Farewell to the Mermaid… Now She’s Blind as a Bat

Friday, July 11th –  Yesterday I realized, rather suddenly, that my mermaid antics while struggling onto the segmented chiropractic table had changed. And rather significantly, too. Maybe you remember that back in May, there was a whole series of weird movements I had to go through to get myself face-down on that table… falling onto the table while the bottom leg-segment was slanted down, then dragging myself forward like a mermaid trying to get ashore, then having Emily raise the bottom of the table so it sort of slid me down the chute onto the table. There was much hilarity and Mermaid Mockery every time I attempted to climb aboard, so to speak.

But yesterday, there I was: kneeling (unbelievably!) on the heavily-cushioned table, then pulling myself into a prone position in a matter of seconds, not minutes. It had all happened gradually, without my even realizing anything had changed. Those artificial knees haven’t been able to bend farther than 90 degrees since 1998, when I got the second one! And I certainly have never been able to kneel on them.

How does all this change in my body take place, so subtly and gradually, day by day, without a signal of some kind? I don’t understand it. I can look back a week and not see much happening; but if I look back a month, or two months, I find extraordinary differences have become part of me, almost imperceptibly. All I can say is — WOW! and then, THANK YOU, DR. KLEIN!

So I guess that’s the end of the Mermaid.  I will rather miss her. But there will certainly be no dearth of laughter and affectionate mockery at Seaside Chiropractic, mermaid or no. Now it’s the blind-as-a-bat syndrome that has Dr. K, Emily, and Roseanna whooping at my expense. Here’s the story of that.

There’s a long-time patient at Seaside by the name of Dan, who paints incredibly beautiful small oil landscapes of La Jolla areas and puts them up in the office. I love Dan’s paintings: someday I want to buy one to put in our house, in some special little corner. They tend to have a lot of palm trees in them, and he does seascapes really well — you can almost hear and smell the waves splashing as they crest. As I say, I love Dan’s work.

So yesterday, I knew there was an electrician there at Seaside Chiropractic, who was puttering around the fuse box and talking to DK on and off; but I didn’t really pay much attention. I had most of my adjustment, with the accompanying snaps, creaks, and groans as usual. Then I sat up so Dr. K could use the robot (CAM) on my lower spine. We’re still hoping that one particularly intransigent vertebra will decide to move for us… it’s the only one that’s still sticking way out of place on the diagram that shows up on the laptop screen… and I’m up to having 30 pounds of pressure from the robot now.

And while I was sitting there, I happened to glance at the back wall of the room. There was a new painting by Dan — quite a departure for him, I thought, since it appeared to be an interior, with a couple of tall arches, and a big queen palm in the center. Then I remembered that UCSD Thornton Hospital (laughingly called Hotel Thornton by those who’ve been there, because it is so opulent and fancy) has a double row of mummified, or otherwise freeze-dried, queen palms down its marble-floored entrance area. Of course, I thought. Dan’s painted one of those palms at Thornton, and the arches that frame it just so… I’ll have to look at it more carefully after I’m through getting jackhammered by CAM.

So I made some offhand comment about how nice the new painting was, and how I hadn’t realized that Dan was getting into interior views.  I was more than surprised when David Klein burst into loud laughter, and said, “Let me get your glasses for you from your purse… now, take another look.”

Oh… my…god! It was the FUSE BOX, with the door open, and all the fuses nicely displayed at the top of a vertical fuse-holder-thing. Yes, it looked rather like double arches with a palm tree, but not much, not with my eyes able to see fifteen feet now. Oh, for goodness’ sake! I was more than embarrassed. Dr. Klein was still wiping tears of laughter from his eyes, and telling me how he could hardly wait to tell Emily and Roseanna. “You’ll be hearing about this for months, I can promise you,” he assured me.

Yeah, I bet I will.

And I suppose he will tell Dan, too.

Oh well… just another inevitable feature of the famed Golden Years, I suppose: bat-blindness. I can still see that beautiful painting in my mind’s eye… the arches, with perfect perspective leading into the distance, to something I couldn’t quite make out… and the queen palm tree in the middle, with all its wonderful foliage. Maybe Dan will take a look at the Thornton Hospital entrance pavilion one of these days, and the painting I saw will be born…

Thanks for reading — Betsy