Doctor Today

     Just a regular doctor's appointment -- which I had forgotten until the medical outfit's automated system sent me a text Thursday of last week, after their close of business.  Too late to ring them up and ask if if this trip was really necessary, and could we not just do it over the phone?

     Yeah, thanks for the short notice.  I don't want to go.  It has been my intention to avoid medical facilities until we got to the other side of this pandemic* unless there was dire need for it.  Had I remembered this appointment in time, I would have cancelled it or tried to change it to online.  I went to the website, where you can ask for prescription refills, ask questions of the doctors or nurses, pay bills, fill out forms....  In fact, just about anything except cancel an appointment, which it specifically mentions Cannot Be Done Online.

     Hold on, my cellphone is ringing.... 

     Just got off the call.  It was my doctor's office.  Guess what?  It's a video visit after all!  I'd better take my temperature and blood pressure first, then.
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* Which may not be the word to use, for a very encouraging reason: the death rate has to be above a certain level for CDC to call a spreading virus a "pandemic."  The death rate in the U. S. from COVOID-19 has been dropping and is now quite close to that threshold.   It may head back up again; for obvious reasons, deaths lag new infections by several weeks.  Conversely, the medical profession has learned at lot about managing the worst cases, which is helping survival rates.  For the present, there's a chance this thing is turning less deadly.