I walked over a threshold yesterday.
First, I walked up two sets of stairs, one outside; the other, inside to a second floor office in what every local of my age knows as the old junior high.
The old junior high, now known as the Sandpoint Events Center, holds a load of countless memories from early adolescence.
Walking through pretty much any section of that beautifully restored brick building on Euclid and Pine in Sandpoint will ignite a nostalgic and often crazy moment from the distant past.
The stairs themselves bring alive the image of newly minted teenagers walking to the next class with stern-looking adult educators standing guard at the top, monitoring skirt length for girls and waist height for boys' jeans.
My contemporaries remember the running track on the second floor, overlooking the gym where Friday dances and an occasional "girl ask boy" ensured me, the klutz, a chance to dance and the potential for a boy friend.
We also remember choir and band classes and accompanying antics and, of course, National School assemblies in the auditorium, now often used for weddings.
Many of my memories in that building have been documented in my first book Pocket Girdles.
In fact, the very title was inspired in a bathroom stall in the girls' restroom where I'd remove my girdle and nylons and stuff them in my coat pocket in the morning and put them back on before catching the school bus home at night.
As a hint, there was always another adult monitor at home who had even spent time in that building overseeing study hall and football Coach Cotton Barlow's classes whenever he'd leave for a game.
You'll have to read the book to learn the rest of the story about that insane anecdote of my early adolescence.
When we attended Sandpoint Junior High School, there was a well-known guy there who seemed to keep close track of us all. He also did his best to guide us on the right track. His name was Charlie Stidwell.
Well, yesterday, when I crossed that intangible threshold into becoming an official patient on Medicare, another guide and I eventually met face to face.
Her name is Paige, and we've both agreed that she'll guide me through the next journey of my life AND that it had better be a long one.
She has officially become my medical provider.
We have talked over the past year or so, via telehealth, but yesterday's one-on-one, along with time spent with the friendly and familiar staff at Internal Medicine Associates, assured me that I'm probably in as good a hands at almost 75 as I was from age 12-14 with guidance from "Mr. Stidwell" and his staff.
For one who has a phobia about going to the doctor, I must say the warmth and familiarity of that office put me at ease---almost.
My blood pressure was still a little high. Happily, several weeks of documented home readings pretty much led us all to accept what the "white-coat-syndrome" effect a doctor's office has on me.
Of course, I also had to pass a test in this lovely old school building, and, of course, taking that test made it clear to me that I had, indeed, crossed over a threshold.
"Okay, now for your Medicare questions," Shania, Paige's nurse, announced.
I figured these questions would be some of those usual endless forms we have to fill out every time we enter a different medical facility.
Nope, these were questions to see if I had all my faculties----which is a good plan in a school building!
Yes, I could name the month and the year and list the months backward and count backward from 20.
But when she mixed in the address halfway through the test for me to remember and then went on with other questions, my brain almost froze, and my long history of test anxiety set in.
Remember this, I said to myself, knowing that if there's a way to screw something up, I'm good at that.
Well, I think I passed, but it sure did make me nervous thinking that I wasn't gonna remember.
When I finished the test, I asked if I could now tell everyone I was as smart as Donald Trump, Shania wisely bypassed that query.
And, so, unlike the good ol' days of the late 1950s-early '60s, when we Stinkin' Lincoln grads joined ranks with kids from Sagle, Farmin and Washington and learned right away where the Whatnot Shop was for spending nickles and dimes on corn nuts and sweet tarts, I have joined the ranks of the "officially old."
There was a perk in yesterday's transition. Paige told me that when I turn 75 in June, folks in her profession will quit asking if I've had a colonoscopy lately.
I will become exempt from at least one test, and that is a good thing.
The other part that made me less nervous about making the giant step to go to my medical provider is that, unlike junior high days in that building, I did not have to show up in a dress with the hem at the proper length and with a girdle and nylons underneath.
What a relief!
New memories, indeed, and a hint that I'd better keep working on my memory so that next time I show up, I can stay smart like the stable genius and pass the next test on the Medicare exam.
Thank you, Paige and staff for making it easy on a nervous old gal.
And, yes, I'll do my best to drink more water, which was suggested and which is discussed in the article below.
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