I got through the first day back at work in much better condition than I expected to. It didn’t hurt that it was very quiet for a Monday. That was a piece of luck I never expected. And there was a lovely welcome, starting with a sign on the bulletin board by my desk and then later, bagels in the library. Bagels are the basic unit of celebration at our office. There were donuts, too, but I passed on those. Being on medication that’s capable of driving one’s triglycerides up into the low thousands makes you think twice about donuts. There was a lovely bouquet of flowers as well. Now I remember why I’m glad I work there. At least as long as being independently wealthy doesn’t seem to be an option.

I was talking with the office manager about how the doubts I’d had last Friday. That’s when I called her and told her I wasn’t sure I could make it in by today. I’d been done in after just keeping an appointment with the doctor. I recalled that she’d taken a couple of vials of blood. I didn’t think anything of it at the time, but then I recalled that I’d been exhausted the Friday before, which also featured bloodwork requiring multiple. The office manager, who’s lifelong medical odyssey of her own, said that when she was having treatments, bloodwork took it out of her in more ways than one, too. I’m including this tidbit because you don’t normally think of having a vial or two of blood taken as anything that you’d even notice. It seems that under some circumstances you can expect it to be kind of tiring.