I Dreamed Last Night...

I was at the Alamo. I mean I was really at the Alamo and it was not just one day when I was standing around all fat and full after a large Mexican dinner at a restaurant on San Antone's River Walk. I was at the Alamo in the courtyard and my best guess was it was during the legendary, mythical, historical scene where Colonel Travis draws the line in the sand and it was time to decide go or stay. In my dream I want to stay but really need to leave. See I dreamed I had a home health patient to see in Tyler.   

I stand there and look at my watch. It's digital and it's 4:15pm. I calculate and think. Maybe I can be in Tyler by 5:30, spend about an hour with the patient and be back on  my way here. I voice this possibility to those around me and people say, "that's not going to work." We know now that this is a dream so it is possible for Tyler to be one hour and fifteen minutes from San Antone. I do get paid for mileage if I do home health but in reality it is a 308 mile trip between two cities although as I think about it I doubt that's a record for home health miles in a day.  If I could drive to Tyler to see a patient and them have a patient to see in San Antone on return and therefore charge miles for the round trip it might be a record. It also might generate a red flag in the payroll office. That brings to mind the question about how late at night could you see a home health patient. In a nursing home or hospital setting I commonly roust people out of bed. I have never gone to a patients house late at night to do this and it might happen because in my dream it's now 4:30pm and that sets my arrival back a little bit. I need to get out of here. 

Get out of here is what I do. And it's the easy way. I wake up. It's my day off. I don't have to see any patients. In case you are wondering if I have committed some inadvertent violation of patient identity I do not have a home health patient in Tyler and in fact rarely make home health visits. I also rarely go to the Alamo. The only picture I have that is remotely related to the Alamo is this photo taken years ago on a trip along the old mission trail. It's before digital. I used a 35mm. 

I think pictures of me and the Alamo do exist in my mom's photo albums. It's taken on a family vacation  in the plaza on a hot July day. I stand in front of the old mission  in the late 1960s all fat and full. It's sunny and bright but at that age I did not know that there is such a thing as air conditioning and it was a thrill to be at the Alamo storing memories that would turn into dreams all these years later.