. All I need is a cool drink and a mindlessly fun book. I'm on it!