A change of pace, and a quiet day at the practice. Time to catch up on the results, letters, and check in on the phone with my regulars. It's nice that Medicare now pays for these services. A smattering of patients. Some uncertain bleeding. She's a well w

A change of pace, and a quiet day at the practice. Time to catch up on the results, letters, and check in on the phone with my regulars. It's nice that Medicare now pays for these services. A smattering of patients. Some uncertain bleeding. She's a well woman by my socially distanced eyeball test - though she probably can't see my eyeballs so easily. Glove and gown and the exam confirms she'll be fine.

Later, handing me the signed urine form, her finger brushes over my washed un-gloved fingertip. Ridged, spongy, warm sensations all so distinct in the fraction of a second. She's not so used to monitoring every object in sight, touched, untouched, dirty end of the counter, clean side of the trolley. I surprise myself in that moment finding I'm not annoyed but attuned to my fingertip, now contaminated. How awful. How awesome. It's been an age since I touched skin without gloves, and so I'm left not only reassuring her that the urine test tells us the miracle of life is not a differential we need to consider today, but reassuring myself that it's still there, right at my fingertip.