Sycamores

Posted on September 13, 2004 in Coronary Plants

The sycamores are half yellow, half green. Sycamores never begin their annual death with a sudden blaze of color. About half the leaves die off in August and hang there until January when rain knocks them off the branches.

We have too many sycamores, planted along the roads in lieu of messy eucalyptus and guzzling liquid ambers. In this country, you usually only see them along arroyos. Our planned communities put them on hillsides where they cannot survive without a sprinkler system.

Along the upper stretch of El Toro and Marguerite Parkway, the trees lined the road. Through this gantlet I drove to my cardiology appointment. I had made it late Friday. (The yellow slip referral from my old medical group — which supposedly went through last Tuesday — still hasn’t reached me.) Dr. Ip saw me at 11:00, coming in two and a half hours early to review my treatment. He reviewed my medical history, listened to my chest, and checked my ankle for swelling. I could not tell him my chloresterol counts. (I am not sure that they were being taken, to tell the truth.) He apprised me of the risks of the angiogram and angioplasty (which are low but still worth mentioning), then sent in a liaison who gave me the instructions for my out-patient visit on Friday.

I left carrying a blue folder filled with information about the threading of my arteries. At about three thirty in the afternoon, the liaison called me to confirm the time and tell me to visit the hospital on Wednesday to sign the pre-admitting paperwork and get some bloodwork done in preparation for Friday, the day when they explore my inner tree of life.