Paper Blues

Filing tends to get away from me. Most days it seems to pack its little bag and run for its life. It’s usually one piece of paper that seems to have gained its freedom, although entire fat folders have been known to disappear, leaving no trace.

The thing is my house isn’t that big. It’s comfortable, but it doesn’t have a lot of extra rooms. In fact, it doesn’t have any—they’re all in use on a daily basis. And over the years I’ve managed to corral much of the paper that seems to invade my life non-stop.

Actually, there’s no “seems” about it. Paper comes in the mail. It comes with everything I order. It comes in massive waves with every medical appointment. And I swear, much of it just comes—out of thin air or carried in by field mice being paid to foul up any organization I’ve managed to establish.

Speaking of mice, which I’d rather not, they often sneak into the house as the weather cools, looking for a warm refuge for the winter. Perhaps they are taking revenge for a relative who’d been scouting for a bed and breakfast and never returned. Anyway, the fall imagery reminds me that the kitchen table often looks like a large tree with 8 x 11.5-inch leaves, dropped them all one night while I was sleeping. How that large tree got into my kitchen, I can’t explain.

Last week I was looking for a specific piece of paper. I had taken careful notes during a visit to my prosthetist in September. It’s time for me to get a new prosthesis and Medicare requires very specific statements to be in the doctor’s notes. This is new to me since I wasn’t on Medicare the last time I had a new one made. My plan was to type the notes up and put them in my medical folder so that I’d always have the info.

Of course, I can’t find it. It’s embarrassing. I have made some progress in my eternal struggle with paper. There are only three places that have stray, not-yet-corralled paper: by my computer, on a desk in our bedroom, and on a desk in the kitchen that often spills over onto the kitchen table. But those last two are so close together physically, that I only consider them one pile.

And honestly, right now, none of the piles are that big. In other words, it’s pretty hard to lose a piece of paper. I wonder if I can still blame it on “hospital brain”?  

Hospital brain is a real thing. Your sense of time is out of whack, because hospital time isn’t like real time. And it takes more time than you’d like to feel as though your memory and thought processes are where you left them when you entered the hospital.

I don’t know how long it’s supposed to last, but I’m going to claim it for as long as possible. 

A Happy and Blessed Thanksgiving to All of You!