Inconvenience Fee

I started the day today with a telemedicine appointment with a pulmonologist with the Post Covid Recovery Program at Rutgers. He prescribed a new inhaler that might improve my asthma symptoms. On the neurological stuff, he had no suggestions beyond what I am already taking.

Current research, he said, suggests it’s a mitochondrial disease: the body can take in oxygen, but doesn’t use it the way it’s supposed to. I’ve been following covid news, natch, and had seen a report about this, but he explained it helpfully.

He was a nice guy. He understood what I am experiencing, and what my job entails and why I can’t do it. He was kind. I wanted to cry, just from being seen. He couldn’t access a bunch of my medical record, because it’s in various different systems used by different doctors in different practices. “American exceptionalism,” he said, completely dead-pan.

He said most people with long covid get better after two and a half or three years.

TWO AND A HALF OR THREE YEARS.

It’s been eight months.

I went off to CVS and picked up the new inhaler.

I went to my GP’s office and dropped off a form for her to explain why I am unfit for jury duty. I had to print it out from the county website and fill out parts of it. Once she’s had time to fill it out, I have to go back to the office and pick it up. Then I have to mail it to the jury duty administrator. I am supposed to return it within five business days.

I went to the police station. Climbed down a double set of stairs, rang the bell, told them what I need, waited (standing) while they decided if they were going to let me in, pulled open a heavy door, wrote a check for four (4, FOUR!) dollars, and stood at the little window while the person on the other side processed the form, filed my check, filled out the temporary handicap parking tag, and punched out the month and year.

And climbed back up the double set of stairs and drove home, exhausted. 

Renewable online: driver’s license and car registration. But not the handicap hang tag. For today, I am done for.

I am on the couch with Stella, listening to music. Maybe I’ll read a little more of my current mystery novel. I’ve been binge reading Joyce Lionarons’s Matthew Cordwainer series,  and having finished, I started over at the beginning. 

I don’t usually nap, but it’s not impossible. Unlikely though, given the combination of rage, frustration, and fear that I live with all the time these days.

Oh, and on the “memo” line on the check, I wrote “inconvenience fee.”