Anatomy lesson

What do you do to pass the time when you are seated on the examining table in a doctor's office waiting for the doctor or nurse to appear?

There are magazines that you could read, but they are usually out of reach without leaving the table. I would feel awkward if one of the professionals came in and found me somewhere different than they had left me. In fact, sometimes you might not be suitably clothed to go wandering around.

So I usually just sit still. Well, no, I don't sit still or my legs would fall asleep. I stay seated but swing my legs slightly to keep the circulations going.

I wonder who is in the next room. I don't recognize any voice. In fact I don't hear the doctor's voice. Do you think my appointment came right in the middle of a coffee break? No, I know that isn't true. Maybe something real serious is going on in the next room so no one is even breathing. Then I hear a laugh and know that things are OK there.

I look down at my hands which are lying nicely in my lap. When did they begin to look just like my mother's hands? I remember noticing that once in the middle of a talk I was giving. I looked down at my notes and couldn't find my place for a minute because I was shocked at seeing Mama's hands here on the end of my arms. That was several decades ago so now they are like Mama's hands looked in her very last years.

But suddenly, I am brought back to the present. I looked at the veins in my hands. Since I had been sitting there for several minutes with my hands quietly on my lap, the veins were bulging a little and really stood out plainly. At least the bigger veins did. Then I noticed something that either amused or amazed me. I wasn't sure if I should be worried or pat myself on the back for finding something interesting to do.

I discovered that the veins in both hands did not follow the same route. In my left hand the big puffy vein takes a short cut from one big puffy vein to another one headed toward a different finger. I know that blood must reach that finger because that was the one I cut while I was peeling the tomatoes my son brought me from his garden. There obviously was blood there, because it found a way out very quickly.

It made me wonder if the blood realized when it left my heart that it would have to take a different course through one hand than it did in the other. Could that be why the veins in one hand were a little more bulgy than in the other? The blood is wandering around in there, like in a maze, trying to find the correct path to follow.

I imagine by now most of you have stopped reading and are looking at your own hands. Right? You realize that I am talking about the backs of my hands, not the palms. I think palm readers are interested in wrinkles and folds more than veins. But what I discovered shows up on the back of my hands.

If I clenched my fist, it was even more visible. I was intently examining this discovery when the doctor came in. I told her what I had noticed expecting her to be concerned. Maybe this was the reason for some of my aches and pains. She calmly smiled and said, "Yes, I know. My hands are each different also." She looks young and healthy so I guess it's nothing to worry about.

Next time I am waiting in the examining room, maybe I should clean out my purse or do something else more useful.