I’m a doctor, I’m cool

J_____’s girlfriend was back with him in the kitchen again last night. Clearly they’re not afraid of getting germs from me. I’ve still been wearing the mask outside the room though. Just now for breakfast I kept the mask on during preparation and cleanup—and ate unmasked at the kitchen table, my Stella d’Oro breakfast cookies dipped in caffè latte. Would there have been any way to eat that in my bedroom without making a crumby mess? If I had a breakfast tray. (“Buy a breakfast tray, then.”) My symptoms are feeling way better, if not normal. I had a video call with a Mount Sinai doctor.

“Have you tried Zyrtec, Allegra?” he says.

“I had half a Zyrtec last night,” I say, with the same cavalierness that __ _______ might say he’d had half a Xanax. “I feel mostly fine today.”

Doctor tells me it sounds like an allergic conjunctivitis, he will prescribe me eyedrops. Also counsels me, when I say I use the NeilMed bottle twice a day, to “use distilled water, please! We don’t want you getting something that goes to your brain.”

I reassure him I boil the water five minutes.

Dr. D_____ is his name. He was kind of cute. Can’t be sure though, because he was wearing a mask (only top straps tied, bottom ones left loose, probably so he could be audible while he talked to me). I had been going to make a joke when the video consultation started, that “You don’t have to wear a mask with me, doc,” but then I thought: if he’s wearing a mask while on a video consult, there’s probably a reason. Perhaps to keep the doctors and all the other staff from depositing germs all over everything. After all, they still might have the occasional odd patient, and they also have to keep from infecting each other. Leaving the straps open on the bottom had looked to me like he was saying, “I’m a doctor, I’m cool,” until I realized what was going on.