While slicing a cauliflower held awkwardly, I instead sliced a diagonal slash across my left hand, creating a deep gash at the base of my index finger, a neat, more distal cut in my middle finger, and a scratch on my ring finger. Trifecta. I grabbed the nearest dish towel to staunch the flow and we headed for my health facility in Scotts Valley, with our son driving, my husband calling ahead, and me in the back applying pressure.

What a difference a moment of inattention makes! I ended up with six stitches, and two days later, my hand still looks like Dr. Frankenstein appended it, and I’ve developed a new hybrid method for keyboarding.

SC County has 34 cases and no deaths–you know what I’m talking about–but is not complacent, and on entering our group was confronted by two gatekeepers standing much too close together who reduced us to the allowed group size of Patient + 1 then grilled us on symptoms. We later found out that if we had had symptoms, we would have been returned to our car and limited to phone consultation until the Infectious Disease Unit could arrive.

Interesting method of health care rationing: Only those with functioning cell phones in hand and a car in the lot.

The patient is supposed to do what while waiting for the cavalry, bleed out? 

Once we got past Thelma and Louise, everyone was professional, helpful, efficient, and delighted to have something to do. The entire experience lasted about 45 minutes. We left with a bag full of supplies for replacing the dressings in case drugstores were running low. The charge was a relatively reasonable $65, and the intake desk offered to bill it rather than have me remove my bloody towel and rummage through my purse.

We also learned a few things that I should have found out before, such as, my medical facility offers Urgent Care weekdays 10-8 and weekends 10-6,  and, should I need to go to the hospital, Kaiser has admitting privileges in Watsonville, about a 20-minute drive from my house. Even in America, if you’re in extremis you should go to the closest hospital, but going to the right one will save money, possibly buckets.

SV is the most conservative community in SC County, and the Kaiser facility, like most of SV’s newer buildings, is a low, rambling, office-park-style edifice with appropriate landscaping, pleasant and sunlit, with plenty of parking. As far as I could discern during my visit, we were the only patients. Minus the blood and pain, it was an enjoyable outing.

This level of inactivity is typical of medical facilities in SC County, where we currently have 34 cases and no deaths. I have seen the pictures from NYC, and I realize a tsunami is probably about to crash, yet for now we feel like an island in the eye of a storm. Almost a deserted island, though we sometimes have to work to keep social distancing during the period just before sunset on the path beside Monterey Bay.