Who knew that my rides to and from Boston and around town would unlock so many stories?
Yesterday's cheerful driver who took me from Newton to Dana-Farber balanced last week's rude one. I forgot his name, but let's say it was John, so it went like this. "Hello, I'm John and I'm still old and still not rich." We picked up a woman with cerebral palsy and took her to the sheltered workshop where she and others make crafts to sell in a storefront. The driver said they do beautiful weaving and other things and he and his wife do all their Christmas shopping there.
Since I had gone to the Cape and not straight home after my treatment on Friday, I had to get back to Dana-Farber for my pickup because those rides will only take me to and from Dana-Farber. It took me a while but I think I have mastered the nuances. You tell them what time you would like to be somewhere and then they work it back to your pickup, giving you a call the day or night before to tell you when they're coming.
Last week my driver home from Boston said he was a clown and a juggler in Russia. He said he was born dead (i.e. the umbilical cord was wrapped around his neck), but then revived and nearly killed by traditional medicine when he became sick again later. His mother researched natural remedies and to this day that is all that he uses. Seeing that I had come out of Dana-Farber, he said I should really take an extract from graviola tree fruit, which he said has been known to cure cancer. Furthermore he can put essence of that and other natural healing remedies in his mobile sauna that he drives throughout the state. www.mobilesauna.us. He offered to drive it out to me, but I demurred.
Well I happened to have already heard about graviola and had come across warnings when I looked it up. I said, "No thanks, I'm fine and I'm not going to put anything else in my body. He gave me his card and asked me to show it around.
I've always had male drivers, but my driver home yesterday was a beautiful young woman who said her parents had recently sent her to Quincy (where she knew someone) out of fear for her safety around their home in battle-torn Eastern Ukraine. She earned a bachelor's degree in philology in Ukraine and would like to return to school in the U.S. but is not sure what she'll study.
She said maybe Boston University but she can't afford it, and that's why she's driving patients like me to their appointments. I told her she she should really apply to Harvard; they would love her and they give full scholarships to qualified students in need. I found the link to Harvard Scholarships on my iPhone and sent it to her at the address she gave me.
I asked her to let me know when she gets in.
She gave me some delicious carmel candies that she gets at a Russian grocery store near her.
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