2019 Wednesday — Kaiser Appt

November 13, 2019
Someday Happened Today
 
“Someday Happened Today” is a reoccurring theme in my life. Today was another one of those somedays. This was the 16th Kaiser Medical appointment I have had since September 30th when I first visited my family doctor to explain that I was not well. That day she asked me a litany of questions, scheduled a variety of tests, and gave me referrals to many departments. She also gave me a two-week release from work that I didn’t use because skipping classes for two weeks would have brought me back to classes filled with chaos.
 
A couple weeks later another doctor also gave me a two-week release from work, so I went back to my family doctor to request that she revise the release dates she had originally given me; she did and added another week. That gave me release from the college for the month of November (actually October 28 through December 2). But that was it. I’d need to report back to the classroom on Tuesday, December 3rd, through the “final exam” week that ends on Friday, December 13th. 
 
This morning, 11-13-19, my Kaiser appointment was at 8:30 in the “Geriatric Memory Clinic.” I told Tom as we walked the long slowly sloping sidewalk toward the basement entrance, “This is such a waste of time! I don’t have Dementia and this is not early stage Alzheimer’s.” 
 
We entered the reception area to find the clerk just starting-up her computer. I’d have to wait to check-in she explained. A few minutes later, she looked-up to ask, “May I help you?” as if I had just walked-in. I stepped forward to her desk to hand her my medical card. As she typed my information into her computer, she said, ”This doctor has never worked in our office before; I am unfamiliar with this name.” Silently, I thought, “Really?” In the most recessed chamber of my mind, I heard a still small voice whisper “Watch what I am going to do for you this morning.” I almost didn’t acknowledge the voice, but I somehow I could not ignore it.
 
I nonchalantly asked the clerk if the doctor was male or female. Puzzled, she said, “I don’t know.” Then she said, “Let me look at the first name.” The name on my appointment card is Sherif Nagi Iskander, MD. That name revealed no gender clues and she said, “I don’t know.” She gave me a clipboard with a questionnaire and said the nurse would take it from me when they called me back to the exam room. 
 
My name was called and the nurse assistant took my vitals and then ushered us to the exam room. As Tom & I sat in the quiet sterile room, I looked at him and said, “This doctor is not going to give me release time; I don’t even belong here.” Then the RN, who referred to herself as my “case manager,” entered the room and introduced herself. “Hi, I am Pia,” she told us.  She was sincerely friendly and very comforting.  She asked me to explain what was happening to me and why I had been referred to the memory clinic. I apologized that I was probably wasting her time and she was quick to explain that I was not. I told her about my extreme anxiety and the perfect storm that had happened in my teaching world at the college this past year with the California State Assembly outlawing Basic Writing at the community college level and that I had been the unofficial head of basic writing at the college for the past 20 some years and that I was now required to teach a level of composition that I had not taught for two decades, and that this was my last semester of teaching before I retire in June 2020. I told her about the new computer program that I had to learn in order to create a required Online Writing Lab for my students. She understood almost immediately the stress I was experiencing and mentioned her close friend who is also a teacher.
 
Then she needed to take me through a series of tests to help the doctor diagnosis what was happening with my memory. I had to connect numbers and letters by drawing lines; I had to draw a clock face with the correct numbers; I had to line-draw a dimensional box (I’m not good at drawing stick figures, let alone a dimensional box). Then she had some verbal testing for me; she told me five words, asked me to repeat them twice, and told me she would ask for them again later. She then asked me to say as many words starting with the letter “F” as I could think of in 60 seconds. For a nano-second I went blank. One particular word came to mind; I didn’t say it. Then I said, “family,” “friendship,” “frequent,” “few,” and struggled to think of words to say. My anxiety was flaming on the top of my skull and I told her so. The minute ended. She then told me to start with the number 100, subtract 7, and tell her the answer, then to keep subtracting 7 until she told me to quit. I’m mathematically challenged so my body tensed, but I subtracted 7 and again and again until she said “Stop.” She then asked me to repeat in the correct order the first five words she had spoken to me at the beginning of the testing. I spit-out three of them instantly, and then went blank. After she gave me clues for the last two words, I then had them (and now I cannot remember the third word: face, velvet, _____, daisy, red).  
 
Finally, she began to explain that the doctor would come talk with me and give me his diagnosis and that she would be available afterward if we had any questions. Before she left, I said, “Can I ask you one more question?” “Do you think this doctor would give me release from work for my final 10 days this semester because my anxiety is causing blocked memory?” She looked at me and responded, “I definitely would ask him,” and she added, “I don’t know if he will do that, but you certainly need to ask him” and then she was gone.
 
Again, Tom & I were sitting alone in the quiet room, and my hope was surfacing. A soft knock came from the other side of the door and in came Dr. Iskander. He was young, with kinky-curly red hair, and black horn-rimmed glasses. The atmosphere in the room was instantly energized and my hope was increasing. He immediately said to me, “You are very educated and quite sharp, and you do not have Alzheimer’s.” He then gave me a lesson about the brain and explained that it is a muscle and that the more it is used the stronger it gets. He said that because of my educational experience and what I do for a career, my brain has in a sense been going to the gym every day for years. He said Alzheimer’s happens with atrophy of the brain. He wanted to assure me that I was not headed into dementia and reassured me that once my anxiety-level returns to normal my memory will be restored as well.
 
Then he wanted to know why I had been referred to his department. It was quite obvious that he did not think I should have been referred to him. So I told him about the perfect storm that has happened in my life at the college with the elimination of basic writing and my recent struggles with anxiety, headaches, and memory. I told him about my current release from work by two different doctors and my enormous anxiety about returning to the classroom for the final 10 days of the semester. I told him that my doctors were very reluctant to release me for those last 10 days and then I asked him if he would give me the 10-day release. He immediately said “yes” and then explained why Kaiser personnel are reluctant to give much release time; that patients are given release time and then do ridiculous things like post photos of themselves on social media mountain climbing, skateboarding, or playing at the beach and that Kaiser has gotten into lots of trouble.
 
I promised the doctor I would not post social media photos. He smiled, asked me the specific dates I needed for the work release, said his nurse would bring the paperwork to me in a few minutes, headed to his office to print the paperwork, and he was gone. I sat there staring into space completely stunned, trying to process all that had happened in a quick few minutes.
 
I looked at Tom and said, “Someday happened today!” And then added “We have just witnessed a miracle!” I had been granted something that no other doctor at Kaiser who I had asked was willing to give me, and I have asked every doctor I have seen. Then I started repeating “I’m so relieved!” “I’m so relieved!” Ad nauseum. I still can hardly believe the doctor so readily said, “Yes!” 
 
My desire has been to exit work professionally, not exit by reporting to HR that I would not be coming back because I don’t feel well. Now my desire has been met. I took my official medical release form to the HR person at Norco College, and I am now officially through with teaching; I do not return this semester to the classroom and next semester I am officially working 0% on a “reduced load” program, so I keep my office, but have no official college duty until graduation the evening of June 12. 
 
For a long time I have said that the name of my future book will be Someday Happened Today. Many chapters have already been written; another chapter was added today, November 13, 2019.