Testing Testing Testing. I was able to get a sick appointment with my primary doctor. Amazingly, a spot at my gastroenterologist opened up for the next morning. More astounding, it was available.

The way it works is you get a text that an appointment is available. Then you rush to respond before someone else gets the appointment. Up to the moment I got the appointment, I had received a dozen of those texts.

Unfortunately, either I was not fast enough, or I was not available. So when the appointment was scheduled, I was pretty surprised.

My gastroenterologist’s hair was longer. Mine was shorter. She said we hadn’t seen each other in a year. I didn’t respond except to nod, and I’m hoping I didn’t roll my eyes.

Between the two doctors, I have multiple tests in my future. Ultrasound, MRI, EMG, and blood tests. Two, to be done at different times. All to figure out what’s wrong on the right side of my body.

Yippee.

The good news, is that even though I had two prescriptions for the MRI, I only have a

go through the machine once. The EMG test is still pending availability.

Meanwhile, we lost the fight to keep my youngest at his current school. The new school’s “meet everyone night” is on his birthday. I won’t share his opinion of that. So we have an appointment in a few weeks to meet the principal and, hopefully, the guidance counselor and tour the school.

I understand his reluctance to change schools. But part of it came from his friends’ ideas of the school. When he explained it to me, I wanted to laugh.

Growing up, I heard and read about “the wrong side of the tracks.” Hello, it’s 2026. The place where we live now on the other side of the railroad tracks is 1000% better than our previous home.

So far, my son has incidentally met one teacher, and has seen the new school’s auditorium. Nothing was wrong with either. So his reluctance to change is leaving his friends (I get it) and uninformed word-of-mouth (not acceptable).

I am hoping when he sees the whole school, he will see it is very like the others. Am I thrilled he is going to his third school for his last year of middle school? Heck no. But I think once he gets there, it will be all right.

Years ago, I had new neighbors in the apartment above ours. I had met the new residents, a mother and two daughters. One morning, I heard hysterical sobbing upstairs. The younger girl was starting at her new middle school, and she had missed her bus. I spoke to her mom, and to the school, and I drove the girls to school, and put her in the capable hands of the secretary, who happened to be the mother of one of my friends from high school. Change is hard, but it isn’t always bad.