No laughing matter

One of the silver linings around Carol's myriad of health concerns are the real-life language and culture lessons. Carol went alone on the most recent school of hard knocks enrichment experience. She returned six hours later, beat up and pissed at the world.  I cuddled her and listened. She told me about waiting 20 minutes to be called to the wrong reception desk and being sent upstairs to start over. She told me about not knowing how to describe the specialized team that usually takes her blood and about the frantic jabbing, squeezing, shaking and stabbing by the amateurs sent to find her itty bitty veins. She described feeling abandoned in the "special problems room" where a disinterested lady succeeded in finding the vein on the first try and then disappeared.  She recounted the near-death sensations she had as a result of the dye that must be different than the dye she doesn't react to in the US. By the time she got to the scolding for trying to pay for parking at the wrong kiosk we were laughing hard at the stupidity of it all and stayed giggly the rest of the night which was another silver lining.