Coconut Milk

            It’s strange how my acrylic tooth didn’t come out while serenading my open window at home on Wednesday morning whereas it did while singing in public on Tuesday night. I guess I put a lot more into it when I’m belting it out live.

            At 9:30 I called to make a date between my dentist and my denture, but he wasn’t available until Thursday. Next I called my doctor’s office to see if he’d renew a prescription without my having to come in, but the receptionist said I needed to make an appointment. There was one available in the early afternoon so I took it.

            After arriving and signing in I tried to work updating my journal on my laptop but after a few minutes of typing I got sleepy and stopped. Dr. Shecktman was ten or fifteen minutes late seeing me. I needed him to renew my prescription for cortisone cream, so he had a look at my elbows and knees where the psoriasis problem persists and saw that the cream he’s been prescribing has been keeping the skin affliction relatively under control. I guess if it had been worse he would have recommended that I see the dermatologist. I was glad when he decided to not only continue the balm but to also add two repeats, saying, “It’s not as if you were abusing it.” I asked how I could abuse it and he answered with a laugh, “I don’t know!” but added that he guessed I could slather it all over my body. I inquired as to whether that would produce a steroid effect. He replied that maybe if I put it on and then wrapped plastic around it so it would be entirely absorbed into my skin then there could be a steroid reaction. I wanted to know what such a reaction would be. He responded that it might be osteoporosis or liver damage. Those didn’t sound like very fun results.

            He recounted to me the story of a patient he’d had since he was a child. He’d been using an inhaler since he arrived from Greece and the asthma steroids stunted his growth to the extent that he grew up to be considerably shorter than his brother.

            I stopped at Freshco on the way home where I bought a carton of soy milk, another of coconut milk and two cans of the thicker coconut milk to serve as coffee cream. When I made coffee later I saw with relief that the canned stuff was a good batch this time and hadn’t been separated like the last one I’d had before starting my fast.