Just a quick update: another ER visit last night, ending in my being discharged by accident. Yes, that’s right. Accidentally discharged, and since I was gone they said I should just keep the appointment I had with the clinic doctor today. Never mind that at Georgetown this morning before the nurse got rid of me the doctors were waiting for a team of surgeons, while at the clinic I was scheduled only for another sonogram… Anyway, another night of morphine and drama, followed by a kind of lecture from the doctor today. (Didn’t I tell you to ring the clinic if your condition got worse? he asked. Well, yes, he did tell me that. And when I felt a little worse on Friday and rang, the person on the emergency number told me there wasn’t a lot they could do, but that if it got significantly worse before my appointment to go back to the ER. And, yes, once I started vomiting last night, my only thought was to get to hospital, and not to call the afterhours number at the clinic, leave a message, and wait for a call back.)

Now I have the surgery scheduled for Thursday morning. Not at Georgetown, but at Sibley Hospital. Which is, I have to say, a pretty fancy place. Not that I’ll care when the general anaesthetic hits.

Somewhere amid all the shufflings last week on Monday night (I love how they send the hospital administrators to get your ID before they give you the morphine), I think I lost my drivers license. Brilliant. Another bureaucratic thing to fix up… Oh, and my (printable) healthcare card is—somewhere. If I can’t find it, I have to find my details in order to print another card. Printable healthcare cards? Seriously?

Truth be told, I’m a little bit down about it all. Last week it was just a hassle. After a second ER visit in as many weeks, three sonograms (hey! did you know the image on a sonogram changes when you laugh? I found out today. Yes. I laughed), a few IV drips, and the news that if anything the cyst is larger, I’m pretty miserable. So, in less than 48 hours it will be gone.

I still can’t believe a hospital can discharge someone by accident. That is just awful.

In the mean time, I turn to books for solace. Finished the new Paul Auster. I liked it a lot. A few friends came up with the theory that only every second book he writes is good. This is a good one. Just finished Lisa Olstein’s Radio Crackling, Radio Gone, and have also been reading Julia Hartwig’s book of selected poems, In Praise of the Unfinished. This last book is beautiful. I’ll write more about it when all the other stuff is over and done with.

My parents arrived an hour ago. I haven’t seen them yet—they were getting out of the airport, getting their rental car, getting themselves to their hotel… then thinking about getting to Georgetown. The plan initially had been my finding my way to Dupont… but I don’t think I’m finding my way anywhere. Except maybe into dreams.