By David FitzsimmonsThe Pope was here.
Tuesday, the day of his arrival, I began my usual afternoon lap around the esplanade at the Kennedy Center. If you have never done this – walked the grounds there – you ought to. It’s a beautiful building and the esplanade is too: wide and white, like the Halls of Justice.
As I rounded the northwest corner, I came on a security guard. I thought that he was simply on break: He was standing with his arms on the railing, looking out at the Potomac River. The security guard stopped me and asked me who I was.
It is a rare thing to be asked that outright: Who are you?
I didn’t know whether to be funny or to be indignant, but because I avoid confrontation whenever possible, I thought I would be funny. Instead I said perhaps the dumbest thing that I’ve said in some time (which is hard to assess when one says foolish things all the time).
I said: “I’m me. It’s me. David Fitzsimmons.”
It didn’t make any sense, I guess, but it was all I could think to say.
The security guard (I took him to be a Nigerian, by his accent) made a gesture with his arms and shook his head and said, “No, no. I’m sorry. No.”
“I can’t walk?”
“No. The Pope, man. The Pope.”
Then I understood. You see, the western esplanade of the Kennedy Center overlooks the GW Parkway, likely where the Pope would drive up from Andrews Air Force Base, and they didn’t want anyone to have what I supposed would be a terrific shot.
Wednesday, I went to see my ENT doctor about a lingering sinus infection. This has been going on for several months and involved pressure and stuffiness and tenderness of my upper and maxillary sinuses.
At the first appointment, I described my symptoms. He prescribed some medicines for me; I took them. For the follow-up, he ordered a CT scan to see how things were progressing. When I went back, we looked at the scan and saw that the medicine had not worked. There were gray areas (inflammation), which should have been black. He upped the strength of the medicine (antibiotics and steroids) and ordered me back two weeks later. At the end of that visit he said, stay on the medicine, and then gave me more medicine. Come back in two weeks, he said. This was the visit I was on now, again with another CT scan, after which I was placed in a room to wait for him.
And though I knew that I had nothing more than inflamed sinuses, I became concerned. The longer I waited in the room, the longer I read Newsweek (stories about the Presidential race, an article by Karl Rove on how to treat your delegates). My doctor was in the room next-door, I could hear him, speaking in a low and serious voice to a woman. I couldn’t hear what they were saying, but I started worrying that he was telling her dire news, and that she was, in turn, asking dire questions. And then I worried that he would leave her room, look at my scans, and bring me dire news, something involving growths or lumps, which “concerned” him. Doctors say that sort of thing all the time: concerned.
The doctor left the examining room next to mine and went to look at my scans. They were hanging on one of those lighted panels in the hallway. He came in and shook my hand (he has the hands of an orthopod) and said he was frustrated that the inflammation had not gone down. I asked him immediately if he thought it was anything more exotic. He said no, they see this sort of thing all the time. It’s annoying but not serious.
He told me to stop taking antibiotics and to instead focus on decreasing the inflammation. He wrote prescriptions and I was relieved.
Thursday, after having administered myself a sinus irrigation, sprayed my nose with a corticosteroid, and swallowed 1200 mg of an over-the-counter expectorant, I ate lunch at the Kennedy Center.
The Pope was still in town, but he was busy with a Mass down at RFK Stadium. After I ate, I did my walk. No one was there to prevent me.
I thought of a situation whereby the Pope would be returning, this time south on the GW parkway, heading back to his plane. In this different situation, in this scene, I had received unwelcome news from my doctor, as patients in that doctor’s office likely would throughout the day and days to come.
If that had been the case, had bad news been delivered to me, you can be sure that I would have thrown down whatever security guard was shuffling me away, and, in spite of all -- my religion or lack thereof, my transgressions or lack thereof, his transgressions, and the church’s -- I would have leaned over the railing and shouted to the Pope: I’m me! It’s me, David! Can you help me, Holy Father? Please!
No comments:
Post a Comment