Well, well, here we are, one year on, and 199 posts in. Almost made 200!
Today I went to the hospital to get that MRI of mine all sorted out and set up. Here in Saudi it’s a fun adventure of going from office to office, registration desk to check-in desk, building to building. And the signs are pretty lousy, so it’s all-day affair.
I don’t keep any sort of quantitative track of my stuttering. But casually, I’d say today was a huge success — and big improvement of even a year ago.
The main thing was to get answers about the anesthesia and how that was all going to work. Before that though there was another meeting with the neurologist. While I didn’t have a call plan per se, I did have a few key things I wanted to know about, and I got my questions answered — even though I did stutter.
And going from office to office, I often had to hand a piece of paper to someone behind a desk (and a veil) and ask if I was in the right place. Some stuttering, not much. But usually a deep breath, a confident stride up to the counter, and a strong, fluent question. There were not as many people around as well — made things a lot easier.
I was asked my name a bunch of times — they do this as a checking measure — and using the Arabic pronunciation, I had no problems. I think that added to the confidence side of the table in a huge way.
The progress I’ve had even over just a year is a huge win — not just with calling a credit card company or whatever, but particularly with going to the doctor and getting my health sorted out. What I would have done before (covert, avoiding more, what-have-you) would have been to check things online, called my brother the doctor, played it all down, avoided going, avoided calling, avoided setting up appointments, the whole bit.
The MRI is set up for Sunday, by the way.
A year on, nearly 200 posts, and well, there’s still plenty more to stutter on and say. I hope you’ll stick around.