Work flotsam

I’m at the Waters Edge facility in the passenger seat of an old pickup truck. It’s Lavina’s and apparently she’s just driven us back to work from somewhere. Lunch maybe. We’re in the lobby of a building ?my high school? and i realized i need to get to Dr. F’s office to help out because he’s busy and needs an experienced nurse to run things. Lavina tells me i can use her pick up truck. I go back out to the parking lot in front of the Waters Edge building and see her truck. It’s faded now but was dark blue. It’s a Chevy and in pretty rough shape. I open the driver’s door and it swings all the way out and into the fender because the hinge is shot. I pull the door back to a position where i can close it once i get in the drivers seat. I realize the transmission is manual and i don’t know how to drive one but decide i can maybe figure it out and crank up the engine. As i pull out, i drive to close to ?a mailbox pole? and scrape the left fender. I feel bad even though the truck is already pretty beat up but keep driving.

I’m on a freeway that has a big tangle of overpasses. I take one of the overpasses and i’m cruising along pretty well. There are no other vehicles on the freeway or any of the overpasses and i feel like i’m in the Omega Man. Finally i arrive at the doctors’ office. I park the truck and go in to the waiting room. I’m familiar with this space and make myself at home. First i go into the business office to check the schedule and see which patients are scheduled and for what. I see that the doctor should be in a room doing a minor surgery and i hurry to change so i can assist.

I go up the hall where the treatment rooms are and it’s very damp and grim looking. It reminds me of the clinic in Pacifica. An office assistant, a young man, is coming up the hall towards me and i’m wondering if the surgery is finished. He looks at me but doesn’t say anything. I go to the end of the hall and out the back door to the back parking lot to change clothes and then return to the room where the doctor is. I enter and go to the back of the room where the sink is to scrub up. It’s not a sink though; it’s just a tile wall with a stream of water that pours out at my face level. Like a shower but the water doesn’t spray out, just down. As i’m washing my hands, i realize i’m wearing a paper patient gown with nothing underneath and my butt is showing. I’m a little embarrassed (bare assed!) and can feel the doctor looking at me. Neither of us has spoken or even acknowledged the other yet. Other people are coming in and out of the room and i can see them passing by in the hallway and they’re all in states of partial or full undress so i no longer feel embarrassed about my own state and too bad about being mostly naked myself.

I finish drying my hands and walk to the exam table. There’s a partially clothed middle aged man lying on the table and his chart is next to him on another table. I pick up the record and ask “Do you mind if i familiarize myself with the problem?” and Dr. F says “Go ahead.” Our first words are civil and i feel hopeful that our differences are far enough behind us now that we can work together again.

According to the record, this patient has five ?nodules/lesions on various parts of his back that need to be excised. They are written in the chart as a cluster of half-inch circles. I think if the circles were connected by a line it would form a star but i’m not sure. I glove up and prepare the surgery tray so we can begin. The young man comes back to the room and i remember i have to get Lavina’s truck back to her. I leave and go out the back door at the end of the hall but have to walk around to the front of the building because i remember i parked out front. I get in the truck, careful not to let the door go this time, and i’m driving on a little country road. There are mail boxes overgrown with vines along side the road, and quaint little houses along the way. I’m taking the truck back to Lavina’s house and i like the area where she lives. It feels like home.

I wake up to hear wind and rain hitting the window. My bed feels nice and warm and homey too. It's time to review and input all the new procedure codes that the AMA has come up with for 2010 so i'm sure that's what prompted this dream. All the past rolled up into a giant memory dustball.