Dem Bones

Today I went to Fancy Hospital to get a baseline of my bone density. I wanted to see if I have the beginnings of osteoporosis, which stooped my grandmother and has shrunk my mother a little. I am post-menopausal, which is when you start losing density. (Cancer led to chemo, which caused early menopause, which can be bad for your bones, and cancer also led to the prescribing of tamoxifen, which, praise be, seems to be good for your bones.) L asked what the difference is between post-menopausal and plain menopausal. I asked that of R, the New Oncologist's physician's assistant, and she said--they're the same thing.

So I'm in menopause and also past it. Time warps.

The woman who scanned me was bright and cheery and had a hardcover copy of The Audacity of Hope in her little scanning room. (This election is the best soap opera ever, she said. Nothing's been watched as closely on TV except Roots.) She said the scan was the easiest test I'd ever take. All I had to do was lie down and let the scan scan me. This scanner-person used to do mammography, which she liked, except when adult children brought in their 95-year-old mothers who didn't know what was going on, and thus would start screaming when their breasts were smooshed between the plates. She said in this job, where people don't disrobe or store their accessories anywhere, she's encountered little old ladies with wads of cash stored in their bosoms and guns stashed in their pockets. (One gun per lady.) They don't believe in banks or credit cards and say they're not going to be victims, she said.

My mother believes in banks and credit cards, though not ATM machines. She has never carried a gun, though in Texas, you can carry concealed weapons if you have a license. (You can buy a semi-automatic assault weapon without a license.). She exercises with a group of other ladies in her building, and they use free weights. She also walks in the nearby shopping mall on a longstanding route that's about two miles long. She calls her exercise class her medicine that's not in a bottle.

Today I didn't go to the little park district gym, so I walked home from Fancy Hospital, which I think is about five miles. I window-shopped and stopped a few times. It was easy and the weather was perfect, about 70, and I stopped for vegetarian empanadas for tomorrow and I ran into a student I'd been thinking of checking in with about a class she's teaching. I also saw two attractive beagles and a very shiny black short-haired dachshund, so it was quite satisfying.

I have told L that when I die I'll come back as a dachshund, and he'll have to ask, Is that you, S? and I'll say yes by barking three times. I drill him on this every so often. We haven't figured out what he'll do next. He's allergic to dander.