Today is Friday, October 21, 2022. Today was the day I went to Syosset Hospital at 9 a.m. to participate in presurgical testing for my upcoming hernia procedure. Waking up at 7:15, I got ready without eating anything and nudging Elliot out of the house by 8, so we could get to the hospital in time. We were also parked on a Friday alternate side of the street, which necessitated our moving the car by 8:30 anyway. In general, I would have not parked on this side normally since we rarely wake up that early to drive somewhere. But today was different.

Driving to the hospital posed no problems, but when we got to the hospital, we had some difficulty finding the main entrance. Eventually, we drove to the right spot and left it with a valet. When we entered the hospital, there was a clearly designated registration desk where I signed in. I was asked to sit down and wait for someone to take down my medical information. Eventually, a young man by the name of “Carlos” came out and took me to a room through a pair of doors. He was responsible for doing the intake on me. I had to sign various consent forms and provide Carlos with my insurance information. Before we finished, Carlos mentioned that I had to return to the hospital on my birthday, November 8, to take a COVID test. I was none too happy to have to do this on my birthday, especially when the window of opportunity was narrow: between the hours of 8 and 2, as I recall.

I was then escorted through the main doors by Carlos and was told to wait until I was called by a physician’s assistant. Here I waited a scant few minutes before someone came through another door and asked for me. Then I was brought downstairs to an area where I was informed that I needed to sit on a chair to wait for a PA to complete the presurgical process. This time another woman introduced herself as “Julia,” a nurse practitioner. I entered an examining room and was directed to get weighed and to get my height measurements.

I was then posed a series of questions by Julia who asked me about my medical history. Everything was thrown in, from do I smoke regularly? or take drugs? to does my husband smoke as well? Then I was examined by Julia who did say my right-side hernia looked very prominent.

At one time, a phlebotomist came in and tried to draw blood. I say, “tried” because she had some issue with finding a good vein in my right arm. Eventually, she took blood from my hand, which I believed was quite peculiar in any regard. What occurred afterward paved the way for me to return to the hospital a second time because of the phlebotomist pricking her finger with the needle from the specimen of blood finally taken from me. At the time, the impact of the situation was dismissed until hours later when Elliot and I were driving home from visiting the North Shore Animal League in Port Washington and I received a call from the supervisor of the woman who punctured her finger. This man, whom I’ll call “Reuben,” apologized for what had happened hours ago, but still maintained that I needed to return to provide another specimen. I responded with some umbrage over having to return to the hospital to spend more time there. I also mentioned that if we hadn’t stopped at the animal shelter, we would have been home already and I probably would not have driven out to Syosset anytime soon. Reuben was still adamant in that I return to the facility one last time; he promised that the whole process would take less than 15 minutes.

At the animal shelter, it was difficult to resist the temptation to adopt another Jocelyn. But Elliot made the demand to go there on his birthday, but we couldn’t since we were previously engaged. So we decided to go after having breakfast at a diner on Jericho Turnpike where the hospital was located. There was one cat, named “Flossie,” or something to that effect who looked divine. The young volunteer assigned to us informed us that this 2-year-old cat was a refugee from Hurricane Ian in Florida and that the shelter received her on October 8, which is only a day after the passing of Jocelyn. The volunteer, whom I’ll name “Christine,” tried to sell us on this cat even though we kept on saying we didn’t want to adopt at least for a year. She seemed to sympathize with us, but still continued to point out the fortuitous signs associated with our last cat in this Maine Coon/domestic shorthair mix. We had to get out of the place before we succumbed to our cat ownership impulse.

As we were driving toward the highway, that’s when my phone rang and we turned back. Sheesh!

When we finally were able to drive home, it was after 1 or so. Now we were able to rest before having to go out again at 5:15 to drive to our friend “Gene”‘s house. He had made reservations for 6:30 at a French restaurant in Little Neck called La Baraka. Tonight was Tunisian night with Tunisian food and a belly dancer for entertainment. So we spent a little time in Gene’s kitchen before getting into his neon blue Honda Civic to drive to the restaurant.

Because of the waning evening hour, I can’t go into the particulars of the dinner, except to say that the food was definitely exotic in my estimation. I’m still waiting to see if it actually agrees with me.

The belly dancer came on toward the end of the celebration. She shimmied and sashayed down the narrow aisle in front of the predominantly elderly audience. Everyone snapped pictures of the woman as would have been expected.

At one point, Gene was enticed by the dancer to get up and join her.

Have a good weekend.

Stay safe and be well.