Walking Out

John sat on his podiatrist’s examination table. You know the feeling. Bored. Anxious. Impatient. Resigned. He looked around the room, hoping to find something interesting. Anatomy posters. Jars of supplies. Latex gloves; size XL. A tube of lubricant. John shuddered involuntarily as his imagination kicked in.

John was a thinker and a dreamer. He was introspective and lived in his head. He had been thinking about the course of his life and, especially, his increasingly-submissive relationship to the authority of the medical establishment. It occurred to him that there was something about losing control of his choices, and even control of his own body, that was deeply disturbing.

John knew this large clinic and he knew examination room 4; he had been here before. He had also been in Room 2 twice and in Room 1 once. That was an interesting coincidence. He had committed to some minor surgery in this room last spring. They had wheeled him down the hall to an outpatient surgery room to remove a small itching growth from a place on his back that he could neither see nor scratch. It only took a few minutes but had cost a fortune.

John was still paying it off, $75 per month, and also still paying off earlier run-ins with medical care. He had been declared disabled and awarded access to Medicare, but his share of the costs of staying alive still seemed to persistently eat into his ability to have any satisfaction in life. He felt helpless and hopeless.

Hypertension

A Fergus Johnson story of gender relations

Fergus and his wife, Doris, were driving to town. He had a doctor’s appointment to follow-up on his new prescription for high blood pressure. They had both begun watching their salt intake and enjoyed seeing themselves lose a few pounds of water weight.

Fergus had done some additional research and decided to also reduce the sources of stress in his life. He began by declining to accept a new project at work until he was closer to finishing the ones he was already committed to. Doris, knew how worked-up he could get in city traffic, and volunteered to drive.

Seeing a group of girls, standing together in front of a store, Fergus turned his gaze to look at them. There were four, dressed in casual summer clothes — unusually bright colors — two were wearing shorts. One of the girls in shorts had particularly well-shaped legs — not those little toothpick legs so common on high school kids.

Doris saw him look. It didn’t usually bother her. Fergus tended to have high situational awareness. Doris reminded herself that he was a “keen observer of life." He frequently pointed out interesting details to her. Doris smiled as she recalled the time that she had made the humorous observation that Fergus was also “a keen observer of women.”