Possumworld

In December we made an appointment with an eye specialist in Toulouse for my mother. Her corneas are badly scarred and we want to see what, if anything, they can do for her. The consultant only sees patients on Tuesday mornings, so this meant getting up at 5:30 to we could all be ready in time to leave at around 7:15.

What a mess!  The weather was raining and, worse, blowing, like crazy. Beanie does not have a good profile in a high wind, so driving her in those conditions is sometimes a bit challenging. The autoroute between Pamiers and where you connect to the main autoroute to Toulouse is the worst. The winds come right across the highway hard and fast. Strangely, there is talk of putting a new airport there, and I really wonder about the wisdom of that, even though it will be way more convenient than Blaignac for us.

We got to Toulouse in the middle of rush hour (I’d forgotten how horrible that is) and finally got to the hospital to discover that there’s major construction going on (tram line extension directly to the hospital and a new wing being built.) Unless you have a special pass (that we didn’t know we needed in advance) you can’t drive onto the hospital campus; there is NO parking at all for anyone other than employees.

A sympathetic security guard let me drop Mom and JM off at the right building (apparently very rare to find one who will do that without the pass) and I had to drive through a horrid maze to find my way out again. Then, I had to drive through a section of Toulouse I’ve never been to and try to find parking. Obviously all the nearby businesses have signs up to prevent you from parking there. I did manage to find a McDonald’s about 10 minutes away and figured, “what the hell” and just left the car there and walked back to the hospital. I wasn’t wearing enough clothes because I had no idea I would have to walk that far so by the time I got to the right building I was frozen.

I got to the right place, found JM and Mom only to discover that the DOCTOR WASN’T THERE!!!! They had “sent” letters to the patients, but apparently almost none of us received them! A lot of the other patients had come from far away like we had and no one was amused.

The upshot is that we made an appointment for the end of March with a doctor who sees people in the afternoons so we can avoid this little game again. I was really annoyed at myself because yesterday I had thought that I should call to make sure everything was all right, but I got distracted and didn’t do it. I’ll call next time for sure.

On top of that, I really needed to go to the bathroom so thought we could buy something at McDonald’s and I could use their bathroom. NO! They aren’t open for breakfast, so I had to drive all the way back home hoping we didn’t get stuck in any more traffic. I don’t like to use the restroom on the autoroute because they don’t have seats on the toilets and I can’t stand sitting directly on the cold porcelain. I tend to reserve that little experience only for times of true necessity with no other choice.

Anyway, we did make it home safely and while we were walking the dogs it started to snow, so things could have been worse.

Ciao for now.

Randy