Thursday, 8 September 2016
Not to worry, all I had of the hospital was a visit with the knee doctor at Columbia Memorial Hospital. Of course, I found as much garden goodness as I could.
I was eager to see how The Healing Garden, in a courtyard just off a hospital corridor, looked in early autumn (which would also give me an idea of how it had looked in the summer).
The healing garden is at the lower right where you can see trees in a narrow courtyard (gated at one end). Now I want to have a look at the other courtyard right above it, where it looks like some sort of garden might be in the works. Next time! When we entered the garden, I felt concern and sadness over how weedy it is. If I lived in Astoria, I would adopt it, at least as far as clipping the blackberries.Perhaps the large patch of salal was planted to evoke local forests. However, in its usual unpleasant way, it is menacing all the other plants in that area.
The sculpture was donated in August of 2014.
This would not soothe me if I were a patient or visitor and sought a garden to sit in for comfort. If I were a patient, I would be madly frustrated at not being able to fix this garden right up, and if I were a visitor, I would ask if I could work on it to soothe my worries about my loved one.
Surely there is an Astoria gardener who would like to adopt this garden? I can’t imagine why the hospital administration would say no to someone who wanted to cut the blackberries, trim the ferns and alchemilla, and maybe beat back that salal. Better yet, they should give the go ahead to someone who wants to really dig in and remove the salal and plant some better plants. If I lived there, I would be all over this.
Inside the hospital, enormous photographic murals of Astoria’s history adorn the walls.
We exited the main building and crossed another parking lot to the Health and Wellness Pavilion.
The kindly and helpful knee doctor has given me a welcome release from having a total knee replacement this November. He observed that it has not gotten any worse over the summer and said that it won’t necessarily worsen quickly or get more painful in the near future. And he would like me to have a year of dental care before the surgery. (There is a strong connection between perfectly healthy gums and a perfectly healthy artificial knee.) The main reason, however, that he agreed with me that waiting would be better was money, the fear that has been plaguing me and robbing me of sleep. It would cost me a substantial amount for rehab, whereas if I can hold on for three more summers, Medicare would take care of me much better than my medical insurance does (insurance that would be in jeopardy if the unthinkable Trump came into power. Doc said we’d have more to worry about then than new knees.) He said lots of people wait till Medicare and then advised me just to not wait till age 90, with a cautonary tale of a woman who did wait till it was too late. He understood when I said the money that would spent on a knee now would be out of my fund that I hope will allow me to have dinners out with friends while living on small old age social security cheque, and maybe go on the occasional garden tour, and I mean to Portland or Seattle, not overseas. I found it unusual that someone who has a good living (a doctor, after all) had such empathy and understanding. I was afraid his response would be more like “You’re wasting my time, lady!”
Meanwhile, he is going to have some helpful folk come to my house to provide me with an orthopedic brace. To my HOUSE? I will have to dust.
To celebrate a reprieve from the financial worries that have been keeping me awake at night, we had the inexpensive and scrumptious lunch buffet at Himani Indian Cuisine.
You might want to stop reading now and wait for tomorrow’s much more interesting story.
After lunch, because I think the osteoarthritis knee brace will be bulky (and somewhat Borg-ish), I sought a long sturdy skirt in two downtown Astoria thrift shops to no avail. Thanks to my friend J9, I knew about the Ross clothing outlet in a nearby mall and there I did find one long grey skirt that (amazingly) fit. Of course, it had no pocketses, not like my dream long skirt (the one I have now sought online for hours to no avail) which is sturdy, black or grey or dark green, with at least two pockets. (Women don’t really NEED pockets, or so it is believed by most clothiers.)
We tried the Goodwill thrift shop in Warrenton, in another mall which also houses the Costco grocery store. As a child, my wardrobe came from the Goodwill. While no joy was found there today, outside I had the joy of seeing my good friend Tam from the Long Beach Herb N Legend Smoke Shop.
At Costco, while Allan shopped for groceries, I found the bulbs irresistible, of course.As happens every year, the display featured pallets wodged together so that some of the selections were completely inaccessible AND contained bulbs not found in the other shelves. The only way to get at them was to move the adjacent display rack and go spelunking.
Allan called me from a far corner of the vast warehouse store to alert me to another stacked pallet of bulbs. These did not even have the plastic wrap removed from the stack, and the selection was different from the others. I found several different crocuses, assorted narcissi, alliums, fritillaria maxima, iris reticulata, and could not resist some fringed tulips. I emerged from the bulbs quest much more tired than if I had been able to easily see what was available.
At Fred Meyer ( a large grocery, hardware, clothing, and general store), the plant selection was pretty much over for the season. I turned to the unenjoyable task of shopping for long skirts and actually found three. And a zombie cat.
Shopping for and trying on clothes is an activity I dread and loathe, so I decided to buy all three skirts that fit even though NONE had pocketses. One, layers of lined black lace, was actually kind of goth and quite likeable and might have been kind of a kick to garden in. I parked my cart with black skirts and zombie cat at the end of a busy aisle and went questing for some other items. When I returned, the cart was gone. Had I become demented? No, it was really gone. Some efficient person must have taken it away. Allan came from another department to help my quest and we both failed to rescue the cart and cat. Fortunately, the cat had one sibling in the Halloween display so we went home with a zombie cat (figurine) but lacking three long black pocketless skirts. The quest will continue in Long Beach thrift stores.Update: A week later I learned that a distressing change might be coming to our insurance that would no longer allow us to go to Oregon doctors. If that happens, the helpful knee doctor will be off limits till Medicare age no matter what I decide, and other such doctors in Washington State are a couple of hours away. This will be a hardship for many in our rural border county.
Tomorrow: some Ilwaco gardening and the always thrilling Ilwaco Slow Drag.
1995 (age 71):
September 8: The leak in the first standpipe is now a torrent down the driveway. Kathy Tye suggested I leave a message for Roger and/or the maintenance man. Went to bed at 6:00 PM. Awake at 4 AM.
1997 (age 73):
Sept 8: Bill Koepp finally called. He said his son will do the shop roof and front porch. Bill Jr came over. He will start tomorrow. Don came out—we just visited. I sprayed front ditch with Safer weedkiller. Then I weeded in lower driveway till 5:30. I also did some deadheading and weeding in tam area. [roadside flower bed that used to be juniper tams] Then I weeded in lower driveway. When I get the big weeds pulled I’ll go over the driveway with Roundup. [Rather shocking for a longtime subscriber to Organic Gardening magazine.]
I had to have a knee brace to play golf for many years. It worked very well. I hope that yours will too. I can’t tell you how much I appreciate our National Health Service when I read how much worry Americans can have about costs when they need medical assistance.
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I so wish that we had a system like the NHS.
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